nor is served by men's hands as needing something, himself giving to all life and breath and all things;
Paul stands before the philosophers of Athens and makes known the God they admitted they did not know. His first move is to strip away the idea that God gains anything from human religion. The verse reverses the direction of worship: God is not the receiver but the giver.
The verb here is not the usual word for worship. One writer traces where else it appears:
The Greek word therapeuo (from therapon, "an attendant") in Acts 17:25 means "to serve," "render service to" — older translations read "worship" here. In the Gospels it is used again and again for curing and healing. It is nowhere else translated "worship."
The picture is of attendants waiting on someone in need. Paul denies that God is served that way.
God lacks nothing, so no place can hold Him. That is what makes Him near to everyone:
Supreme above all, it is only in this way that He can be near to all; not dwelling in temples made with hands, which isolate and shut Him up; nor served by human hands, as if He were in need. Enough in Himself, He is the Source and Centre of all; life and breath and all things are nothing but His gift. No one, then, can make Him his debtor, or give Him anything except what is already His own.
Paul's words cut against an instinct that runs far wider than Athens. Man's default picture of God is of someone who wants something from him:
Man's general estimate of God is that He is a hard master, demanding and expecting great things from him. So when he thinks of God at all, it is usually tied to the idea of bringing something to God, instead of receiving from Him. Paul met this thought in the idolatrous Athenians. This proud thought of man's ability is such a solid barrier that it shuts the gospel out of the heart. And it is this that the Spirit of God breaks down, by convincing men of their sinfulness and their need of a Saviour.
The second half of the verse shows God's kindness, not just His power. It also exposes the gods the Athenians had built:
The apostle set before the Athenians One who is good in Himself and actively does good. He does so even in a world gone off course, since man's fall brought in sin and death everywhere. Yet He who needs nothing for Himself makes His sun rise on evil and good, and sends rain on just and unjust... He gives to all life and breath and all things. How simple and self-evident this plain fact is, and how well it makes known the God they themselves admitted they did not know! What a contrast with all the false gods of the world! They dragged their worshippers down to their own rebellious evil and mischievous selfishness. They also let their priests prey on the guilty fears of mankind.
Kelly also notes what the Athenians had assumed instead. They believed "the gods had no pleasure in man's happiness, but rather in casting down the exalted and reversing the prosperous."
The word all in this verse answers a real question: is God the Creator of every person, or only of the saved? One writer met the claim that God did not create the unconverted by pointing straight here:
I have been asked for a text. I quote Acts 17:25, 28: "He gives to all life, and breath, and all things..." He is addressing the heathen and says, "For in Him we live and move and have our being."
If God gives everything, no one can pay Him back. That leaves one honest response:
Man would like to make God a receiver instead of a giver; but this cannot be... The great Giver of "all things" cannot possibly "need anything." Praise is all that we can offer to God. But we can only offer it with the full and clear understanding that our sins are all put away. And we can only know this by faith in the power of a completed atonement.
So worship starts on the receiving side. Man brings God nothing He needs; he brings praise for all he has received.
- Served — the verb pictures attendants waiting on someone in need. God needs no such waiting on.
- Needs — He is enough in Himself. No temple holds Him, and whatever you bring Him was already His.
- Gives — He is good as well as powerful. He sends sun and rain on evil and good alike, unlike the gods men invent.
- All — life and breath reach every nation and every person, believer or not; no one is outside His giving.
- Receives — no one can make God a debtor. Man's place is to receive, and to praise once sin is put away.
and has made of one blood every nation of men to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, having determined ordained times and the boundaries of their dwelling,
Paul stands before the philosophers of Athens and cuts against everything they assumed about themselves. Every nation came from one source, and the God they did not know set the seasons and borders of each. Older translations read "of one blood," and the writers quoted below use that wording.
The unity of the human family and the unity of God stand or fall together. Commentators point out that the Greeks held the opposite on both counts, and that the two errors fed each other.
