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And thus were born the classified ads.

Little did Ole John know the woes he had created with which we are yet contending. And the concept of advertising via the mass media has mushroomed exponentially. Today we are beset almost every waking moment by the attempting manipulations by someone’s effort to channel the public’s desires into lucrative results for themselves. Whether it be television commercials as we dress for work, billboard advertisements while driving to the office, popups when we turn on our computers or undesired emails on our I-phones — there seems to be no escape from John Campbell’s bright idea of simply not wasting any opportunity no matter how brief or minuscule to pressure the public with a sales pitch.

Alongside the exploding commercial enterprise of advertising, unknown to most, there has also evolved a highly developed field of ethics governing advertising. Here in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission is charged with policing deceptive practices, violations of privacy and harmful portrayals in commercials. It is easy for the man-on-the-street to wring his hands and lament the underhanded methods of some who would abuse the freedom for personal monetary gain, but there does seems to exist an unquestionable rule that for every great idea that might benefit mankind there is always someone seeking to demean the good concept.

There is no doubt but that the trade commission has its plate of responsibility overloaded.

But this has also sparked an awareness of appreciation in my understanding of ethical professionals. Despite the known fact that there are lowlifes in perhaps every field of commerce who do not give a second thought to false advertisement, condescending portrayals or misrepresentation of products for purposes of profit, there are also upstanding business professionals whose “word is their bond.� It has been my good fortune to have known a number of such people, and I count their friendships to have been privileged relationships. I hope you have experienced the same.

Such seems to have been the lifestyle of which Jesus spoke when He taught in the celebrated Sermon on the Mount, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than that comes from evil.�

When the wonderfully insightful New Testament scholar George Buttrick was commenting on this observation of Jesus, he wrote, “Law courts, strong boxes and state control are no safeguard; the only guarantee is a man’s word shall be his bond,� he was right on target. When a person’s testimony has been lived so that his community knows he is such an upstanding character, his assertion carries a unique validity of weight. Buttrick added all the more to this truth when he continued, “There is here implied the power of words ... such yea and nay comes from prayer’s silence and then from speech sober and reverent.