Target

I don't know how you feel about this and I would love some feedback. Maybe I am just old fashioned. I think it should be against the law to use great songs to advertise products. Example: Mr. Gates bought a Rolling Stones song as a promo for Microsoft. I am sure you can think of countless others. Last night, I had enough. I saw a Target ad that used a Beatles song, and to make matters worse, they used it as a play on words. The song was "Hello, Goodbye" and they changed it to "Hello, Good Buy."

That sickened me. Art is art and music is music, for what it was intended for, not to be sold out to a mass marketer who wants to use a well known phrase to sell merchandise. Whoever owns "Hello Goodbye" (Michael Jackson?) did it for the money. Crass commercialism if you ask me. Maybe we should start a campaign.

Having said that, I know that hymn writers have used beer hall songs to go along with their sacred lyrics. But, that is us stealing from them :) dare I say redeeming?

Having said that, I have to confess that I had to think tonight about other written words, namely the Bible. I use scripture in a way it was not intended to be used. It can sometimes be "handy stuff to know" like, "God works all things together for good" or "God is sovereign, I will pray for you." For those of us who are well versed, we can always pull a verse out for the occasion.

So tonight I am thinking about the art of the gospel and what it is intended to portray and how I can be careful to handle the word rightly and divide it well. It is living, active, sharp, does not return void and it is to be held in high esteem.

We often have a low view of the Word I think. We can mark it up, make notes in the margins and treat it like a history or text book. It is the Word of God. I remember growing up as a Catholic and the bible being sacred (maybe past the bounds of good theology) but sacred. Held in high esteem.

So, should we start a campaign to have a higher view of the Word of God, for the glory of the one who wrote it? Just thinking.