All People are the Children of God

Because people keep posting stupid ideas that the Bible doesn't teach that God is the Father of all spirits, and therefore all spirits are the Children of God, here is an extensive and irrefutable presentation on the topic.  

After talking to literally dozens of anti-Mormons who raise this issue, 100% admit they are wrong when they hear these scriptures:
Acts 17:27-29 27 [God] isn't far from any of us, 28 and he gives us the power to live, to move, and to be who we are. “We are his children,” just as some of your poets have said. 29 Since we are God's children..., "

Hard to imagine what an alternate meaning is there, what with Paul speaking to unconverted pagans and affirming "We are God's children".

But it is reinforced by this simple statement in Hebrews 12:9 "Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?"(NASB)

Let's see: Paul says we are all the children of God. The word he uses in Greek is "genos", which most translations have as "offspring", which further emphasizes a member of and descending from God's family. In fact, the very literal NASB translates Rev 22:16 as Jesus stating of himself: "I am the root and the descendant [Gk. genos] of David..." You have to be careful of not definition shopping, but this is 100% justifiable and contextually correct.

Some critics point out that John 1:12 says that believers are given the right to "become children of god", and so if they will "become" then logically they can't already be one. I would of course agree. But it shows an ignorance of the words being used, and their differences.

The "children" of John 1:12 are the Greek word "tekna". The word implies a dependency to your parents or, for example, a teacher or leader. So to become a "tekna of God", one becomes fully dependent upon him and his spirit in response to exercising faith. Thus the idea of "sons of God" in the Old and New Testaments is those children are heirs of God and divine, and more fully grown. The 'genos' of Acts 17:29 has no implication of ongoing dependency. It is describing the paternity of people alone. I used to joke in my Greek classes in translation exercises that "tekna" were 'lads', not infants, but not adult children. Genos, on the other hand, is just about who you are related to.

In summary, Paul explicitly teaches all people are the children of God, he being the father of their spirits both before and after their conversion to Christ. The only way one can deny that is to ignore the actual words of the Bible.