<p>14:17 <i>A</i><i>nd yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave you rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness</i>- AV &ldquo;gave <i>us </i>rain&hellip;&rdquo;. I suggest that the &quot;us&quot; refers to Paul and Barnabas and faithful Israel. Paul is saying that <em>you</em> are in a position of worshipping idols, but <em>we</em> (Paul and Barnabas) are appealing to you to change, and believe in the true God- not in ourselves. What was God's witness to the Gentile world? An obedient Israel. That, at least, was His intention. That obedient Israel should have blessing of fruitful seasons, food and gladness. These are all terms taken from the Old Testament descriptions of how God would bless <em>Israel</em> (not the Gentile world) if <em>they</em> were obedient. Jupiter was the god of the air and responsible for rain; Mercury was responsible for food. But Lycaonia (14:6) was famous for droughts and famine- the references can be found in standard commentaries (Vine, Matthew Henry etc.). Jupiter and Mercury had <em>not</em> given those Gentiles these blessings. But Yahweh, the one true God, had given these things to faithful Israel. Thereby He was a witness to those Gentiles, that they should accept the God of Israel. Paul is saying 'God let you Gentiles live as you wished. But obedient Israel were intended to be His witness to you- <em>they</em> received rain, fruitful seasons, food and gladness from their God, Yahweh. But <em>you</em> didn't- your Jupiter and Mercury were unable to give those blessings to you. So don't treat <em>us</em> as gods, quit your idols, and turn to the one true God of Israel'.</p><p>This naturally raises the question: To what purpose then was that witness, seeing at that time His plan was with the Jews and not the Gentiles? Perhaps we can infer from this that if anyone really thought about creation, they would have perceived God's witness and come to Him. Ps. 19:1-4 appears to say the same: &quot;The heavens declare the glory of God, the expanse above shows His handiwork. Day after day they pour forth speech, and night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their voice has gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world&quot;. This last verse is quoted in Rom. 10:18 in order to prove that &quot;Whoever believes in him shall not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile&quot; (Rom. 10:11,12). Paul interprets the &quot;whoever&quot; as meaning that both Jew and Gentile were witnessed to even in Old Testament times, and therefore there ought to be no barrier at all to taking the Gospel to Gentiles. Without access to the Bible or the witness of Israel and their religion, we can only conclude that God's level of acceptance of Old Testament Gentiles was quite low in terms of detailed knowledge. Admittedly there are few if any examples recorded of such Gentiles in Old Testament times coming to perceive the witness of creation and respond to it. But it would be a weak argument from silence to say there were no such cases. For the Old Testament is the history of God's old testament or covenant, which was with Israel.</p>