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Selected Verse: Acts 17:24 - Darby
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Ac 17:24 |
Darby |
The God who has made the world and all things which are in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, |
| |
King James |
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; |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
God that made the world and all . . . therein--The most profound philosophers of Greece were unable to conceive any real distinction between God and the universe. Thick darkness, therefore, behooved to rest on all their religious conceptions. To dissipate this, the apostle sets out with a sharp statement of the fact of creation as the central principle of all true religion--not less needed now, against the transcendental idealism of our day.
seeing he is Lord--or Sovereign.
of heaven and earth--holding in free and absolute subjection all the works of His hands; presiding in august royalty over them, as well as pervading them all as the principle of their being. How different this from the blind Force or Fate to which all creatures were regarded as in bondage!
dwelleth not in temples made with hands--This thought, so familiar to Jewish ears (Kg1 8:27; Isa 66:1-2; Act 7:48), and so elementary to Christians, would serve only more sharply to define to his heathen audience the spirituality of that living, personal God, whom he "announced" to them. |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
God that made the world - The main object of this discourse of Paul is to convince them of the folly of idolatry Act 17:29, and thus to lead them to repentance. For this purpose he commences with a statement of the true doctrine respecting God as the Creator of all things. We may observe here:
(1) That he speaks here of God as the Creator of the world, thus opposing indirectly their opinions that there were many gods.
(2) he speaks of him as the Creator of the world, and thus opposes the opinion that matter was eternal; that all things were controlled by Fate; and that God could be confined to temples. The Epicureans held that matter was eternal, and that the world was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms. To this opinion Paul opposed the doctrine that all things were made by one God. Compare Act 14:15.
Seeing that ... - Greek: "He being Lord of heaven and earth."
Lord of heaven and earth - Proprietor and Ruler of heaven and earth. It is highly absurd, therefore, to suppose that he who is present in heaven and in earth at the same time, and who rules over all, should be confined to a temple of an earthly structure, or dependent on man for anything.
Dwelleth not ... - See the notes on Act 7:48. |
| Vincent's Word Studies, by Marvin R. Vincent [1886] |
God
With the article: "the God."
The world (τὸν κόσμον)
Originally, order, and hence the order of the world; the ordered universe. So in classical Greek. In the Septuagint, never the world, but the ordered total of the heavenly bodies; the host of heaven (Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:3; Isaiah 24:21; 40:26). Compare, also, Pro 17:6, and see note on Jam 3:6. In the apocryphal books, of the universe, and mainly in the relation between God and it arising out of the creation. Thus, the king of the world (2 Maccabees 7:9); the creator or founder of the world (2 Maccabees 7:23); the great potentate of the world (2 Maccabees 12:15). In the New Testament: 1. In the classical and physical sense, the universe (Joh 17:5; Joh 21:25.; Rom 1:20; Eph 1:4, etc.). 2. As the order of things of which man is the centre (Mat 13:38; Mar 16:15; Luk 9:25; Joh 16:21; Eph 2:12; Ti1 6:7). 3. Humanity as it manifests itself in and through this order (Mat 18:7; Pe2 2:5; Pe2 3:6; Rom 3:19). Then, as sin has entered and disturbed the order of things, and made a breach between the heavenly and the earthly order, which are one in the divine ideal - 4. The order of things which is alienated from God, as manifested in and by the human race: humanity as alienated from God, and acting in opposition to him (Joh 1:10; Joh 12:31; Joh 15:18, Joh 15:19; Co1 1:21; Jo1 2:15, etc.). The word is used here in the classical sense of the visible creation, which would appeal to the Athenians. Stanley, speaking of the name by which the Deity is known in the patriarchal age, the plural Elohim, notes that Abraham, in perceiving that all the Elohim worshipped by the numerous clans of his race meant one God, anticipated the declaration of Paul in this passage ("Jewish Church," i., 25). Paul's statement strikes at the belief of the Epicureans, that the world was made by "a fortuitous concourse of atoms," and of the Stoics, who denied the creation of the world by God, holding either that God animated the world, or that the world itself was God.
Made with hands (χιεροποιήτοις)
Probably pointing to the magnificent temples above and around him. Paul's epistles abound in architectural metaphors. He here employs the very words of Stephen, in his address to the Sanhedrim, which he very probably heard. See Act 7:48. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| God who made the world - Thus is demonstrated even to reason, the one true, good God; absolutely different from the creatures, from every part of the visible creation. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
God that made the world, etc. - Though the Epicureans held that the world was not made by God, but was the effect of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, yet this opinion was not popular; and the Stoics held the contrary:
1. St. Paul assumes, as an acknowledged truth, that there was a God who made the world and all things.
2. That this God could not be confined within temples made with hands, as he was the Lord or governor of heaven and earth.
3. That, by fair consequence, the gods whom they worshipped, which were shut up in their temples could not be this God; and they must be less than the places in which they were contained. This was a strong, decisive stroke against the whole system of the Grecian idolatry. |
48 But the Most High dwells not in places made with hands; as says the prophet,
1 Thus saith Jehovah: The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what is the house that ye will build unto me? and what is the place of my rest?
2 Even all these things hath my hand made, and all these things have been, saith Jehovah. But to this man will I look: to the afflicted and contrite in spirit, and who trembleth at my word.
27 But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!
48 But the Most High dwells not in places made with hands; as says the prophet,
15 and saying, Men, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, preaching to you to turn from these vanities to the living God, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things in them;
29 Being therefore the offspring of God, we ought not to think that which is divine to be like gold or silver or stone, the graven form of man's art and imagination.
48 But the Most High dwells not in places made with hands; as says the prophet,
15 Love not the world, nor the things in the world. If any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him;
21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom has not known God, God has been pleased by the foolishness of the preaching to save those that believe.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on account of this the world hates you.
18 If the world hate you, know that it has hated me before you.
31 Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out:
10 He was in the world, and the world had its being through him, and the world knew him not.
19 Now we know that whatever the things the law says, it speaks to those under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world be under judgment to God.
6 through which waters the then world, deluged with water, perished.
5 and spared not the old world, but preserved Noe, the eighth, a preacher of righteousness, having brought in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
7 Woe to the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; yet woe to that man by whom the offence comes!
7 For we have brought nothing into the world: it is manifest that neither can we carry anything out.
12 that ye were at that time without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
21 A woman, when she gives birth to a child, has grief because her hour has come; but when the child is born, she no longer remembers the trouble, on account of the joy that a man has been born into the world.
25 For what shall a man profit if he shall have gained the whole world, and have destroyed, or come under the penalty of the loss of himself?
15 And he said to them, Go into all the world, and preach the glad tidings to all the creation.
38 and the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom, but the darnel are the sons of the evil one;
4 according as he has chosen us in him before the world's foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love;
20 -- for from the world's creation the invisible things of him are perceived, being apprehended by the mind through the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity, -- so as to render them inexcusable.
25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they were written one by one, I suppose that not even the world itself would contain the books written.
5 and now glorify me, thou Father, along with thyself, with the glory which I had along with thee before the world was.
6 and the tongue is fire, the world of unrighteousness; the tongue is set in our members, the defiler of the whole body, and which sets fire to the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell.
6 Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.