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Everyone Saw It. I Can Prove It!

Author

Wes Schaeffer
June 09, 2019

From today’s reading…

They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,

‘Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?

Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?’”

The seven-week Easter season concludes today with Pentecost, where we read about how the Apostles 

…were all filled with the Holy Spirit

and began to speak in different tongues,

as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.”

When it comes to human persuasion, i.e. sales and marketing, which includes evangelizing because “you can’t save souls in an empty church” (Ogilvy), specifics sell.

Intuitively we know that specifics—people from 17 different nations/backgrounds/nationalities—can be verified, whereas “everyone was there” just isn’t convincing.

For example:

“COME ON DOWN. WE HAVE MILES AND MILES OF INVENTORY!”

“THIS IS OUR BIGGEST SALE OF THE YEAR!”

“WE’VE SAVED HUNDREDS OF CUSTOMERS A LOT ON THEIR INSTALLATIONS!”

Compare that to, 

“I’ve helped over 2,355 business owners in at least 29 countries generate and automate over $165 million in sales since 2006.”

This is why it’s interesting and compelling to see how today’s first reading from Acts concludes: with a detailed list of witnesses who were present at Pentecost.

  1. “Parthians,

  2. Medes, and

  3. Elamites,

  4. inhabitants of Mesopotamia,

  5. Judea and

  6. Cappadocia,

  7. Pontus and

  8. Asia,

  9. Phrygia and

  10. Pamphylia,

  11. Egypt and

  12. the districts of Libya near Cyrene,

  13. as well as travelers from Rome,

  14. both Jews and

  15. converts to Judaism,

  16. Cretans and

  17. Arabs,…

yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.”

Notice that Peter or Paul didn’t hide out in an obscure city or cave in the woods and come back with a feel-good story.

This isn’t the story of James saying,

Okay, y’all.

Guess what?

I got like, this cool telescope and I like, looked up at the moon, and scrolling across the moon was a secret language that only I could read with the telescope.

But I spoke to my friends and they wrote what I saw.

But an asteroid landed on the telescope and smashed it into ashes.

So you’re gonna have to trust me that what I saw was real and what I interpreted was accurate.

Now pay me 10% of what ya got because that’s what the moon movie said you should pay me as the grand pooh bah.

Which reminds me…I’m the grand poo bah.”

Nope. The number of witnesses of today’s events was in the hundreds—maybe thousands—and not hundreds of tight knit people who would be motivated to tell a tall tale to benefit themselves.

This large group of witnesses would be like getting San Francisco Democrats to agree with Dallas Republicans to agree with New York Antifa members on what they saw.

Miracles like that are given and documented to help you…

Stay the course. Keep the faith. Endure.