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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Acts 17:22 - 17:28
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The first part of Paul's speech:
v. 22. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
v. 23. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.
v. 24. God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands,
v. 25. neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life and breath and all things;
v. 26. and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation,
v. 27. that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us;
v. 28. for in Him we live, and move, and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.
Paul had been placed by those men that conducted him and now stood in the midst of the Council, or Court, of Areopagus. "The Areopagus was, in ancient times, a judicial council of Athens which held its meetings on the 'hill of Mars,' a little west of the Acropolis, which is in full view from its summit. On the top of this hill can still be seen the rock benches on which the Areopagites sat in the open air, and the two great rocks on which the accused prisoners sat. But it is not certain that Paul was officially tried before this ancient court. He may have been taken to this place as the most appropriate spot at which to address quietly an interested audience, or this may have been merely an informal inquiry made by the members of the court concerning his teaching. Yet from all the evidence available it seems certain that this council had the right to pass upon the qualifications of all lecturers either in the university or in the city, and the official arrest of this unauthorized lecturer is by no means impossible. " But whether the council heard Paul formally or informally, whether he spoke on the hill adjoining the Acropolis or in one of the great halls near the forum (Stoa Basileios), where the people had a better opportunity of hearing him, his address before this select company of the world's foremost wise men was an uncompromising stand for repentance and faith. He addresses the assembly in the customary manner as "Men of Athens. " That they were a very religious people (literally, demon-fearing in a very high degree) he had observed, so it appeared to him to be; they carried their religious relevance very far. For as he was wandering through the streets of their city and making it a point to consider with attentive interest their objects of religious veneration, the temples, groves, altars, statues which they considered sacred, he had found also an altar with the inscription: To an Unknown God; an epigraph since found on at least one altar, and referred to occasionally in ancient writings. There can be no doubt, on the basis of Rom_1:18-20, for which many parallels from secular sources may be adduced, that many heathen felt the insufficiency and the inadequacy of their religion. Their natural knowledge of God led them to doubt, and often to condemn, the idolatry as practiced by their own people, and should have prompted them to search so long until they had found the revelation of the true God; for there never was a time in the history of the world in which the worship of the God of heaven was not proclaimed somewhere. The altars to the unknown God seem to have been a semiconscious admission of the vanity and emptiness of idolatry. The Athenians thus worshiped what they knew not; they acknowledged with relevance a divine existence which was nameless to them. But what they thus worshiped devoutly, without knowing it, Paul proclaimed to them.
After this short introduction, Paul set forth the true God to them, that they might both know His name and knowingly relevance Him. The God that made the world, the created universe, and everything it contains, He, natural Lord as He is of heaven and earth, does not make His dwelling in temples made by the hands of men. Paul deliberately contrasts the true God with the idols whose dwelling was in temples made with hands, and whose statue often filled only a small niche of such a temple. The true God is also not served or worshiped with gifts or sacrifices made by the hands of men, as though He did not possess perfection and a full measure of everything, but was still in need of something. It is rather, on the contrary, He Himself who gives life and breath to all men, and all things which they are in need of. To attempt to dispense to the Giver of all good gifts what He Himself has always possessed is obviously a foolish proceeding, since the very life of men, as well as their continued existence, depends upon Him alone. And this almighty Creator made out of one, by making Adam the father of the entire human race, every race of people for the purpose of dwelling on the entire face, in every part, of the earth. There is no need of theory and guess-work, of false philosophy; Adam is, by the will of God, the ancestor of the entire human race. And this same God has also fixed, determined, the times that were appointed beforehand and the boundaries of the abodes of men. By His will and arrangement there are periods during which nations may retain possession of the territory which they have occupied, and there are points of time when they shall be dispossessed. Thus God, who has created all men, also controls the history of all nations. And the purpose which God has in thus manifesting His almighty power and providence is that men should seek the Lord, if by any means their minds might grasp some of His essence and they might thus find Him. They should be induced to obtain the very knowledge of God which Paul is here trying to impart to them. It may be a groping, as that of a blind man, and with all efforts it would result in only partial recognition of the essence of God; but it would lead onward, and should then be supplemented by the knowledge of revelation. For He, the Creator, is not far from every single human being, His personal presence is with every one of His creatures, not with any idea of pantheism, but with a personal relationship which shows His tender care for every single life. It is in Him that all men live, and move, and exist, are personal beings. If it were not for God who sustains us, we could not give evidence of life, it would be impossible for us to move, we could, indeed, not even exist. The knowledge which Paul thus advanced might be gained even by a contemplation of the works of God, as passages from the Greek poets tended to show, which Paul briefly quotes: For we His offspring are. The words are found in the poems of Aratus and of Cleanthes, and were familiar to all that knew anything of Greek poetry. That Paul here applied words from a heathen poem to the true God should give all the less offense since the poets were undoubtedly voicing the natural knowledge of God, which they had strengthened by a careful observation of the world and its government. Thus Paul, basing his remarks upon the natural knowledge of a divine being which is found in the hearts of men even after the fall of man, had given his hearers some idea of the true God and of their relation to Him in creation and preservation. The same arguments may well be applied under similar circumstances to this day.