This was the message at Don Diamond’s funeral as Don was a great salesman, at the end selling appliances. I talked about the varieties of microwaves available to the American consumer such as Maytag, Frigidaire, GE, and Samsung and occasionally there comes a new and different version needing a salesman with the details. [The new “microwave” is Christianity and the salesman is Paul.]. We find our story in Acts 17. First notice the “sales floor” at an appliance superstore – notice all the microwaves. Note the salesman’s engaging of people and talk of a revolutionary “microwave”. People finally gather around him to hear his presentation (some are just interested in staying abreast of anything new):
16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. 17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. 18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? 20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore, we want to know what these things mean.” 21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
The great salesman that he was, Paul began by building a bridge to the potential buyer:
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you.
These were wise shoppers looking for the best deal, the greatest bang for their buck and wanting the most features available. For such a consumer, he had the product. Here were its features:
24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
- God is creator of all and rules over all.
- God is spirit and is only worshiped in spirit.
- God is NOT needy.
- God is the giver and caller of life.
- God has put limits on man in order that man might realize his need and look to God.
- God is near and knowable.
- God is highly engaged in man’s life.
- God is not of man’s making.
- God calls all men to repent.
- God will judge the world in Jesus who was dead and resurrected.
So what makes this new “microwave” so different, superior, and desirable? You can put a dead chicken in it and it will come out alive! This “microwave” is like no other!
Paul’s sales pitch – every sales pitch – got three responses: 1. No! 2. Let us think about it. 3. Yes – “I’ll buy it!” 32 Then when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” 33… some men joined him and believed.
So, your response? No? Later? or Yes? Today is the day to buy as tomorrow may not come for you. In?
a PK Musing 
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