Good Teacher
Dr. Doug Posey
e*sermon
It’s hard not to laugh sometimes at those commercials that show you how bad off you are without the product they’re advertising. You know, the scene of the person performing some relatively simple task the old way, almost always done in black-and-white, with the poor individual wrestling with a hose, or inferior frying pan, or pillow that robs you of sleep. About the time you realize you’re just like the loser on the screen, there’s the answer—the product that turns your life around. It brings the color back. That is, until the next inadequate issue in your deficient existence, like your sunglasses that are making your vision worse, unless you have the good fortune of discovering the right ones, the ones those advertisers are selling.
As long as products have been sold, shrewd salespeople have been careful to create the need in their potential customer for their wares. Who wants to sell anybody something they don’t believe they want or need? The real skill is in convincing the potential buyer of the need. Especially if they don’t really need it! On those commercials, that’s what the phony urgency is about. “Order now and…” Then, they offer two of the items, or more, “But wait…”!
Many of us have fallen for those ads. Those products—if they didn’t break on about the second use—may be filling drawers, or packed away awaiting the next garage sale. They’re not all bad. Many work just fine, but you really didn’t need them. It’s the ones that don’t work that make people, like me, skeptical of the ones that really do.
Then there is the one thing that everyone needs—the Gospel. Yet, so many are skeptical and don’t go for it. Why? Well, we can actually learn from the shrewd salesperson. What do they do? They’re very convincing when it comes to helping the consumer need what is being offered. It’s amazing how in a sixty-second ad, advertisers convince viewers of the inadequacy of whatever might be their current state of life in a particular area. It needs to change. Then, the good news—they have the answer, for just $19.95…but wait!…
Have we really helped people understand what’s missing in their lives without the influence of God’s Word? Why is its influence and general importance diminishing in our culture? If we’re doing our job, shouldn’t they be to the point of seeing the need? Instead, there’s a lot of misunderstanding concerning the Scriptures out there, as screenwriter Judd Aptow’s reaction to the Bible illustrates,
The New York Times Sunday Book Review regularly interviews a writer about what books he or she is reading. In June 2015 they asked the screenwriter Judd Apatow questions like: What books are currently on your night stand? Who is your favorite novelist of all time? What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? When they asked him, "What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn't? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?" Apatow replied: "The Bible. It's just not working for me. I wish it was. Wouldn't it be great if it did work for me and I had the peace one gets when knowing the universe is just and kind and guided by eternal intelligence? Maybe I'm reading it wrong."The New York Times Sunday Review, "Judd Apatow: By the Book" (6-8-15)
Where did Judd get his impression of what the Bible was supposed to be? His expectation was so far off, of course he was disappointed. No one helped him believe what his real need was, what authentic peace is about, Who rules the universe and is truly omniscient. If he only understood how deficient he was in his grasp of those things, he might have not have been so disappointed with the Bible. We don’t need TV commercials, God’s people just really need to believe in the product, know it, and make people aware.
“…walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God”
—COLOSSIANS 1:10