In past generations, He let all nations go their own way.
Parallel translations
- WEB who in the generations gone by allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.
- KJV Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.
- NKJV who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways.
- NASB In past generations He permitted all the nations to go their own ways;
- NLT In the past he permitted all the nations to go their own ways,
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
In past generations God let the nations go their own way. God's patience permitted the nations' wandering before the gospel reached them.
Overview
Paul acknowledges a period when God did not send the law and prophets to the Gentile nations, allowing them to follow their own paths. This does not excuse their idolatry but explains God's forbearance, much as Paul argues in Romans 1. It also highlights the new era now dawning, in which God summons all nations to repent through Christ (Acts 17:30).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Acts 17:30Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent.
- Ps 81:12So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
- Rom 1:28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
- Ps 147:20He has done this for no other nation; they do not know His judgments. Hallelujah!
- Mic 4:5Though each of the peoples may walk in the name of his god, yet we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.
- Eph 2:12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
- 1 Pet 4:3For you have spent enough time in the past carrying out the same desires as the Gentiles: living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.
- Rom 1:21–25For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.
- Hos 4:17Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone!
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Acts is the risen Christ continuing his work by the Spirit through the church, as the apostles preach that there is salvation in no other name under heaven.
How Acts 14:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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