17:29
This verse is still so relevant today. God is not like man. We are made in His image, but we are creatures, He is the Creator. We are time bound, He is eternal. We are sinful, He is holy. The idols of the day were made of silver and gold, they were made by man’s artistic abilities, but ultimately they were not gods, just lumps of metal. Today our idols tend to be in the mind, but they share the same faults. They are based on a human perspective. This applies to the atheist and humanist when he discusses God, but they also apply to many Christians when we discuss God. It also often applies in our personal lives. A lot of our anxiety and fears are a results of looking at things from a human perspective, forgetting who God really is. We ought not to think this way, we need to learn to think in a Biblical way, in a Christlike way.
17:30
A rhetorical device was to have the punchline, the hard-hitting point at the end. Paul now comes to the punchline. The Greeks had a high opinion of themselves, just as liberal elites have a high opinion of themselves today, but in truth they were ignorant. There are a number of times where the Bible speaks of people acting in ignorance and seems to imply that God takes a lenient view. However, now God commands all people everywhere to repent. So often we treat the gospel as if it was a nice message just telling people that God loves them. That is not what we find in the Bible, that is an idol of our minds, a man-made gospel. The gospel is a message commanding all men everywhere to repent. It demands a response from us.
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