‘For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship – and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.’ (v23) Acts 17:22–34
Agility is the ability to adapt quickly to change. Those who built America’s railroads failed to see they were creating a mass transport system. Their focus on railways alone meant they failed to grasp the opportunities for roads that motor vehicles offered, and later air travel. Those railways today largely transport freight, not people.
Paul sees an inscription and seizes it to present the ‘God who made the world and everything in it’. Our challenge is always to retain the agility to engage with our changing context. My daughter loved our family celebration of Thanksgiving. All her friends wanted to come, eat and participate in a meal during which we gave thanks to God and identified something to ask of God in prayer for the year ahead.
Recorded in a book, we returned each Thanksgiving to review and discover how God had answered our prayers. Many conversations started with these young people, none of whom was willing to visit a church youth group. Agility requires our willingness to take a risk. Athens was the intellectual centre of the contemporary world, where Christian ideas were required to shift the rational resistance to Christian truth. We need to find creative ways to challenge unbelief once again in our own society.
RELATED SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER: Neh. 2:1–9; Dan. 1:8–20; Luke 19:11–27; 2 Tim. 4:1–4.
AN ACTION TO TAKE: Do you observe life through the rearview mirror, rooted in where you have come from, or through the windscreen at where you are headed? Make sure you look through the windscreen so you are prepared to take whatever action the road ahead requires.
A PRAYER TO MAKE: ‘Lord, give me the courage and ability to think and move swiftly in response to the opportunities the Spirit offers. Amen.’’
Photo taken from pxfuel.com
