The Unknown God

Question 1

What is this prayer’s central petition, and what does it lead you to expect from today’s readings? Consider the phrases “by Your holy inspiration” and “by Your merciful guiding.” If the Collect confesses that right thinking and right action both originate in God rather than in ourselves, what might the readings that follow reveal about how God makes Himself known to people who cannot find Him on their own?

Question 2

Jesus opens this passage with the words, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (v. 15), and He closes it by declaring, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (v. 21). The Greek word for “commandments” is entolas (from entolē). In Johannine theology, these “commandments” are not merely an ethical code; they encompass Christ’s entire Word and teaching. Read John 13:34, where Jesus gives the “new commandment” (entolē kainē). What is the content of this new commandment, and how does it reshape our understanding of what it means to “keep” Christ’s commands?

Question 3

Many readers hear “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” as a demand: “Prove your love by obeying.” Yet the grammar of verse 15 can also be read as a promise: “If you love me, you will [naturally, inevitably] keep my commandments.” On this reading, obedience flows from love rather than producing it. Which reading fits the broader context of the Farewell Discourse, in which Jesus is comforting His disciples on the night of His betrayal? What difference does it make whether obedience is the condition of love or the fruit of love?

Question 4

Jesus promises to ask the Father to give the disciples “another Helper” (v. 16). The Greek word is Paraklēton (Paraclete), which literally means “one called to one’s side.” In the ancient world, a paraklētos served as an advocate who pleads on someone’s behalf, a counselor who teaches and admonishes, and a comforter who strengthens the distressed. Jesus says “another” Paraclete. If the Spirit is “another,” who is the first? What does this imply about the relationship between the work of the Son and the work of the Holy Spirit?

Question 5

Jesus identifies this Helper as “the Spirit of truth” and then declares, “The world cannot receive Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him” (v. 17). Yet to the disciples Jesus says, “You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” Notice the two prepositions: the Spirit is both “with” and “in” the disciples. How does the Spirit’s dwelling within the believer differ from the world’s total inability to perceive Him? What creates the difference between those who receive the Spirit and those who cannot?

Question 6

Jesus promises, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (v. 18). The Greek word for “orphans” (orphanous) describes children left utterly without a guardian or protector. On the night before His crucifixion, the disciples face the terrifying prospect of losing their Master. In its immediate context, Jesus’ promise to “come to you” points to His resurrection. How does the promise of the resurrection transform the disciples’ approaching grief into a temporary sorrow rather than a permanent devastation?

Question 7

In verse 19, Jesus declares, “Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.” After the crucifixion, the world will consider Jesus finished, dead, and irrelevant. The disciples, however, will see the risen Lord. Then Jesus adds one of the most magnificent Gospel promises in the New Testament: “Because I live, you also will live.” Christ’s victorious resurrection is the absolute basis and guarantee for the believer’s life, both now and in the resurrection of the body on the Last Day. How does the phrase “because I live” exclude every other possible foundation for eternal life?

Question 8

Jesus says, “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (v. 20). The phrase “in that day” is a Hebrew idiom pointing forward to the new era ushered in by the resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit. Notice the threefold chain of mutual indwelling: the Son is in the Father, the believer is in the Son, and the Son is in the believer. This is not abstract mysticism; it describes a concrete, Trinitarian communion. How does this chain of indwelling mean that when God the Father looks upon the baptized believer, He sees the believer “in Christ”?

Question 9

Verse 21 returns to the theme of love and obedience: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” The verb “manifest” (emphanizō) means to make visible, to reveal openly. Jesus promises a personal self-disclosure to the one who holds fast to His Word. Read John 1:18, where the Evangelist declares that no one has ever seen God, yet the only-begotten Son has “made Him known.” How does the Spirit’s indwelling (vv. 16–17) make possible the ongoing self-manifestation of Christ to the believer that verse 21 promises?

Question 10

Popular devotional readings of John 14:15–21 often reduce this passage to a lesson about personal piety: “Love Jesus more, and you will experience Him more.” Yet the passage is saturated with Trinitarian action: the Father sends the Spirit at the Son’s request (v. 16), the Spirit dwells within the believer (v. 17), the Son comes to the believer through the resurrection (v. 18), and the Father loves the one who holds the Son’s Word (v. 21). Is the center of this passage the believer’s effort to love Jesus, or the Triune God’s determination to come and dwell with His people? What difference does this distinction make?

Question 11

Paul arrives in Athens, the intellectual and cultural heart of the Greco-Roman world, and his spirit is “provoked” by the rampant idolatry he encounters (v. 16). He debates with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, who dismiss him as an “idle babbler” (v. 18). The philosophers also accuse Paul of preaching “foreign divinities,” namely “Jesus and the resurrection.” The Greek word for “resurrection” is Anastasis, a feminine noun; many scholars believe the pagan philosophers misunderstood Paul as promoting two deities, a male god named Jesus and a female goddess named Anastasis. What does this confusion reveal about the inability of human wisdom to comprehend the Gospel on its own terms?

Question 12

Paul is brought before the Areopagus (Mars Hill), the prestigious council that regulated foreign religious teachings (vv. 19–21). He begins his address by calling the Athenians deisidaimonesterous, a deliberately ambiguous word that can mean either “very religious” or “superstitious” (v. 22). He then seizes upon an altar inscribed “To the unknown god” (v. 23) as his point of entry. In the Gospel, Jesus warns that the world “neither sees nor knows” the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). How does the Athenian altar to an “unknown god” serve as a physical monument to the spiritual blindness that Jesus describes?

