A historical event recorded in the Bible in Acts 17:16-32 describes that as the Apostle Paul waited in Athens for Silas and Timothy to join him from Thessalonica, he was perturbed by the idolatory prevalent in the Hellenistic culture at Athens, that he observed as he walked around the city.  The Athenians were so superstitious that Paul observes that they even had an altar with the inscription TO AN UNKNOWN GOD in dedication to Agnostos Theos that is Unknown God (Acts 17:23). Paul uses this opportunity to reveal to the folks in Athens that this unknown god that they worship is indeed Jesus, the One and Only God, who is the Creator and the Lord of heaven and earth (vs 24), the provider of ALL life and breath and ALL things (vs 25), omniscient of ALL things that occur in one’s life (vs 26), who can be found if you seek Him (vs 27), for we belong to him as his offspring (vs 28), who commands us to shed our ignorance of Him and repent lest we be judged in righteousness when He returns in His ordained time for He is THE God who conquered death and was resurrected from the dead (vs 30-31). In other words, Paul was saying that Jesus Christ, the resurrected One is the UNKNOWN God, whom the Athenians ignorantly worshiped and it was time for them to seek Him and know Him.

Well this is Biblical, but is there another reference in the Scripture (a hidden treasure) that can substantiate this? Note how Paul talks about the return of Jesus to judge the world in righteousness. Revelation 19:11-16 records that the rider on the white horse (referring to Jesus) will come to make war and to judge in righteousness (vs 11) , but when Jesus returns, he will come with many names such as Faithful and True (vs 11), The Word of God (vs 13) and KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS  (vs 16), but what is most interesting is that He also had a name that was written (inscribed), a name that no man knew (vs 12), an UNKNOWN name. So in essence, we can deduce that the altar with the inscription, to an UNKNOWN GOD essentially could be rewritten as Paul (the Apostle and humble me) expresses as “TO JESUS”.

Today there are many who are after Unknown Gods. There is no dearth for “isms” in our culture today. From aethism to polytheism, the spectrum spreads. There are many gods that people ignorantly worship. A point to ponder over is if our lives are the Altar of the living God, are people seeing in our lives, the inscription “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” or are they seeing in our lives, the inscription “TO JESUS”? Think about it. The Name is Unknown God, but it is our responsibility to make The Name that is above every other name, known to those who are seeking or those who are ignorantly chasing after unknown gods.