Towards, unto, into and in Theos

Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you (Acts 17.23)

This blog is an attempt to follow a pathway towards understanding who Theos is. In fact it is evident that presupposing the path, or indeed the questions we should ask, may be presumptuous. So, for example the question may be to understand who Theos will be, or indeed, what is Theos?

What seems clear, however, is that the one that Paulos was declaring unto the Athenians in Acts 17, whom they ignorantly worshipped is, almost certainly, still largely unknown.

The impetus for beginning this journey was a realisation some years ago that one of the Hebrew words translated ‘God’ in the Old Testament was exactly the same word as the word ‘to’ or ‘unto’. A similar term also translated ‘God’ in the New Testament is the greek word Theos. This term is derived from a verb meaning ‘to set’ or ‘to place’. We will explore these meanings in the upcoming blogs.

An advantage of a blog is that, unlike a book, it does not have to take a formal structure, and we can move back and forth, going over new and revisited ground repeatedly as our understanding progresses. In that sense it is like the human mind (or spirit) which grows, and diminishes, in forward and backward steps and repeated surges of renewed resolution.

The first sections I have called ‘prerequisites’ because they are presumed understanding required before progressing. However, in a sense, all understanding is like this. That is, we come to a body of understanding with knowledge that has been accrued previously and provides building blocks to progress and create the edifice we are constructing. The edifice, like the journey, of course is never completed but always in the progress of being built and, while on the way, may need partial or complete rebuilding.