What Does Acts 14:15 Mean?
And saying, Men, why are you doing these things? We too are humankind, of like suffering with you, and bringing you the good news that you should turn from these empty things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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:THE KEY
The verse strips divinity from the messenger and redirects worship from empty things to the living Maker of all.
THE MEANING
The messengers share your human capacity to feel and suffer; they stand no higher than you. What is empty cannot give life: this verse names a turn away from vanities toward the living God, maker of heaven, earth, sea, and all within them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that someone who speaks of God is divine or deserves the place of God. The verse levels that distinction: the messenger shares your humanity; the living Creator is God.
THE ROOT
ὁμοιοπαθεῖς
homoio-patheis
GROWS FROM
πάσχω (paschō), in the compound ὁμοιοπαθής
to undergo, experience, or suffer
“humankind, of like suffering” in this verse is homoio-patheis. The Greek describes people who share the same human experiences and feelings. The sentence refuses to place its messengers above the people they address before turning attention to the living God.
ALSO GROWS
pathos: experience, feeling, or suffering
πάθος
It shows that “passions” here points to what people undergo, not to a special divine status.
sympaschō: to suffer or experience together
συμπάσχω
The shared pathos in the verse places speaker and hearer within the same human condition.
ματαίων
mataiōn
GROWS FROM
μαται-
matai-
empty, futile, or without lasting result
“empty things” in this verse is mataiōn. The word carries the sense of what cannot deliver what it promises. Beside the living God who made all things, these vanities are exposed as unable to give life.
ALSO GROWS
mataiotēs: futility, emptiness
ματαιότης
This noun makes the emptiness of the “vanities” explicit.
mataiologia: empty or futile talk
ματαιολογία
The same word family can describe speech that has no substance, extending the image beyond objects of worship.
ἐπιστρέφειν
epistrephein
GROWS FROM
στρέφω
strephō
to turn or twist
“turn” in this verse is epistrephein. The Greek frames the change as a redirection: away from what is empty and toward God. It is more than a revised opinion; the verse names a movement from one object of trust to another.
ALSO GROWS
epistrophē: turning, return
ἐπιστροφή
This noun preserves the sense of an actual change in direction.
apostrephō: turn away
ἀποστρέφω
It shares the turn-family and makes the departing side of the verse’s movement visible.
THE PATTERN
The living Creator stands against empty objects of worship, and turning toward the Maker reveals their limits.
For they themselves report concerning us what sort of entry we had to you, and how you turned around to God from the idols, to serve the living and true God.But the LORD God is truth, he is the living God and king of the ages. At his outburst the earth quakes, and the nations cannot hold his seething.For all the gods of the nations are nothings; but the LORD made the heavens.THE THREAD
For they themselves report concerning us what sort of entry we had to you, and how you turned around to God from the idols, to serve the living and true God.Both verses use the same Greek turn-family, στρέφω (strephō), and describe God as living, from ζάω (zaō), to live. Together they show the turn as a movement away from what is empty and toward the source of life.
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