Watching #SuperBowlCommercials always reminds me of the power of advertising. It also reminds me that the ability to spot & evaluate rhetoric is a life skill.

In fact, teaching my kids how to evaluate marketing, parse messaging, & recognize how it's affecting them has been an unexpected part of parenting. Also, a really, really important part.

Sometimes this means muting commercials & just not giving air & attention to those vying for it. Knowing who to ignore is a life skill, too. (One I'm still learning.)

But perhaps the most important skill is recognizing when someone is creating a need or desire within you that didn't exist before & then putting themselves forward to fill it.

This is different from a person or company defining & identifying a true need & offering their services or product to fill it. That's just good communication.

What I'm talking about is the use of rhetoric that either outsizes a need or manufactures it entirely--the kind of rhetoric that makes your problems feel bigger than they truly are OR that stirs up your desire for something you don't actually need.

That person or company then nicely offers themselves as the solution to your newly discovered need. At its worst, they will position themselves as the *only* solution that you can trust.

Obviously, I'm thinking of more than Super Bowl commercials here. I'm thinking of how this happens in communities, politics, & in particular, the church.

Beware of teachers who create a need just so they can fill it. Beware of spiritual leaders who stir up controversy so they can resource you to combat it. Beware of teachers who outsize the danger so they can be the ones to rescue you from it.

Such people are grifters, manipulating you the same way other advertisers do. They need you to need them. They need you to be dependent on them.

Again, this is different from identifying true needs & filling them. Such hucksters are creating or magnifying a need in order to make themselves valuable to you. They want your time, attention, & money.

I Timothy 6 describes them as "conceited & understand[ing] nothing [w/] an unhealthy interest in disputes & arguments over words. From these come envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions & constant disagreement among people...imagin[ing] godliness is a way to material gain."

All that to say, it's a jungle out there & it can be hard to recognize people's intentions toward you. They may not even recognize them themselves. But not everyone vying for your attention & attempting to resource you in the latest controversies are doing so from pure motives.

One way you can tell the difference is whether they equip you in virtue & maturity or whether they only equip you in the particular need that they just happen to be an expert in. Are they broadening & deepening your ability to engage in thought or are they narrowing it?

Does listening to them make you more aware of the complexity of life or does it distill it into simple, easy solutions & postions? Ones that they just happen to hold.

Do their resources point you to other voices doing good work or do they reduce the number of voices that you can "trust"? Do they cultivate suspicion? Do they then identify themselves & their tribe as the only ones worthy of your trust?

All that to say, don't buy everything that you're sold. Learn to evaluate the need being created in you as much as you evaluate the product that's being offered to fill that need.

And most importantly, learn to mute the commercials. Protect your attention. Guard your desire carefully. Don't let it be cultivated by grifters.