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LizBowater
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Name: Liz
Gender: Female
Interests: Theology, ecology, the UK, driving with no destination, microbreweries, historic neighborhoods, house church, ethics, coffee, sustainability, boots, urban exploration, local music, liturgy, wool, fancy pens, Japanese andy, new monasticism, new urbanism, Chicago hot dogs, dirty hands, people watching, bare feet, and snow.
Expertise: Reading Maps, Indentifying Edible Plants, Humming In Tune, Making Funny Faces, Self-Censorship
Occupation: For money, I save the city fro
Industry: Great, good work.
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
4/21/2005
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| Most of us don't require much worship from those around us. We are quite satisfied with worshiping ourselves.
Case in point:
Facebook.
I could, literally, stop there.
The phenomena of internet blogging, social networking, and all forms of self-publishing (books, music, 'zines, etc.) all prove my point. I'm sure there are some people content to remain anonymous in the world, but most of us are far too self-important to remain unknown. We are proud of our ideas, our accomplishments, our appearance, our taste in music, and those clever photos we took one sunny day five years ago in Italy. Not only are we proud of those things, but we actually believe that other people need to be aware of them! We disguise our self-promotions as "community" and a means of social or intellectual interaction to make sure that we don't appear as self-obsessed as we really are, but if you look closely enough, you can sometimes see right through it.
I see it in myself.
Very often.
And it's disgusting.
The very act of writing this blog might be an exercise in self-worship.
There is, after all, a very fine line between the sharing of ideas and a game of show-and-tell, is there not? I am the only one who can know the desire of my heart in sharing my stories, my thoughts, and my ideas and I must continually ask myself: Am I really looking for an intellectual interaction with my readers, or am I like that anxious kindergartner, screaming, "Look at me! Look at me!" when all I'm holding in my hands is the same five-dollar pet turtle that millions of five year-olds before have brought into this same classroom, thinking that their five-dollar turtle is somehow more special than the millions that came before? It's a bit of a stretch for a metaphor, but maybe you understand.
Whether we think good or ill, we think far too much about ourselves.
I continually remind myself, as I obsess about my social anxiety and awkwardness with other people: "Liz, people don't think nearly as much about you as you think about yourself. Chances are, you are barely a blip on their radar." We can all probably use this reminder time and time again, and it should be a comfort to us. We need not worry so much about what other people are thinking of us because, frankly, everybody else is probably just thinking of themselves.
Let me take this a step further and discuss a deeper form of self-worship: self-righteousness.
This is probably the most obvious form of self-worship because it's the one we notice most in other people. Funny, though, that it's the one we're most blind to in ourselves.
This form of idolatry rears its ugly head every time we see a fault in another person that we are unwilling to acknowledge in ourselves.
Case in point:
Racism.
Racism is, essentially, a blindness to ones own cultural ills and an extreme sensitivity to others'. We know that every culture has aspects that are to be lauded and those that deserve criticism. So, a person's criticism of a cultural ill does not warrant the mark of "racist," but the refusal to admit ones own cultural ills does. The opposite, therefore, of racism is not tenacious appreciation of an other culture and a complete accepting of its faults, but an honest conversation about the sin that lies in the hearts of all men and an efficacious love that makes all culture better. Any person, on any side of the racism issue, who refuses to admit the problems they've inherited with their cultural context, is culturally self-righteous and an idolater of their own culture.
This happens a lot in the context of the Church and sin in the life of the Believer.
One man, proud of his conquering a certain sin that seems to be prevalent in his life, believes himself to be more righteous than another man who is still struggling with sin. Or the other man can similarly serve himself by indulging in his sin because he knows that it is the work of God to change him and so he feels no responsibility to humble himself under discipline. Both are equally idolatrous, believing that their experience of sin and sanctification is and should be normative for all Believers and standing in judgement of those who are either less or more sanctified. There is, of course, one truth that keeps both men in check in this situation: all have sinned and fall short. This is the one truth that strikes through both forms of idolatry. The one man will always be reminded that, though God may have purged him of a particular sinful act, a sinful heart still lingers until he is completely perfected in Christ; The other man must never forget that, though God for one reason or another may not have purged him of his sin quite yet, he is still accountable for the debt of sin which leaves him condemned apart from Christ.
None are righteous apart from Christ.