"And has made of one blood": here again Paul is at odds with man's ideas, above all with the Greek belief in many gods. The unity of the human race is a truth that goes with the truth of one true God. Men saw that each race had its own national god. So the lie of many gods was tied to the matching claim of many independent races of men, and encouraged it. This was a favourite idea of the pagan world. They held that they had sprung from the earth in some remarkably foolish way, while at the same time maintaining that each was independent of the other.
The same writer adds that the Jews fell into the same vanity, though they alone held the revelation that settles it:
The one origin of man goes with the unity of God, just as the claim of separate races goes with their separate patron gods. As the Jews fell away, their self-exalting vanity helped that falsehood along. Yet God had entrusted the revelation of this twofold truth to them alone, and Christianity alone applied it fully and carried it out according to God.
One writer reads the verse as flattening every claim of rank. Even the limits God set were meant to make people feel their dependence.
He goes on to put man in his place before Him. The one blood that all men share levels every distinction that Jew and Greek alike prided themselves on. What is more, He fixed their times and the very boundaries of their dwellings. He withheld His care from no creature He had made. He appointed all this so that men would feel their limits and dependence, see the divine ordering of things around them, and in their need feel after Him and find Him.
The "allotted periods" cover the whole life of a nation. And God's care went on even toward peoples who had forgotten Him.
It is true that all nations from their beginning forgot God. No one showed that evil more than the people whose conscience Paul was now appealing to. Despite their willing ignorance, God took an interest in their actual circumstances. He fixed the appointed seasons of their national life, its progress and its fall, along with the boundaries of their dwelling.
The scattering of the nations is traced back to the tower at Shinar, where mankind tried to stay together and make a name for itself.
For up to the flood mankind was only one community, and, whatever their growing corruption and violence, no strange gods were set up against God. Nor had God started government as a human institution holding authority from Him. When He did, it was left neither to fate nor to chance, but He determined the seasons, and the limits of their dwelling.
The verse runs on into a purpose. One writer turns from nations to what God wants for each single person.
But God's ordering of the nations was far from being all His care. His heart went out in grace to every soul of man. In losing God, man had lost the one centre his heart must have, and the basis of all true morality... But God remained the God of goodness and mercy, ready to hear and forgive.
Another writer draws the encouragement out of the next clause: the search is not hopeless.
But God has dealt with men as He has so that they might seek the Lord, if it may happen that they will feel after Him and find Him. Paul adds that He is not far from every one of us, showing that if anyone honestly seeks God, God will reveal Himself.
If God set the borders, then crossing them has a cost. One writer applies the verse directly to why nations go to war.
This verse makes it clear that the earth's surface is enough for men to live on, and that God has set the boundaries of the nations. Suppose men had respected these God-appointed boundaries and had been content with the "place in the sun" He gave them. Then there would have been no wars. But they found no satisfaction in what they had, and they refused to feel after God for it. So they cast greedy eyes on their neighbours' portion and broke the boundaries God appointed. From this comes the bloodshed and the sorrow.
Another writer adds a caution. This shared origin proves less than people assume.
The idea that all men are brothers has some truth in a creatorial sense, since God has "made of one blood all nations of men" (Acts 17:26). It is not true in any other sense. The Scriptures draw the sharpest line imaginable between the believer and the man of the world.
- One source. Every nation traces back to one origin. That truth stands or falls with the truth of one God. Many gods and many separate races were always the same lie.
- One level. From one source follows one level: the shared blood wipes out the distinctions Jew and Greek both prized.
- One hand. From that level ground God assigns the parts: the seasons of a nation's life, its rise and fall, and its borders.
- One aim. God arranged it all so that people would feel their limits and seek Him. He is near enough for anyone who truly seeks to find Him.
