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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Acts 17:28 - 17:28
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For in him (en autōi gar). Proof of God’s nearness, not stoic pantheism, but real immanence in God as God dwells in us. The three verbs (zōmen, kinoumetha, esōmen) form an ascending scale and reach a climax in God (life, movement, existence). Kinoumetha is either direct middle present indicative (we move ourselves) or passive (we are moved).
As certain even of your own poets (hōs kai tines tōn kath' humās poiētōn). “As also some of the poets among you.” Aratus of Soli in Cilicia (ab. b.c. 270) has these very words in his Ta Phainomena and Cleanthes, Stoic philosopher (300-220 b.c.) in his Hymn to Zeus has Ek sou gar genos esōmen. In 1Co 15:32 Paul quotes from Menander and in Tit 1:12 from Epimenides. J. Rendel Harris claims that he finds allusions in Paul’s Epistles to Pindar, Aristophanes, and other Greek writers. There is no reason in the world why Paul should not have acquaintance with Greek literature, though one need not strain a point to prove it. Paul, of course, knew that the words were written of Zeus (Jupiter), not of Jehovah, but he applies the idea in them to his point just made that all men are the offspring of God.