at a distance (literally or figuratively) · adverb
from
ἀπὸapo
G575
"off · preposition
every
ἑκάστουhekastou
G1538
each or every · adjective — genitive singular masculine
one
ἑνὸςhenos
G1520
one · adjective — genitive singular masculine
us
ἡμῶνhēmōn
G2257
of (or from) us
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 23:23-24 Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off?
Deuteronomy 4:7 For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
Acts 14:17 Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our heart…
Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eter…
Psalms 19:1-6 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Acts 15:17 That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these th…
Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repenta…
Psalms 139:1-13 O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Acts 17:22-31
We have here St. Paul's sermon at Athens. Divers sermons we have had, which the apostles preached to the Jews, or such Gentiles as had an acquaintance with and veneration for the Old Testament, and were worshippers of the true and living God; and all they had to do with them was to open and allege that Jesus is the Christ; but here we have a sermon to heathens, that worshipped false gods, and were without the true God in the world, and to them the scope of their discourse was quite different from what it was to the other. In the former case their business was to lead their hearers by prophecies and miracles to the knowledge of the Redeemer, and faith in him; in the latter it was to lead them…
That they should seek the Lord--That is the high end of all these arrangements of Divine Power, Wisdom, and Love.
if haply they might feel after him--as men groping their way in the dark.
and find him--a lively picture of the murky atmosphere of Natural Religion.
though he be not far from every one of us--The difficulty of finding God outside the pale of revealed religion lies not in His distance from us, but in our distance from Him through the blinding effect of sin.
Adam Clarke on Acts 17:27
That they should seek the Lord - This is a conclusion drawn from the preceding statement. God, who is infinitely great and self-sufficient, has manifested himself as the maker of the world, the creator, preserver, and governor of men. He has assigned them their portion, and dispensed to them their habitations, and the various blessings of his providence, to the end that they should seek him in all his works.
Feel after him - Ψηλαφησειαν αυτον, That they might grope after him, as a person does his way who is blind or blindfolded. The Gentiles, who had not a revelation, must grope after God, as the principle of spiritual life, that they might find him to be a Spirit, and the source of all inte…
And this is what he says, "though he is not far from each one of us." For he is near to all as being everywhere in the inhabited world; and he is so near that without him one cannot live. [CHRYSOSTOM]
"That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being." This is said by Aratus the poet. Observe how he draws his arguments from things done by themselves, and from sayings of their own.
"You are near, Lord, and all your commandments are truth." God says elsewhere, "I am a God who is near and not a God who is far away, says the Lord." For the power of God is everywhere according to the word of creation and providence. Knowing this, Paul, addressing the Greeks as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, says, "We do not seek God far from us, for in him we live and move and are," and "the Spirit of the Lord has filled the earth." He is thus, for his part, close, but if we ourselves make no effort, though he be close, to draw near to him, we will not enjoy his nearness. For this reason, sinners are far from God: "Behold, those who distance themselves from you perish." But the just ones strive to approach God, for he is not present to them just as a creator, but he even shares himself with them: "And Moses alone draws near to God, but the rest do not draw near." According to the degree of will and perfection, the one who approaches God is that one about whom Paul says, "The one joined to the Lord is one spirit."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Areopagus — The Latin form of the Greek word rendered “Mars’ hill.” But it denotes also the council or court of justice which met in the open air on the hill. It was a rocky height to the west of the Acropolis…
Mars Hill — The Areopagus or rocky hill in Athens, north-west of the Acropolis, where the Athenian supreme tribunal and court of morals was held. From some part of this hill Paul delivered the address recorded…
Paul — =Saul (q.v.) was born about the same time as our Lord. His circumcision-name was Saul, and probably the name Paul was also given to him in infancy “for use in the Gentile world,” as “Saul” would be…
Athens · A city of Greece — A city of Greece
Creation · Exhibits: God as the sole object of worship — Exhibits: God as the sole object of worship
Gentiles · UNCLASSIFIED SCIPTURES RELATING TO — UNCLASSIFIED SCIPTURES RELATING TO
Heathen, The · Have: Evidence of the power of God — Have: Evidence of the power of God
Mars’ Hill · A hill in Athens — A hill in Athens
Religion · NATURAL — NATURAL
Seekers · 5:4-6,8,14;8:12; — 5:4-6,8,14;8:12;
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on Acts 17:27
That they should seek the Lord,.... Or "God", as the Alexandrian copy and others, and the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions read; their Creator, and kind Benefactor, and who has appointed their time of life, and their habitations for them; and this should engage them to seek to know him, who has done all this for them, and to fear and serve him, and to glorify his name:
if haply they might feel after him, and find him; which shows, that though it is possible for men, by a contemplation of the perfections of God, visible in the works of creation and providence, so to find God, as to know that there is one, and that there is but one God, who has made all things; and so as to be con…
Acts 17:26-29
26. And hath made of one blood all mankind to dwell upon all the face of the earth, and hath appointed the times before determined, and the bounds of their habitation. 27. That they might seek God, if peradventure they may grope [after] him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. 28. For in him we live, move, and have our being; as certain of your poets said, For we be also his generation. 29. Therefore, seeing we be the generation of God, we must not think that the Godhead is like to gold, or silver, or to stone, graven by the cunning cogitation of man.
26. And he hath made of one blood. Paul doth now show unto the men of Athens to what end mankind was crea…
Paul’s remarkable sermon in Athens reveals his versatility in preaching the Good News (Rom 11:14; 1 Cor 9:19-23; 10:33; cp. Acts 16:3; 17:2-3; 21:20-26). While Paul’s Greek audience did not know the Scriptures or have a tradition of monotheism as the Jews did, they did have a rich intellectual heritage. So Paul established a point of contact on the basis of an Athenian inscription to an Unknown God. He then explained God’s nature as the Creator (17:22-29), followed by God’s purpose as the Redeemer (17:30-31). • As he did elsewhere in his own writings (see 1 Cor 15:33; Titus 1:12), Paul made use of the Greek poets. There are several points of connection in this sermon with the Hymn to Zeus by…