None.
He, not us, must be the God to which we compare both ourselves and others.
Compared to Him, we all fall short.
Now, let's go even a step further and discuss what I think is the most insidious form of self-worship: identity and self-esteem.
Who are you?
What words would you use to define yourself physically?
Socially?
Spiritually?
Be careful.
This is dangerous territory.
For example:
"I am talented."
It has taken me years to learn that it is usually best to let other people have the chance to exercise their gifts instead of me--especially in church.
It is disgusting for me to think that I am the only person capable of serving!
"I am smart."
It has taken me years to learn to keep my mouth shut and not feel like I must always share whatever burning comment is on the tip of my tongue.
It is deplorable for me to think that everyone needs to hear everything I have to say!
"I am cool."
Beginning when I got my first job that required a standard work wardrobe, and still to this day, I am embarrassed to wear khaki pants.
It is pathetic to be so attached to eccentricity that I cannot feel like myself in any plain old clothes!
The moment we begin to define our own identity, we start on a slippery slope toward self-worship.
There is a safe point on this slope, of course, for we know that God created each of us with unique traits that color us a bit differently than the next person. These differences are good and point to a brilliant, creative God. But, we would be foolish to think that what makes us different from another person is what gives us value. Our value, in fact, comes not from who we are or what we are like, but from the God to whom we belong. And to him, I would be bold to say, it really does not matter whether or not we are wearing khaki pants.
This extends to our notion of self-esteem, as well. Chances are, whatever makes me feel good about myself is what leads me to self-worship. And, conversely, whatever makes me feel bad about myself has just as much control over me. The very concept of esteeming one's self is contrary to a Biblical view of identity and the person with low "self-esteem" is just as guilty of idolatry as the person who loves himself because his identity is still defined by himself and not by God.
Where does this leave us? If both hating and loving oneself is idolatry, then is there any hope for us?
In a word, no. But, we can at least trust that God is in the habit of using hopeless situations for His own purposes. Maybe what we all need is a certain amount of self-indifference. If we can learn to hold ourselves loosely enough, maybe we can be liberated to serve God more fully and allow Him his proper place in our hearts and in the world.
"Be Thou exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please Thee even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream. Rise, O Lord, into Thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself. Let me decrease that Thou mayest increase, let me sink that Thou mayest rise above. Ride forth upon me as Thou didst ride into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast, a colt, the foal of an ass, and let me hear the children cry to Thee, 'Hosanna in the highest.' "
- A. W. Tozer, from The Pursuit of God.
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| When I was in grade school, I had a friend who (in my mind) eptimized "cool." Everything about her--the music she listened to, the clothes she wore, her family home--proved it to me. She was the rule by which I measured myself and the model I chose for the way I lived my life.
I was her disciple and she was my idol.
This form of idolatry--which I'll call "worship of men"--often begins "innocently" enough. In my case, I was just trying to navigate my way through the "awkward years," and this friend had found the way. As far as my middle school mind was concerned, it was a matter of survival.
For some people, it begins with an idea, a vision, or a mission. Think: political leaders, philosophers, teachers, activists, or religious leaders.
For some people, it begins with a close relationship. Think: a parent, a lover, a child, or a pet.
For some people, it begins with proficiency in a respected art or act. Think: musicians, actors, poets, fine artists, or athletes.
How does this idolatry play out in our lives?
We follow.
We laud.
We obsess.
We invoke.
We defend.
We mimic.
We use.
We objectify.
Case(s) in point:
We are surprised to discover that our beloved political guru / religious leader / parent / songwriter / baseball player has been misappropriating campaign funds / flirting with his secretary / sneaking whiskey shots / plagiarizing music / using steroids and we are shocked. No, we are devastated. Our world comes crashing down, we don't know North from South, and we can't get out of bed for a week.
Don't misunderstand me: sin is never acceptable and should never be written off as simply an inconvenience of being human or something we should take as normative and then move on.
BUT.
We should never forget that sin is an inherent part of being human and that all men & women--regardless of their strength of ideology, vision, affection, faith, or ability--are capable of terrible things. After all, none of us are God, right?
As I grow older, my human idols continue to change.
