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Selected Verse: Acts 17:24 - World English
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Ac 17:24 |
World English |
The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't 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 However, the Most High doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says,
1 Thus says Yahweh, "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what kind of house will you build to me? and what place shall be my rest?
2 For all these things has my hand made, and [so] all these things came to be," says Yahweh: "but to this man will I look, even to him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word.
27 But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can't contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
48 However, the Most High doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says,
15 "Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them;
29 Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.
48 However, the Most High doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says,
15 Don't love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father's love isn't in him.
21 For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn't know God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
31 Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world didn't recognize him.
19 Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.
6 by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.
5 and didn't spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly;
7 "Woe to the world because of occasions of stumbling! For it must be that the occasions come, but woe to that person through whom the occasion comes!
7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly can't carry anything out.
12 that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
21 A woman, when she gives birth, has sorrow, because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she doesn't remember the anguish any more, for the joy that a human being is born into the world.
25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits his own self?
15 He said to them, "Go into all the world, and preach the Good News to the whole creation.
38 the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the children of the Kingdom; and the darnel weeds are the children of the evil one.
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without blemish before him in love;
20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse.
25 There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they would all be written, I suppose that even the world itself wouldn't have room for the books that would be written.
5 Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.
6 And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Gehenna.
6 Children's children are the crown of old men; the glory of children are their parents.