Acts 17:22-31

Sermon on Mars Hill

22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of ¹Athens, I observe that you are very ²religious in all respects.

23 "For while I was passing through and examining the ³objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' Therefore what ⁴you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

24 "⁵The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is ⁶Lord of heaven and earth, does not ⁷dwell in temples made with hands;

25 nor is He served by human hands, ⁸as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;

26 and ⁹He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having ¹⁰determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,

27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, ¹¹though * He is not far from each one of us;

28 for ¹²in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.'

29 "Being then the children of God, we ¹³ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.

30 "Therefore having ¹⁴overlooked ¹⁵the times of ignorance, God is ¹⁶now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,

31 because He has fixed ¹⁷a day in which ¹⁸He will judge ¹⁹the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has ²⁰appointed, having furnished proof to all men by ²¹raising Him from the dead."

Cross References

• 1. Acts 17:15
• 2. Acts 25:19
• 3. 2 Thessalonians 2:4
• 4. John 4:22
• 5. Isaiah 42:5; Acts 14:15
• 6. Deuteronomy 10:14; Psalms 115:16; Matthew 11:25
• 7. 1 Kings 8:27; Acts 7:48
• 8. Job 22:2; Psalms 50:10-12
• 9. Malachi 2:10
• 10. Deuteronomy 32:8; Job 12:23
• 11. Deuteronomy 4:7; Jeremiah 23:23; Acts 14:17
• 12. Job 12:10; Daniel 5:23
• 13. Isaiah 40:18f; Romans 1:23
• 14. Acts 14:16; Romans 3:25
• 15. Acts 17:23
• 16. Luke 24:47; Acts 26:20; Titus 2:11
• 17. Matthew 10:15
• 18. Psalms 9:8; Psalms 96:13; Psalms 98:9; John 5:22, 27; Acts 10:42
• 19. Matthew 24:14; Acts 17:6
• 20. Luke 22:22
• 21. Acts 2:24

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "the Council of the Areopagus"
• [b]. Lit "are"
• [c]. Lit "the inhabited earth"
• [d]. Lit "by" or "in"
• [e]. Or "when He raised"