Acts 14:15
From worthless things to the living God
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγελίζομαι euangelizomai · to speak good news
Original
Translations
“Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.
And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein:
and saying, “Men, why do you do these things? And we are similar-feeling men with you, proclaiming good news to you, to turn to the living God from these vanities, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all the things in them;
가로되 여러분이여 어찌하여 이러한 일을 하느냐 우리도 너희와 같은 성정을 가진 사람이라 너희에게 복음을 전하는 것은 이 헛된 일을 버리고 천지와 바다와 그 가운데 만유를 지으시고 살아계신 하나님께로 돌아오라 함이라
이르되, 선생들아, 어찌하여 너희가 이런 일들을 행하느냐? 우리도 너희와 똑같은 성정을 가진 사람들이라. 너희에게 복음을 선포하는 것은 너희가 이런 헛된 일들을 버리고 하늘과 땅과 바다와 그 안에 있는 모든 것을 만드신 분 곧 살아 계신 하나님께로 돌아오게 하려 함이라.
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on Acts 14:8-18 as a whole
All things are possible to those that believe. When we have faith, that most precious gift of God, we shall be delivered from the spiritual helplessness in which we were born, and from the dominion of sinful habits since formed; we shall be made able to stand upright and walk…
Read the whole commentary →Wesley Acts 14:15
To turn from these vanities - From worshipping any but the true God. He does not deign to call them gods; unto the living God - Not like these dead idols; who made the heaven and the earth, the sea - Each of which they supposed to have its own gods.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
At Lystra a man lame from birth stood up and walked, and the crowd decided that gods had come down in human form. As the priest of Zeus prepared a sacrifice, Barnabas and Paul tore their clothes and rushed into the crowd. This verse is what they shouted.
“Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.
Acts 14:15In the Lycaonian language the crowd cried, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" (Acts 14:11). They called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, "because he was the chief speaker" (Acts 14:12), and the priest of Zeus, whose temple stood just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the gates. Tearing one's clothes was how a Jew answered blasphemy. This is the first sermon in Acts addressed to a pagan crowd with no knowledge of the Scriptures, and so it begins not with Israel's history but with God the Creator. The next verse goes on: God "has not left Himself without testimony to His goodness" (Acts 14:17), giving rain and fruitful seasons.
The verb is , present middle participle, euangelizomenoi, with "you" as its object; the content of the good news follows as an infinitive, epistrephein, "to turn." For pagans the good news is first heard as a call to turn around, and the verse says from what and to whom: from these worthless things to the living God. "Worthless" is , empty, coming to nothing. Paul would later describe the Thessalonians in the same terms: "you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God" (1 Thessalonians 1:9). "Human like you" translates homoiopatheis, "of like feelings," the word James uses of Elijah, "a man just like us" (James 5:17).
Strikingly, the KJV has no gospel word here at all: "and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God." The BSB, "We are bringing you good news," and the LSV, "proclaiming good news to you," restore what the Greek verb says. The KJV's "Sirs" is courteous English for a plain Greek "Men" (andres), and its "men of like passions with you" keeps the old sense of "passions": what a person feels and suffers.
Wesley notes Paul's restraint in naming the idols: "He does not deign to call them gods" Wesley. On the God who made heaven, earth and sea, he explains: "Each of which they supposed to have its own gods" Wesley. Matthew Henry observes the change of approach: "When the apostles preached to the Jews, who hated idolatry, they had only to preach the grace of God in Christ; but when they had to do with the Gentiles, they must set right their mistakes in natural religion" Matthew Henry. And of their torn clothes: they could bear talk of stoning but not of worship, "being more concerned for God's honour than their own" Matthew Henry.
The gospel has something to say even to someone who has never opened the Bible: there is a God who gives rain and fills hearts with gladness, and He is the living God. The men who brought that news refused to be honoured for it. They were, they said, only human.