Passage

Acts 17.28

Book: Acts · NASB95

"for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.'" (Acts 17:28, NASB95)

The hinge verse of Paul's Areopagus sermon: Paul anchors the gospel in general revelation by quoting two pagan Greek poets (Epimenides and Aratus) and turning their lines into an argument that the God they grope after is the Creator who has now spoken decisively in Christ. The single verse most-cited in ris3n's notes for natural theology, divine aseity, and the contingency argument - because it is the New Testament's most direct precedent for using non-Christian thought to point toward the Christian God.

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"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; 27. that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us:"

"28. for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."

"29. Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and device of man. 30. The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now he commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent:" (Acts 17:26-30, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"26. He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27. that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us."

"28. ‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’"

"29. Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man. 30. The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent," (Acts 17:26-30, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"26. And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27. 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:"

"28. For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."

"29. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:" (Acts 17:26-30, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"26. He made also of one blood every nation of men, to dwell upon all the face of the earth, having ordained times before appointed, and the bounds of their dwellings, 27. to seek the Lord, if perhaps they did feel after Him and find,, though, indeed, He is not far from each one of us,"

"28. for in Him we live, and move, and are; as also certain of your poets have said: For of Him also we are offspring."

"29. 'Being, therefore, offspring of God, we ought not to think the Godhead to be like to gold, or silver, or stone, graving of art and device of man; 30. the times, indeed, therefore, of the ignorance God having overlooked, doth now command all men everywhere to reform," (Acts 17:26-30, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Paul the Apostle
Audience: the Court of the Areopagus - Athenian intellectual aristocrats, including Epicurean and Stoic philosophers
Location: the Areopagus (Mars Hill), Athens
Time period: Paul's second missionary journey, c. AD 50-51

Theological reading

The verse is structurally the pivot of the Areopagus address. Verses 22-25 establish God as transcendent Creator (the "unknown God" the altar acknowledges) who needs nothing from human hands. Verses 26-27 ground all nations in one origin and frame the human telos as seeking after God. Verse 28 then delivers the argument that bridges pagan thought to Christian truth, and verses 29-31 turn the bridge into a summons: idolatry must end, repentance is commanded, and a man has been appointed to judge - vindicated by resurrection.

Paul quotes two non-Christian sources. The first clause - "in Him we live and move and exist" - is widely identified with Epimenides of Crete (6th c. BC), from a hymn addressed to Zeus. The second - "we are His offspring" - is from Aratus of Soli's Phaenomena (3rd c. BC), also addressed to Zeus. The hermeneutical move is striking: Paul does not endorse Zeus-worship, but he affirms that the pagan poets, reaching beyond their own theology, expressed truths about creaturely dependence on the divine that are properly fulfilled in the God of Israel. The Greek for "in Him" (en autō) is locative-causal: humans exist within God's sustaining activity, not as parts of God (pantheism) but as creatures of His continuous upholding. This is the New Testament's clearest expression of what classical theism calls divine aseity-and-conservation: God is the ground of all derivative being, and creatures persist only by His ongoing causal sustenance (see Aseity and Argument from the Continuance of Being).

Scholarly discussion turns mainly on three points. (1) Source identification: the Epimenides attribution rests on a 9th-century Syriac commentary by Isho'dad of Merv, which preserves a Greek quatrain ascribed to him - some critics doubt the attribution while granting an early Greek source. The Aratus attribution is solid (the line is in extant Phaenomena 5). (2) The theological status of pagan religion: is Paul affirming continuity with Greek thought (an inclusivist reading) or using Greek thought as a contact point while preaching a discontinuous gospel (the dominant evangelical reading)? The latter fits Acts 17:30-31 better - Paul's bridge ends in the demand for universal repentance. (3) Implications for natural theology: thinkers as diverse as Aquinas, Calvin, Kuyper, and Plantinga read Acts 17 as the New Testament's warrant for taking general revelation seriously while distinguishing it from saving knowledge of Christ.

Apologetically, Acts 17:28 is doing extraordinary work in ris3n's notes. The phrase "in Him we live and move and have our being" is invoked under at least eight distinct arguments - from Aquinas's Five Ways through the contingency argument, the argument from consciousness, the argument from the continuance of being, and the transcendental argument. The verse is canonical proof that the New Testament itself authorizes engaging non-Christian intellectual sources, looking for what they got right about reality (general revelation), and rerouting that to the gospel.

Key words

G2198 - zao, zao, "to live" - the verb in "we live"; conveys living dependence on God.
G1510 - eimi, eimi, "to be" - the verb in "we have our being / we exist"; the ontological clause, ground for aseity and contingency arguments.
G2316 - theos, theos, "God" - the term Paul appropriates from Greek philosophical usage and refits to the God of Israel.

Theological themes

General revelation. Pagan poets gleaned true things about God by reflection on creation; this is the New Testament's clearest endorsement.
Divine aseity and conservation. Creatures exist "in" God in the sense of being continuously upheld by Him; pantheism explicitly ruled out in 17:29.
Contact point apologetics. Paul models meeting non-Christian thought on its own ground while preaching a discontinuous gospel.
Universal repentance summons. The natural-theology bridge ends not in mere theism but in the call to repent before the judge appointed by resurrection.
Anti-idolatry. "We are His offspring" forbids picturing the Godhead as gold or silver - the divine cannot be imaged by what humans craft.

Cross-references

Acts 17.22-31 - the full Areopagus address.
Acts 17.16-34 - the larger Athens episode with reception (mockery, deferral, conversion).
Romans 1.18-21 - Paul's other major statement on general revelation: God's invisible attributes seen through creation.
Hebrews 1.3 - Christ upholds all things by the word of His power - the New Testament's strongest "continuance of being" verse.
Colossians 1.17 - "in Him all things hold together" - the same conservation logic in cosmic Christology.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.