Acts 17:22-31

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “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 human hands.
25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.
27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[a] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[b]
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.
30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Cross References 18

  • 1. ver 19
  • 2. ver 16
  • 3. John 4:22
  • 4. Isaiah 42:5; Acts 14:15
  • 5. Deuteronomy 10:14; Isaiah 66:1,2; Matthew 11:25
  • 6. 1 Kings 8:27; Acts 7:48
  • 7. Psalms 50:10-12; Isaiah 42:5
  • 8. Deuteronomy 32:8; Job 12:23
  • 9. Deuteronomy 4:7; Isaiah 55:6; Jeremiah 23:23,24; Acts 14:17
  • 10. Deuteronomy 30:20; Job 12:10; Daniel 5:23
  • 11. Isaiah 40:18-20; Romans 1:23
  • 12. Acts 14:16; Romans 3:25
  • 13. ver 23; 1 Peter 1:14
  • 14. Luke 24:47; Titus 2:11,12
  • 15. S Matthew 10:15
  • 16. Psalms 9:8; Psalms 96:13; Psalms 98:9
  • 17. S Acts 10:42
  • 18. S Acts 2:24

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. From the Cretan philosopher Epimenides
  • [b]. From the Cilician Stoic philosopher Aratus
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