“Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”

Acts 17:23-25 

It is as Eugene Peterson says in the introduction to his Message translation: “Ours is not a neat and tidy world in which we are assured that we can get everything under our control…there is mystery everywhere.” Truth is though, we don’t need to be caught in the spin of uncertainty when we know the God who made the world and everything in it. 

Creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) is a quality possessed only by the One who was, before the beginning of time, when nothing but a formless, empty, dark void existed (Genesis 1:2). Step into the cool of Eden with God, as intended. Feel the gentle breeze; smell the fragrant blossoms; hear the hummingbird wings. Consider the divine life God first breathed into Adam and Eve. Sigh for what could have been.  

In Paul’s eyes the city of Athens was nothing but a junkyard of idols (Acts 17:16, MSG) who had no hope of creating anything from nothing. They needed a temple to live in and men to serve them. Our God is transcendent: “existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe” (Oxford Dictionary online). 

And so, creator God earned the title in Paul’s eyes of Lord of heaven and earth. The Greek word for Lord, kyrios, is translated as “supreme authority, controller”. God is supreme: God of gods and Lord of lords(Deuteronomy 10:17). From there it is easy to make the leap to the corollary: God, He who made the world and everything in it, is in control. I am not.

It is high time we come to our senses, ladies, and let God be in control. It is safe to say we can trust He who is able to create the heavens and the earth out of nothing and give all men life and breath. Indeed, He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20), in or out of pandemics.  

Nancy P