24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
In verses 24-25, Paul made four statements about the God of the Bible:
-God created the world.
-God is sovereign over everything.
-God does not need anything.
-God sustains the world.
17:24
God, who made the world [cosmos] and everything in it,
Paul began with the First Cause, the God who created the world. The thesis that there is one God and He made everything in the world ran counter to the philosophies of Greece. It also flies in the face of evolutionists today, who attribute what they see to chance.
The emphasis on “everything” demonstrates how the worship of many gods in the pantheon is false. They believed each of their gods was one aspect of reality; however, the monotheist God created every single thing in the universe.
PRINCIPLE:
We need to emphasize points of contact with those who do not know Christ.
APPLICATION:
The biblical irreducible minimum of the origin of creation is that God made the world and everything in it (Ge 1:1; Ps 146:5-6; Isa 40:28; 45:18; Jer 10:12; 32:17; Zech 12:1; Eph 3:9; Col 1:16; Rev 4:11; 10:6). These passages do not present God as a remote cause who allows the evolutionary process to take place.
The Bible does not offer formal arguments for the existence of God. Revelation is a matter of trust in what God had to say on pages He made known to men (He 11:6). Christianity does not rest its case on blind faith but on propositions God outlined in His Word. God’s revelation is logical and corresponds to fact.
The Bible argues man can know God by creation (Ps 19:1; Ro 1:19). There is a Cause to the effect we observe in the world. It is impossible to have a series of cause and effect in endless regress; we must ultimately come to a cause (cosmological argument for the existence of God). Since God created the universe, it has design. Design requires a Designer. Everywhere we see design in the field of biology and the gene, in the order of the universe, in the human body’s structure, among many other areas of creation.
