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Selected Verse: Acts 17:29 - Amplified Bible©

Verse	Translation	Text
Ac 17:29	Amplified Bible©	Since then we are God's offspring, we ought not to suppose that Deity (the Godhead) is like gold or silver or stone, [of the nature of] a representation by human art and imagination, or anything constructed or invented.
	King James	Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think--The courtesy of this language is worthy of notice. that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device--("graven by the art or device of man"). One can hardly doubt that the apostle would here point to those matchless monuments of the plastic art, in gold and silver and costliest stone, which lay so profusely beneath and around him. The more intelligent pagan Greeks no more pretended that these sculptured gods and goddesses were real deities, or even their actual likenesses, than Romanist Christians do their images; and Paul doubtless knew this; yet here we find him condemning all such efforts visibly to represent the invisible God. How shamefully inexcusable then are the Greek and Roman churches in paganizing the worship of the Christian Church by the encouragement of pictures and images in religious service! (In the eighth century, the second council of Nicea decreed that the image of God was as proper an object of worship as God Himself).

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think--The courtesy of this language is worthy of notice.

that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device--("graven by the art or device of man"). One can hardly doubt that the apostle would here point to those matchless monuments of the plastic art, in gold and silver and costliest stone, which lay so profusely beneath and around him. The more intelligent pagan Greeks no more pretended that these sculptured gods and goddesses were real deities, or even their actual likenesses, than Romanist Christians do their images; and Paul doubtless knew this; yet here we find him condemning all such efforts visibly to represent the invisible God. How shamefully inexcusable then are the Greek and Roman churches in paganizing the worship of the Christian Church by the encouragement of pictures and images in religious service! (In the eighth century, the second council of Nicea decreed that the image of God was as proper an object of worship as God Himself).

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
Forasmuch then - Admitting or assuming this to be true. The argument which follows is drawn from the concessions of their own writers. We ought not to think - It is absurd to suppose. The argument of the apostle is this: "Since we are formed by God; since we are like him, living and intelligent beings; since we are more excellent in our nature than the most precious and ingenious works of art, it is absurd to suppose that the original source of our existence can be like gold, and silver, and stone. Man himself is far more excellent than an image of wood and stone; how much more excellent still must be the great Fountain and Source of all our wisdom and intelligence." See this thought pursued at length in Isa 40:18-23. The Godhead - The divinity (τὸ Θεῖον to Theion), the divine nature, or essence. The word used here is an adjective employed as a noun, and does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. Is like unto gold ... - All these things were used in making images or statues of the gods. It is absurd to think that the source of all life and intelligence resembles a lifeless block of wood or stone. Even degraded pagan, one would think, might see the force of an argument like this. Graven - Sculptured; made into an image.

The Scofield Bible Commentary, by Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, [1917]
offspring of God (Greek, "genos", means "race"). The reference is to the creation-work of God in which He made man (i.e. mankind, the race in Adam) in his own likeness, (Gen 1:26); (Gen 1:27); thus rebuking the thought that "the Godhead is like unto gold," etc. The word "Father" is not used, not does the passage affirm anything concerning fatherhood or sonship, which are relationships based on faith, and the new birth. Compare (Joh 1:12); (Joh 1:13); (Gal 3:26); (Gal 4:1-7); (Joh 5:1).

Vincent's Word Studies, by Marvin R. Vincent [1886]
The Godhead (τὸ θεῖον) Lit., that which is divine. Like to gold, etc These words must have impressed his hearers profoundly, as they looked at the multitude of statues of divinities which surrounded them. Graven (χαράγματι) Not a participle, as A. V., but a noun, in apposition with gold, silver, and stone: "a graving or carved-work of art," etc.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
We ought not to think - A tender expression especially in the first per son plural. As if he had said, Can God himself be a less noble being than we who are his offspring? Nor does he only here deny, that these are like God, but that they have any analogy to him at all, so as to be capable of representing him.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, etc. - This inference of the apostle was very strong and conclusive; and his argument runs thus: "If we are the offspring of God, he cannot be like those images of gold, silver, and stone, which are formed by the art and device of man; for the parent must resemble his offspring. Seeing, therefore, that we are living and intelligent beings, He from whom we have derived that being must be living and intelligent. It is necessary, also, that the object of religious worship should be much more excellent than the worshipper; but a man is, by innumerable degrees, more excellent than an image made out of gold, silver, or stone; and yet it would be impious to worship a man: how much more so to worship these images as gods! Every man in the Areopagus must have felt the power of this conclusion; and, taking it for granted that they had felt it, he proceeds: -

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¹⁸ To whom then will you liken God? Or with what likeness will you compare Him? Cross reference(s) provided by the translation: [Acts 17:29.]
¹⁹ The graven image! A workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts silver chains for it.
²⁰ He who is so impoverished that he has no offering or oblation or rich gift to give [to his god is constrained to make a wooden offering, an idol; so he] chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to carve and set up an image that will not totter or deteriorate.
²¹ [You worshipers of idols, you are without excuse.] Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? [These things ought to convince you of God's omnipotence and of the folly of bowing to idols.] Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? Cross reference(s) provided by the translation: [Rom. 1:20, 21.]
²² It is God Who sits above the circle (the horizon) of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; it is He Who stretches out the heavens like [gauze] curtains and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in,
²³ Who brings dignitaries to nothing, Who makes the judges and rulers of the earth as chaos (emptiness, falsity, and futility).

¹ LATER ON there was a Jewish festival (feast) for which Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

¹ NOW WHAT I mean is that as long as the inheritor (heir) is a child and under age, he does not differ from a slave, although he is the master of all the estate;
² But he is under guardians and administrators or trustees until the date fixed by his father.
³ So we [Jewish Christians] also, when we were minors, were kept like slaves under [the rules of the Hebrew ritual and subject to] the elementary teachings of a system of external observations and regulations.
⁴ But when the proper time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born subject to [the regulations of] the Law,
⁵ To purchase the freedom of (to ransom, to redeem, to atone for) those who were subject to the Law, that we might be adopted and have sonship conferred upon us [and be recognized as God's sons].
⁶ And because you [really] are [His] sons, God has sent the [Holy] Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba (Father)! Father!
⁷ Therefore, you are no longer a slave (bond servant) but a son; and if a son, then [it follows that you are] an heir by the aid of God, through Christ.

²⁶ For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

¹³ Who owe their birth neither to bloods nor to the will of the flesh [that of physical impulse] nor to the will of man [that of a natural father], but to God. [They are born of God!]

¹² But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name--Cross reference(s) provided by the translation: [Isa. 56:5.]

²⁷ So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them. Cross reference(s) provided by the translation: [Col. 3:9, 10; James 3:8, 9.]

²⁶ God said, Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the [tame] beasts, and over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth. Cross reference(s) provided by the translation: [Ps. 104:30; Heb. 1:2; 11:3.]