Albert Barnes Commentary Acts 17:24

"The God that made the world and all things therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;" — Acts 17:24 (ASV)

God that made the world. The main object of this discourse of Paul is to convince them of the folly of idolatry (Acts 17:29) and thus to lead them to repentance. For this purpose, he begins with a statement of the true doctrine concerning 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 He 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 .

Seeing that, etc. In 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 on earth at the same time, and who rules over all, should be confined to a temple of an earthly structure or be dependent on man for anything.

Dwelleth not, etc. See Acts 7:48.