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JULY 13
Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; 23 for as I was passing through and considering
8 Assyria also has joined with them; the objects of your worship, I even found an
They have helped the children of Lot. altar with this inscription:
Selah
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Proverbs 21:1
21 The king’s heart is in the hand Therefore, the One whom you worship with-
of the LORD,
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Like the rivers of water; out knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God,
who made the world and everything in it,
He turns it wherever He wishes. since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not
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Acts 17:16–34 dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He
worshiped with men’s hands, as though He
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, needed anything, since He gives to all life,
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his spirit was provoked within him when he breath, and all things. And He has made from
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saw that the city was given over to idols. one blood every nation of men to dwell on all
Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue the face of the earth, and has determined their
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with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, preappointed times and the boundaries of
and in the marketplace daily with those who their dwellings, so that they should seek the
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happened to be there. Then certain Epi- Lord, in the hope that they might grope for
curean and Stoic philosophers encountered Him and find Him, though He is not far from
him. And some said, “What does this babbler each one of us; for in Him we live and move
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want to say?” and have our being, as also some of your own
poets have said, ‘For we are also His off-
spring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring
29
of God, we ought not to think that the Divine
Nature is like gold or silver or stone, some-
17:18 Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. thing shaped by art and man’s devising.
Epicurean philosophy taught that the chief end 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God over-
of man was the avoidance of pain. Epicureans looked, but now commands all men every-
were materialists—they did not deny the exis- where to repent, because He has appointed a
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tence of God, but they believed He did not day on which He will judge the world in righ-
become involved with the affairs of men.When teousness by the Man whom He has ordained.
a person died, they believed his body and soul He has given assurance of this to all by raising
disintegrated. Stoic philosophy taught self-
mastery—that the goal in life was to reach a Him from the dead.”
32 And when they heard of the resurrection
place of indifference to pleasure or pain. bab-
bler. Literally, “seed picker.” Some of the of the dead, some mocked, while others said,
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philosophers viewed Paul as an amateur “We will hear you again on this matter.” So
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philosopher—one who had no ideas of his own Paul departed from among them. However,
but only picked among prevailing philosophies some men joined him and believed, among
and constructed one with no depth. them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman
named Damaris, and others with them.
Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer
of foreign gods,” because he preached to
them Jesus and the resurrection. 17:28 in Him we live and move and have
And they took him and brought him to the our being. A quote from the Cretan poet
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Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this Epimenides.
new doctrine is of which you speak? For you
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are bringing some strange things to our ears. 17:29 the offspring of God. A quote from
Therefore we want to know what these things Aratus, who came from Paul’s home region of
mean.” For all the Athenians and the foreign- Cilicia. not…like gold or silver. If man is the
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ers who were there spent their time in nothing offspring of God,as the Greek poet suggested,
else but either to tell or to hear some new it is foolish to think that God could be nothing
thing. more than a man-made idol. Such reasoning
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Then Paul stood in the midst of the points out the absurdity of idolatry (Is.44:9–20).
Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I per-
ceive that in all things you are very religious;
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