Editorial January 30, 1995 Issue

Is it important to understand God?

Barbara M. Vining

With so much that is crying out for our attention—with the world (and perhaps our personal lives) seeming more and more complicated—is it important, or even practical, to turn our attention toward understanding God?

If we think that because the world seems difficult to understand, God must be even harder to comprehend, we may conclude that we should put off trying to understand Him until we have made more headway in grasping and dealing with the dilemmas confronting us each day. We may think it best either not to concern ourselves with God at all or to be content with worshiping Him blindly in the hope that He might give us some help in solving our problems. It may well be the other way around, though—that God is really quite knowable, and that with a correct understanding of Him we can understand ourselves better, make more sense of the world, and deal more intelligently and effectively with the challenges of human life!

Paul the Apostle once urged the Athenians to base their worship of God on understanding instead of ignorance. He said: " 'Gentlemen of Athens, my own eyes tell me that you are in all respects an extremely religious people. For as I walked through your city looking at your shrines, I even found one altar on which were inscribed the words, TO GOD THE UNKNOWN. It is this God whom you are worshipping in ignorance that I am here to proclaim to you!'" (J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English, Acts 17:22, 23). Paul then went on to share his understanding of God with them: God is creator and governor of all; He doesn't live "in temples made with hands," nor is He "worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing"; God gives life and breath to all, and makes us all brothers and sisters, who "live, and move, and have our being" in Him, as His offspring; God is not "graven by art and man's device," but has given us "assurance" of His authority and power by raising His Son, Christ Jesus, "from the dead" (see Acts 17:24-31).