THE MARKETPLACE

JUST THINKING:

The marketplace is an avenue or a medium through which people transact businesses, buy, sell goods and services. It is not necessarily a physical place where people meet to buy and sell because people transact businesses online, via telephone, at supermarkets and stores and at a particular place.

In the marketplace, a lot of people transact business and a lot of things go on on a daily basis as well. Some are involved in dubious transactions, some are pick pockets and thieves, some are spies and some are genuine both buyers and sellers.

Acts 17:5 NKJV says, "But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people".

The above scripture shows that there are evil people in the marketplace. Other translations call them people with bad character, worthless loafers, certain vile fellows of the rabble, thugs, lewd fellows of the baser sort, bunch of brawlers, trouble makers and so on. 

This shows that there are various kinds of people (sellers, buyers and observers) who operate at the marketplace. Some sell inferior and substandard goods for the price of the genuine goods. Some shortchange the buyers and vice versa, some steal from the buyers and so on. This does not mean that everyone at the marketplace is fraudulent, evil and bad because some sell standard goods at the best price. 

Also,  the office place is also called a marketplace. There are a lot of personalities, politicking and intrigues in offices.  People back-stab, frustrate and set up themselves in offices. A man left his company for a better position in another company. One of his ex-colleagues who had a personal grievance with him knew someone in the company that man went to. He called his friend and told him lies about the man who had left their company and that friend of his reported the lies to the boss of the man who had had a career change. Three days after the man resumed,  he was sacked because his ex-colleague betrayed, back-stabbed and told lies about him.

Though,  there are bad people everywhere, we should not be afraid because God is with us. If we say we will not go to the marketplace for business, hunger and poverty will take over us. Also,  we should be diligent, wise, tactful, open our eyes, be slow to speak, be informed in the marketplace because anything and everything goes in it.