Romans 1:21
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, rneither were thankful; sbut became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
διότι γνόντες τὸν Θεόν, οὐχ ὡς Θεὸν ἐδόξασαν ἢ εὐχαρίστησαν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐματαιώθησαν ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ἡ ἀσύνετος αὐτῶν καρδία.
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Acts 14:17 Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.
Psalms 106:13 They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel:
2 Timothy 3:2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
s:
Deuteronomy 28:28 The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:
Deuteronomy 28:29 And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.
Deuteronomy 29:4 Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
2 Kings 17:15 And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.
Jeremiah 2:5 ¶Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?
1 Corinthians 3:20 And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.
1 Corinthians 1:20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1 Corinthians 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
Ephesians 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
Ephesians 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
1 Thessalonians 4:7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
either this must be referred to the words immediately foregoing, and then it is a reason why the Gentiles are inexcusable,
&c.; or else it refers to Rom 1:18, and then it is a proof of their withholding the truth in unrighteousness, because, & c.
they had a natural knowledge of God, it was taught them, as before, by the light of natnre, and by the book of the creatures. Though this was not sufficient to save them, yet it was sufficient to save them without excuse.
they did not conceive of him and worship him as became his Divine excellencies and perfections; see Psa 29:2.
they did not own God to be the Author and Giver of all the good things they enjoyed, and return him thanks accordingly; but referred all to chance and fortune, their own prudence and providence, the influence of the stars, &c.
or reasonings. This hath chief respect to the conception and opinions that the heathen framed to themselves of the Divine Being. For though some denied there was a God, and others doubted thereof, yet generally it was acknowledged by them; yea, some owned a multiplicity of gods, and those either corporeal or incorporeal. Others acknowledged but one God, as Plato, Aristotle, &c.; but then they either denied his providence, as the Peripatetics, or tied him to second or inferior causes, as the Stoics. This is the vanity which the apostle here speaketh of. Note also, that idols, the frame of idle brains, are called vanities: see Deu 32:21 Jer 10:15 Act 14:15.
by the heart is meant the mind, their very understandings were darkened, the natural reason in them was obscured. This was a just judgment upon them for their abuse of knowledge, and pride, of which in the next verse. {see Rom 1:22}