For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
For in him we live, and move, and have our being, х kai (G2532) esmen (G2070)] - more simply, 'live, and move, and exist.' This means, not merely (as Meyer explains it), 'Without Him we have no life, nor that motion which every inanimate nature displays, nor even existence itself:' it means that God is the living immanent Principle of all these in men. It will be observed that the words, "in Him we live, and move, and exist," constitute in themselves a descending series; but viewed in relation to the speaker's purpose, they have (as Lechler notices) all the force of an ascending climax. Life, it is true, is more than motion, and motion more than bare being; but the apostle's thought is, 'Without God-isolated and apart from God-we should have no life; consequently, no motion; and so, no existence.'
As certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. This is the first half of the fifth line, word for word, of an astronomical poem of Aratus, a Greek countryman of the apostle's and his predecessor by about three centuries. It is found also (nearly as here) in a religious hymn of Cleanthes of Troas, a contemporary of Aratus. But, as our speaker hints, the same sentiment is to be found in other Greek poets. They meant it, doubtless, in a pantheistic sense; but the truth which it expresses the apostle turns to his own purpose-to teach a pure, personal, spiritual Theism. Probably during his quiet retreat at Tarsus (Acts 9:30), revolving his special vocation to the Gentiles, he gave himself to the study of so much Greek literature as might be turned to Christian account in his future work. Hence, this and his other quotations from the Greek poets (1 Corinthians 15:33; Titus 1:12).