Many have been musicians; some have been friends. (I once idolized a comic book character.) Now, I idolize celebrities for their fashion, strangers on the street for their alterna-mom hipness, bloggers online for their apparent mothering & housewife-ing perfection, the author of my favorite book, and I can even idolize the memory of myself before I had to be concerned about things like diaper sizes and "what's for dinner." But, then, I remember that celebrities have stylists and receive globs of free clothes. And that the woman on the street who seems really cool from a distance actually lives a fairly normal and not-hip life. And that the blogger online is actually exercising her own idolatry by blogging obsessively about motherhood. And that my life, before having a husband and baby, had its own set of difficulties and stress.
But, this form of idolatry ("worship of men") does not end there.
It gets much worse.
Case in point:
Someone near to us--a parent, friend, spouse, or child--moves away, is angry with us, grows terribly ill, or dies.
Please, again, do not misunderstand me.
I would never claim that to love someone, to miss them, or to mourn their loss is, in itself, idolatry.
BUT.
True, world-shattering devastation at such a loss signifies a need for that person as a form of sustenance.
I only feel compelled to discuss this form of idolatry because this is where my heart aches and where my crippling fears lie. The slightest thought of losing my husband, my son (or future children), my parents, or my brothers can stop my heart from beating and bring me to tears like nothing else can. In this area, I may be the chief of sinners. And, so, being aware of my sinfulness, when my mind wanders to this ever-present fear of losing someone dear to me I have learned to close my eyes, breathe deep, and confess my fears. It is almost embarrassing how often I must pray, "Lord, cleanse my idolatrous heart. Let me love you more than them."
Barbara Youderian, on the night she was told of her husband's death, wrote these words:
"God gave me this verse two days ago, Psalm 48:14, 'For this God is our God for ever and ever; He will be our Guide even unto death.' As I came face to face with the news of Roj's death, my heart was filled with praise. He was worthy of his home-going... I wrote a letter to the mission family, trying to explain the peace I have. I want to be free of self-pity. It is a tool of Satan to rot away a life. I am sure that this is the perfect will of God... The Lord has closed our hearts to grief and hysteria, and filled in with His perfect peace."
(Lord, may I have that peace when confronted with the same heartbreak.)
It is no surprise that what leads to many of our greatest disappointments is the sin of idolatry. We place the most impressive or beloved people in our life on the pedestal of our hearts and then struggle through the painful recovery and crippling disappointment after they come crashing down before us. All but God will eventually disappoint because no man, woman, child (or pet puppy dog) can fulfill our need for guidance, comfort, protection, worship, and affection; this great, gaping void inside us was meant to be filled by God alone.
It is not our need for a god to worship that makes us idolaters; it is the strength of our hearts' desire for all others above God that leads to idolatry.
Tell me, friends, can anyone other than God truly sustain us?
"I walked out to the hill just now. It is exalting, delicious, to stand embraced by the shadows of a friendly tree with the wind tugging at your coattail and the heavens hailing your heart, to gaze and glory and give oneself again to God--what more could a man ask? Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, and smile into His eyes--ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself.
"O Jesus, Master and Center and End of all, how long before that Glory is thine which has so long waited Thee? Now there is no thought of Thee among men; then there shall be thought for nothing else. Now other men are praised; then none shall care for any other's merits. Hasten, hasten, Glory of Heaven, take Thy crown, subdue Thy Kingdom, enthrall They creatures." - Jim Elliot.
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It's not only people outside of the Christian faith who worship a false god.
Christians do it, too.
How many times have you been present at a church service, spoken to a friend, or read a book about faith and thought to yourself, "I don't know what this guy is talking about. The god he describes is not the God I know"?
I believe that this kind of idolatry manifests itself in primarily three ways:
- We create our theological premise of the nature of God the Father based on our own predilections.
- We paint a picture of Jesus the resembles our own humanity more than it resembles His divinity.
- We define the work of the Holy Spirit by our emotional response to God and our need for intimacy, rather than by His Biblical role in the life of the Church and the Believer.
I would rather not write too much and bore you, so let me explain these as concisely as I can.
