Acts 17:20-30

20 "For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean *."
21 (Now all the Athenians and the strangers 1visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)

Sermon on Mars Hill

22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of 2Athens, I observe that you are very 3religious in all respects.
23 "For while I was passing through and examining the 4objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' Therefore what 5you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
24 "6The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is 7Lord of heaven and earth, does not 8dwell in temples made with hands;
25 nor is He served by human hands, 9as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
26 and 10He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having 11determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, 12though * He is not far from each one of us;
28 for 13in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.'
29 "Being then the children of God, we 14ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.
30 "Therefore having 15overlooked 16the times of ignorance, God is 17now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,

Cross References 17

  • 1. Acts 2:10
  • 2. Acts 17:15
  • 3. Acts 25:19
  • 4. 2 Thessalonians 2:4
  • 5. John 4:22
  • 6. Isaiah 42:5; Acts 14:15
  • 7. Deuteronomy 10:14; Psalms 115:16; Matthew 11:25
  • 8. 1 Kings 8:27; Acts 7:48
  • 9. Job 22:2; Psalms 50:10-12
  • 10. Malachi 2:10
  • 11. Deuteronomy 32:8; Job 12:23
  • 12. Deuteronomy 4:7; Jeremiah 23:23; Acts 14:17
  • 13. Job 12:10; Daniel 5:23
  • 14. Isaiah 40:18f; Romans 1:23
  • 15. Acts 14:16; Romans 3:25
  • 16. Acts 17:23
  • 17. Luke 24:47; Acts 26:20; Titus 2:11

Footnotes 2

New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, California.  All rights reserved.