>Sell It Not

“Buy the truth and sell it not; also wisdom, instruction, and understanding.” (Proverbs 23:23)

This is a verse from the Bible that I have pondered for some time. In light of my theories about profitable stories through Truth in Fiction and my very own Amazon Store, some clarification is in order. I could go into great length about its context, quoting the original Greek, and such. But it is more upon my heart to share what it seems to say to me.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=fitmedia-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1591843162&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrAccording to Seth Godin, in a recent blog post, “Art is a gift. You can sell the souvenir, the canvas, the recording… but the idea itself is free, and the generosity is a critical part of making art.” To me, the Biblical commandment to “buy the truth” is a commandment to those who seek wisdom to volunteer a fair compensation. It is not the job of the wiseman to demand pay for his thoughts, but the responsibility of the seeker to offer.

Any man who would take art (even “free” art) without feeling the need to return the value, surely is in need of the wisdom it possesses. This reminds me of a story I once heard about a thief who broke into a Christian home.

The thief took what he could of value from the home. He was indiscriminant and irreverent. He even grabbed the family Bible, but seeing no value in it, he tore several of the fine paper pages from the book and discarded the rest.

As the story goes, his intention was to use the paper to roll his cigarettes. However, he wound up reading the pages, and was eventually led to Christ.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, would you agree that this fictitious scenario demonstrates the principle of the above verse? Perhaps we should be less concerned with our rights of copy and more concerned with the wisdom contained therein.

The value of capturing truth is in becoming an authority on truth. Should you desire wealth, or the fruits thereof, your honest endorsements will make you a millionaire.

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Quotes

"For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction."

- Kahlil Gibran

"All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching?"

- Nicholas Johnson, author:

How to Talk Back to Your

Television Set

"We need the media to be presenting pictures of possibility not just continuing to be prophets of doom and gloom."

- Kevin Kelly, Wired

"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it."

- Adam Smith

"And the science is overwhelming that for creative, conceptual tasks, those if-then rewards rarely work and often do harm."

- Daniel Pink, author: Drive

"I wish we had a Problem-Solver Party because we have very big problems that need solving. And I think a lot of our attention is addressed to the wrong problems."

- David McCullough, author: 1776

"The goal shouldn't be to have a lot of people to yell at, the goal probably should be to have a lot of people who choose to listen."

- Seth Godin, author: Tribes

"The role of the media is to disseminate information, highlight important current events, and to essentially stand as a witness, an observer of cultural, political, community, and educational events. A healthy media provides a check on the government and increases the political astuteness of republican citizens."
- Stephen Palmer, The Center for Social Leadership

"Advertisers and politicians rely on a half-educated public, on people who know little outside of their own specialty, because such people are easy to deceive with so-called experts, impressive technical or sociological jargon, and an effective set of logical and psychological tricks."

- Robert Harris

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

- John Adams

"I know no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education."

- Thomas Jefferson

"Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise--as priests, prophets or philosophers are wise. Specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine."

- Allan Bloom, author: The Closing of the American Mind

"He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed."

(Proverbs 13:20)

"If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"I learn a lot from TV. Everytime someone turns one on, I go in the other room and read a book."

- Groucho Marx, comedian: Duck Soup

"There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought."

- Charles Kingsley

>Sell It Not

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