- One warning. Break the boundaries He set, and war follows. Commentators also warn that a shared Creator does not erase the line between the believer and the man of the world.
that they may seek God; if indeed they might feel after him and find him, although he is not far from each one of us
Paul stands before the thinkers of Athens and tells them why God arranged human history as He did. The verse raises two hard questions. If God is so near, why has man not found Him? And what does it mean to grope after someone standing at your elbow?
Paul has just spoken of nations, appointed times and set borders. One writer looks past the nations to God's care for each person.
God's arranging of the nations was far from being all His care. He felt graciously for every soul of man, who in losing Him had lost the only and necessary centre for the heart... For man was fallen from God, and sin reigned in death... But God remained the God of goodness and mercy, ready to hear and forgive. But man must seek Him, conscious of sin, misery, and darkness.
The same writer ties this aim to the ordinary kindnesses of life:
It was not only the passing testimony to His goodness in the gift from heaven of rains and fruitful seasons... but also to appointed seasons, and the boundaries where the various nations live. All of it was under God's hand, with particular favours given to each. And in it all there was at least a whisper to seek after God.
Behind "feel their way" is a word about hands, not thoughts.
The word psēlaphaō is "to feel after with the fingers, handle." It is used of what can be touched. It occurs only in Luke 24:39; Acts 17:27; Hebrews 12:18; 1 John 1:1.
The word tells you who Paul had in mind. One writer used that point with a man who could not "feel" that he was saved:
I pointed out that the word feel is only once found in the New Testament, and that is in Acts 17:27... The word does not belong to the Christian, you see, but to the heathen who have no written revelation. Our word is "faith," or "believe." We do not know because we feel; we believe God's Word, and so we know.
Paul does not say that man is near God. He says God is near man. One writer presses that difference.
Man has gone far from God, and his great desire is always to increase the distance, but God has not gone far from man. The distance lies in alienation of heart and mind... But God pursues him in the grace and love of His heart. He is ready to fall on his neck and cover him with kisses the moment that man, in the sorrow of his soul, turns round and begins to feel after his Creator, whom he has so heartlessly abandoned.
Paul's wording here is cautious. One writer weighs that groping against the gospel that came later.
We may enter into the apostle's cautious language: "if by any means they might feel after and find Him..." Compared with the gospel after Christ's work, it was groping in the dark, except where the True Light was shining.
Another writer answers those who call this groping a misfortune.
People often speak of the heathen as groping after the light and unable to find it. They call it their misfortune, not their sin, because they are held down by circumstances too hard for them. That is not really so. The truth is, "There is none that seeks after God."... It is man not seeking God, but trying to escape from God, and he has escaped, so to speak, into the darkness. The darkness is the darkness of resisted light, not the absence of light.
Commentators differ in emphasis here. One reads the closing words as an open door:
Paul adds that He is not far from every one of us. If a person honestly seeks God, God will reveal Himself.
Another answers a question about a man with right beliefs and a decent life:
"Right convictions and good practice" is not gospel. Is he born again? Acts 17:27 does not say a word about the Spirit's acting... People confuse the ground of responsibility with sovereign grace in saving.
Man's duty to return to God stands. But the door does not stay open:
Man is a lost sinner. By his love of sin he has strayed from his Maker into hopeless darkness. He is always under responsibility to return to God, who has a righteous claim on the love and obedience of all His creatures... His patience with sinners will not last for ever. Some day men may wish to "find" Him, and will discover that He is no longer "near."
- Purpose. God set the times and borders of every nation with one personal aim: that people would seek Him.
- Groping. "Feel after" is a word for hands in the dark. It is real seeking, but blind — nothing next to the light now given.
- Nearness. God never moved away; the distance is man's alienation of heart, and God pursues him across it.
- Excuse. The darkness is resisted light, not missing light. So man's failure is guilt, not misfortune.
- Urgency. Commentators differ on how far seeking gets. They agree the verse sets out man's responsibility, not the gospel. And God's patience has an end.