1. We create our theological premise of the nature of God the Father based on our own predilections.
Most of us grow up with an image of God the Father based on our own relationship to our dad. Chances are, if your relationship with your earthly father was a good one, your mental picture of God resembles him. Conversely, if your relationship with your earthly father was a bad one (he was abusive, authoritative, emotionally unavailable, or physically absent), you will either believe God to be the same way and resent Him for it, or believe Him to be the opposite and love him for it. Ask a child to describe God and you'll hear some interesting answers. Some will say he's big and strong. Other will claim he's soft and warm. Some view him as a rich man in the sky who gives good gifts to good little boys and girls; others see him as an angry king, sitting on a throne in Heaven with condemnation and punishment awaiting bad children.
As we grow to spiritual maturity, we begin to define God in new terms. Then, we err in another way--we paint a picture of God that more closely resembles the God we wish He would be. I call this "the God of wishful thinking." This is the God who wants all the things that you want, loves all the things that you love, and cares about all the things that you care about. I have worshiped this god without even knowing it, believing that the deepest desires of my heart would be fulfilled by God because I believed they came directly from him. For example: I once knew for certain that God wanted me to marry a certain man, simply because the longing was so strong that I could only explain it by believing it came from God. The next time this happened, I became a functional Universalist, believing that and acting as if a loving God (of course, defined by my own capacity for love and not His own) could not sleep at night knowing that some people would spend eternity apart from Him.
Some of these are "innocent" enough.
What teenage girl does not dream of God's blessing upon her emotional affairs?
And I would assume that most Christians have stopped themselves at one time or another and entertained the thought that all people go to Heaven.
This type of idolatry, though, is a slippery slope. It leads to such a false concept of God that eventually the God in our heads resembles nothing of the God in the Bible and we believe He cares more about us, our new haircut, the car we drive, and what we ate for breakfast than He does about His own glory. The fallout from this idolatry is traumatic: we become disappointed that God does not perform the way we want Him to and either grow bitter in our self-created hurt, we lose our faith, or we begin doubt His very existence.
2. We paint a picture of Jesus the resembles our own humanity more than it resembles His divinity.
A few times in college, I traveled with my college choir on a "choir tour" to visit churches across the Midwest and Germany. There is one image that kept appearing in multiple churches. I call him the "Baptist Jesus." Maybe you've seen him?
Or maybe you've seen a Jesus that looks more like this:
Obviously, I understand that there is some validity to contextualizing Jesus so people can relate to Him as a man.
But.
I think our need to do so points to our sinful desire to paint a Jesus that looks more like us than he does like Himself. Essentially, we have a hard time following a Savior that doesn't look like us.
And this is evident in ways other than the portraits we paint.
Subcultures love to cling to the aspects of Christ that most resemble the things they value about themselves. For example:
Hippy culture loves to paint a picture of Jesus that looks more like their best smoking buddy than it does the Christ Himself.
Folks who are really into the Social Gospel or rights issues would make you think that Martin Luther King Jr. was an incarnation of Jesus.
Patriotic folks and military families talk about the returning Christ--the one with the sword dripped in blood.
Poor folks only quote Jesus' statements that allude to asceticism, giving up possessions, and serving the poor.
Rich folks only quote Jesus' parables about the talents and Paul's exhortation--in Jesus' name--that Christians must work or go hungry.
And the list goes on and on.
All of these people are correct, of course, but none of them is right. None of these folks are painting an honest picture of Jesus and I would, therefore, argue that they are all following a false God.
Until we are willing to see the complete picture that God paints of himself in Christ, complete with the parts of God we would rather not acknowledge, we will never follow the true Christ.
And how can we expect to be transformed to His likeness if we would rather he be transformed to ours?
Using a metaphor from my husband: You can call a red pickup truck, "Jesus." You can pray to it, sing to it, follow it around town, and tell your friends about it. But, at the end of the day, it's not Jesus. It's just a red pickup truck.
3. We define the work of the Holy Spirit by our emotional response to God and our need for intimacy, rather than by His Biblical role in the life of the Church and the Believer.
I will say this quickly, because I don't want anyone to misinterpret this point.
Too often, in our personal spiritual lives and in our corporate worship, God's work among us is reduced to the emotional condition of the singular Believer and neglects the true role of the Holy Spirit and his work in and among us.