Question 13

In verses 24–28, Paul declares that the God who made the world “does not live in temples made by man” and “is not served by human hands, as though He needed anything.” He even quotes the pagan poets Epimenides (“In him we live and move and have our being”) and Aratus (“For we are indeed his offspring”) to build a bridge. Yet Paul explains that God arranged human history so that people might “feel their way toward him” (v. 27). The Greek verb psēlaphēseian describes a blind person groping in the dark. Paul is telling the most brilliant philosophers in the world that without God’s revelation, their highest achievements amount to blind groping. How does this critique of natural theology connect to the Gospel’s teaching that the Spirit of truth must be given by the Father at the Son’s request (John 14:16)?

Question 14

Paul’s address reaches its climax in verses 30–31. He declares that God “overlooks” the “times of ignorance” (chronous tēs agnoias) no longer; instead, He now “commands all people everywhere to repent.” The proof and guarantee of the coming judgment is that God “raised Him from the dead” (v. 31). In John 14:19, Jesus declares, “Because I live, you also will live.” Paul takes this same resurrection and presents it as the ground of both salvation and judgment. How can the same event, the resurrection of Jesus, function as both the promise of life for the believer and the proof of judgment for the unrepentant?

Question 15

The response to Paul’s preaching is mixed: “some mocked,” others hesitated, “but some men joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris” (vv. 32–34). Greek philosophy valued the spirit but viewed the physical body as a prison; bodily resurrection was considered absurd. Yet the Gospel still proved its power. Paul had told them the truth, and the Spirit of truth worked faith in some hearers. Read Romans 10:17: “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” How does the mixed response at Athens illustrate both the offense of the Gospel and the power of the proclaimed Word to create faith where there was none?

Question 16

Peter commands his readers to “honor Christ the Lord as holy” in their hearts and to be prepared always to make a “defense” (apologian, from which we derive “apologetics”) for the hope that is in them, yet to do so “with gentleness and respect” (v. 15). By maintaining a “good conscience” (syneidēsin agathēn), their peaceful endurance of suffering will put their persecutors to shame (v. 16). In Acts 17, Paul models exactly this posture: he does not attack the Athenians with arrogance, yet he does not soften the call to repentance. How does Peter’s instruction for a “gentle and respectful” defense match the method Paul uses at the Areopagus?

Question 17

In verse 18, Peter declares, “Christ also suffered once (hapax) for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.” The word hapax (“once for all”) stresses the absolute, unrepeatable sufficiency of Christ’s atoning death. He was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” In the Gospel, Jesus promises, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). How does Peter’s declaration that Christ was “made alive” confirm and apply the very promise Jesus made on the night of His betrayal?

Question 18

Peter states that the risen Christ “went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” who had been disobedient in the days of Noah (vv. 19–20). The Greek verb is ekēryxen, meaning “he heralded” or “he proclaimed as a royal herald.” This is the primary biblical text for the confession in the Apostles’ Creed that Christ “descended into hell.” Christ did not descend to offer a second chance at salvation; rather, like a conquering king, He descended to declare His absolute victory over death, the devil, and all the forces of evil. How does this proclamation of victory, rather than an offer of rescue, reshape the way you understand the Creed’s confession that “He descended into hell”?

Question 19

Peter draws a breathtaking typological connection: in the days of Noah, God used the floodwaters to judge the wicked world, yet those same waters lifted up the ark and brought “eight persons” (oktō psychai) safely through (v. 20). Peter then declares that “Baptism, which corresponds to this (antitypon), now saves you” (v. 21). He is careful to add that this saving Baptism is “not the removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” How does Peter’s explicit statement that “Baptism now saves you” connect to the Gospel’s promise that the Spirit of truth will dwell “in” the believer (John 14:17)? What is the relationship between Baptism and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?

Question 20

Peter concludes by tracing Christ’s exaltation to its cosmic summit: He “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him” (v. 22). The phrase “at the right hand of God” (en dexia tou theou) does not describe a physical location; it describes Christ’s supreme, almighty authority over the entire universe. In Acts 17:31, Paul declares that God will judge the world through this risen man. In John 14:20, Jesus promises that the disciples will “know that I am in my Father.” How do all three readings converge on the confession that the crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus now reigns as Lord over all?

Question 21

All three readings declare that God refuses to remain unknown. In John 14, Jesus promises the Spirit of truth who will dwell within the disciples and manifest Christ to them. In Acts 17, Paul proclaims to Athens that the “unknown god” has now made Himself known in the man He raised from the dead. In 1 Peter 3, Peter anchors the believer’s confidence in the objective victory of Christ, delivered through the waters of Holy Baptism. Consider the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” How do these three readings together illuminate the work of the Holy Spirit in making the unknown God known, creating faith, and gathering a Church from among both Jew and Gentile?

Question 22

Our congregation never hears John 14:15–21, Acts 17:16–31, or 1 Peter 3:13–22 on a Sunday morning in the One-Year lectionary. Having studied them together, what has been missing from our understanding of how the Triune God breaks into the darkness of human ignorance to make Himself known? The Athenians had philosophy, altars, and poets, yet they still worshiped an “unknown god.” The disciples had walked with Jesus for three years, yet they needed the promised Spirit of truth. Peter’s readers had been baptized, yet they faced persecution and doubt. How does the combination of these three texts deepen your grasp of the necessity of the Means of Grace (Word, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper) for knowing the true God?

Question 23

In the Divine Service, the congregation hears the Gospel read and preached, confesses the Creed (including “He descended into hell” and “I believe in the Holy Spirit”), and receives the Lord’s Supper. Peter declares that Baptism saves through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21). Jesus promises that the Spirit of truth will dwell within the believer (John 14:17). Paul proclaims the risen Christ to a world groping in the dark (Acts 17:27). How does the weekly pattern of the Divine Service function as the ongoing fulfillment of Christ’s promise, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18)?