Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life.

In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. In one way or another, all of us tend to go

through our day-to-day lives, wearing a mask, pretending to be people we aren't, playing the role of actors, hiding one part of our

lives while projecting a distorted sense of self. We can wear masks in our jobs, in our online

lives, even among those closest to us. Some of us wear those masks to feed our arrogance, while others of us use

them as a form of protection to hide something out of fear or shame. Whether we're rolling with a sense of

projecting our pride or protecting ourselves from shame, or some mixture of both, what we often don't

see is that the masks we wear don't just disguise us. They also destroy us. The writer John

Updike captured this so well when he wrote about the masks that people wear in relation to

celebrity.

Here's what he said.

Celebrity, even the modest sort that comes to writers, is an unhelpful exercise in self-consciousness.

Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.

As soon as one is aware of being somebody to be watched and listened to with extra interest,

input ceases and the performer goes blind and death in his overanimation.

The successful writer acquires a film over his eyes.

His eyes get fat.

Self-importance is a thickened, occluding form of self-consciousness.

The binge, the fling, the trip, all attempt to shake the film and get back under the dining room table with a child's

beautifully clear eyes. Those are some powerful words from Updike. Now, for me as an imperfect,

in-process follower of Jesus, I can't help but recognize how Updike's description of celebrity

closely aligns with how the Bible describes the power of sin in our lives.

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