OUR LORD IN WHOM WE HAVE OUR BEING

The Apostle Paul, when he was in Athens, was amazed by the multitude of idols the people of Athens had set up for themselves. 

As he went around preaching about Jesus, the people became curious about what he was saying and he was given an opportunity to stand  and give an explanation of his faith. Following, is the text of his speech where he described the shrine to the "unknown" god that the Athenians had set up as the groping of mankind towards the one  true God. This text is from from the book of Acts chapter 17 verse 22 - 31.

“Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

"The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;

and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.

 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

This  summation of the spiritual state of all the gentile people is an exceptional example of a proposition of multiple axiomatic truths.

"In Him we live and move and have our being" is the centerpiece of this proposition because it is from this understanding of mankind's extraction and dependence on the Most High God that we can derive the correct meaning and proper practice of 'humanness' and our desperate need for salvation.

Amen.