Acts 17:2 Consorting with Paul and Silas. I. Here is the chief object of Christian faith the Lord Jesus carrying on in His very name the assurance of the things that are necessary for our life and salvation. II. The means used to produce faith or persuasion are now almost the same as those employ... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 17:16 Observe Three Things in this Passage. I. What St. Paul saw at Athens. He saw a city wholly given to idolatry. Idols met his eye in every street. The temples of idol gods and goddesses occupied every prominent position. And yet this city, be it remembered, was probably the most favourable... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 17:19 I. It may throw a fresh light on the study of the Bible if you look at it with this thought of the contrast and contest between religion and revelation. The Old Testament is not chiefly a record of the Divine origin and establishment and sanctions of a religion. To represent it as this is... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 17:20 God of the Times of Ignorance. Notice three general principles which we shall do well to have clearly in mind always when we read our Bibles. I. There is a progress in the Divine revelation in the Bible, a progress from limited to fuller revelation, from smaller to larger knowledge, fr... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 17:23 Paul declared to the Athenians the unknown God: (1) in His relation to nature, (2) in His relation to man. I. God in relation to nature. (1) The Apostle begins by affirming that God made the world and all things therein that He was the Creator of the universe. (2) This idea means that G... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 17:26 St. Paul at Athens. I. The Jewish nation had existed to be a witness for this universal fellowship among the nations. It had existed as a witness against that which tended to divide them and set them at war. It existed to say, "The living and true God has created you all to be one." No... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 17:27 The Voice of History. I. History is the preacher of God. We may learn from it just the refutation of the fool when he hath said in his heart "There is no God." The blind man might as well assert that there is no sun. All history, all Scripture, all nature, all experience, refutes him. W... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 17:28 I. Since God is everywhere, we move, speak, act, think _in_God. We rise up, we lie down, we eat, we drink, we work, we rest, we speak, in God, we pray to God, or men forget God; not only with God's eye ever upon us, as much upon us as if in the whole circuit of created beings there were,... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 17:32 The Resurrection of the Dead. Observe: I. That the resurrection is exhibited in the Bible, not as the speculative truth which must be believed because taught, but with which otherwise we have no close concern: it is rather set forth as so intimately bound up with our salvation, that to... [ Continue Reading ]