No Longer A Common Understanding

No longer in today’s world does the word God evoke a common understanding of who or what is God.  It reminds me of the contrasted level of understanding presented in the book of Acts. In Acts 3 we read of how Peter, after healing the lame man outside the temple begins preaching how the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob glorified his servant Jesus. The people did not need explanation of who God is.  Peter preached how God, the God they knew of, had sent his son to save the lost. The result? 5000 more came to Christ.

Fast forward to Acts 17. Paul is talking to a group of philosophers in Athens, the smartest and brightest.  He begins by saying, “I see that in every way you are very religious. I see your objects of worship and even an altar to an unknown God. Let me proclaim him to you.”

In Acts 3 when Peter mentions God, the audience knows who he is and what he is like.  In Acts 17 Paul has to explain who God is; that he made the world and everything in it, etc., etc.

In today’s culture there is not a clear understanding of who is God, or what truth is, or what right and wrong are. Praise God for his faithfulness to families to be able to send their children to a Christian school and to Christian schools where students are taught in partnership with families and the church about who Jesus is.