Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 17:26

"and he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined [their] appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation;" — Acts 17:26 (ASV)

The substance of the Athenian address concerns the nature of God and the responsibility of human beings to God. Contrary to all pantheistic and polytheistic notions, God is the one, Paul says, who has created the world and everything in it; he is the Lord of heaven and earth (cf. Genesis 14:19, 22). He does not live in temples “made by hands,” nor is he dependent for his existence upon anything he has created. Rather, he is the source of life and breath and everything else humanity possesses. While Paul’s argument can be paralleled at some points by the paganism of his day, its content is decidedly biblical (cf. 1 Kings 8:27; Isaiah 66:1–2).

Contrary to the Athenians’ boast that they had originated from the soil of their Attic homeland and therefore were not like other people, Paul affirms the oneness of humankind in their creation by the one God and their descent from a common ancestor. And contrary to the “deism” that permeated the philosophies of the day, he proclaimed that this God has determined specific times for humans and “the exact places where they should live,” so that they would seek him and find him.

In support of this teaching about humankind, Paul quotes two maxims from Greek poets. The first (“For in him we live and move and have our being”) comes from the Cretan poet Epimenides (c. 600 B. C.); the second (“for we are his offspring”), from the Cilician poet Aratus (c. 315–240 B. C.). By such maxims, Paul is not suggesting that God is to be thought of in terms of the Zeus of Greek polytheism or Stoic pantheism. He is rather arguing that the poets his hearers recognized as authorities have to some extent corroborated his message. In his search for a measure of common ground with his hearers, he is, so to speak, disinfecting and rebaptizing the poets’ words for his own purposes. But despite its form, Paul’s address was thoroughly biblical and Christian in its content.