Acts 17:16-34 NKJV

[16] Now, while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. [17] Therefore, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. [18] Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. [19] And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? [20] For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore, we want to know what these things mean.” [21] For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. [22] Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; [23] for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: [24] “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. [25] Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. [26] And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, [27] so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; [28] for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ [29] Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. [30] Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, [31] because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” [32] And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” [33] So Paul departed from among them. [34] However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

I believe it is typical human nature to dismiss the things we can not grasp or understand. I don't spend my time pondering the wonders of quantum physics. I don't believe I have the bandwidth to process things that bear no practical value to my everyday life. I'm not saying it isn't important. I mean no disrespect. I simply don't understand it.

Some people dismiss God in a similar fashion. Maybe they have never had a personal experience with Him. Maybe the people associated with God have somehow managed to skew a non-believers' view on the matter. The Creator doesn't cease to exist because the created chooses not to believe.

Paul, when he saw the altar of the unknown God, recognized that the people of Athens had never had a genuine experience with the one true God. He didn't write them off. He came alongside them to speak of his own experiences. He didn't condemn them for their lack of understanding. He chose to be a witness to them with understanding and compassion.

Not everyone needs to be told about God. Some of us need to be shown who God is through love in action.