We see this in the Evangelical tendency to talk about our personal faith (meaning, really, our own feelings about God at the present moment), rather than the corporate life in the Spirit. We forget that the Church is the Body of Christ, empowered by the Spirit to do remarkable work in our world and that we, living life together in worship and community, carry the very power of God Himself between us. We do not know the history of God's people and we do not see a picture of a life in the Spirit that extends much past ourselves. This also extends, I believe, to presuming to know the will of God based on what a person believes the Holy Spirit has spoken to them, completely apart from God's Word, and all sorts of false prophecy. These things lead to people following visions born from their own desires, motives, and whims rather than the desires and motives of God. (This, though, could open up a whole mess of controversy that I'd rather not get into right now, so I'll stop there.)
We see a comparable type of idolatry in many Mainline traditions, as well, that manifests itself more in a neglect of the personal work of the Holy Spirit, forgetting that the individual Believer should show evidence of the transformative power of God. The work of God is instead spoken of only in a corporate sense, and church-goers leave the sanctuary with nothing more than an admiration of the work of God's people today and throughout history. They are never personally changed.
In closing, I'll say it plainly:
Sound logic would tell you that if there is a God, then there can only be one God.
And if there is truly a God, then He exists completely apart from us and our best notions of who He is.
And we who believe that the God of the Bible--Jehovah, YHWH--is the true God and that the Jesus of the Bible is his Son--our Lord, Savior, and Messiah--must acknowledge that the only reliable definitions of his identity are in the very words He's spoken about himself. Why would we presume to accurately describe our God in any other way than how he describes himself? He is, after all, God.
I have full faith that at the end of days, we will all be thankful that God is who He is and not who we thought we wanted Him to be.
Until then, let us not define our God by our own desires for Him.
To do so is a blatant form of idolatry.
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Let us remind ourselves of the subject for our discussion of idolatry:
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." - Deuteronomy 5:6-10
The purpose of this blog series is to discuss the contemporary manifestations of our disobedience of this commandment.
Before I do that, though, I would like to set the foundation for the discussion by appealing to the historical creeds and doctrines of the Church. This is not a new discussion and I am certain that those who have gone before us may have something to say about the first commandment and what it means for us today.
(The excerpts below are only small bits taken from the larger texts notated. I tried to treat each text with as much integrity as possible, while keeping the excerpts concise and relevant to the discussion. I would suggest reading the full texts for complete understanding.)
Catechism of the Catholic Church (from statements 2083-3141)
"The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it." We sin against our faith through voluntary doubt, which "disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief," involuntary doubt, incredulity, heresy, apostasy, and schism... "The first commandment is also concerned with sins against hope, namely, despair and presumption..." and obliges us to "love God above everything and all creatures for him and because of him." We sin against God's love through indifference, ingratitude, lukewarmness, acedia (spiritual sloth), and hatred for God (which comes from pride). Serving God, as commanded in this the first of the ten, is done through adoration, prayer, sacrifice, promises and vows, and social duties. This first commandment forbids superstition ("the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes"), idolatry (defined here as polytheism, pagan worship, and the reverence of anything other than God himself--"gods or demons..., power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc."), divination and magic, irreligion (temping God, sacrilege, and simony--defined as the "buying or selling of spiritual things"), atheism (humanism, materialism, liberation through economic and social means, and human autonomy), as well as agnosticism (making "no judgement about God's existence, declaring it impossible to prove, or even to affirm or deny").
Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (Large Catechism)
The first commandment means, simply, "You shall have Me alone as your God" "...A god means that from which we are to expect all good and in which we are to take refuge in all distress. So, to have a God is nothing other than trusting and believing Him with the heart." This commandment requires, essentially, the complete heart and confidence of man. "For to 'have' God, you can easily see, is not to take hold of Him with our hands or to put Him in a bag <like money> or to lock Him in a chest <like silver vessels>. Instead, to 'have' Him means that the heart takes hold of Him and clings to Him. To cling to Him with the heart is nothing else than to trust in Him entirely. For this reason God wishes to turn us away from everything else that exists outside of Him and to draw us to Himself..." This is true worship of God and requires complete disregard for all else on earth. The world naturally practices false worship and idolatry. In fact, "everyone has set up as his special god whatever he looked to for blessings, help, and comfort." Throughout history, man has made a god of power, riches, pleasure, ease, and fertility, among other interests "to which his heart was inclined." All men have in their mind the need to worship a god, but "their error is this: their trust is false and wrong. For their trust is not placed in the only God, beside whom there is truly no God in heaven or upon earth [Isaiah 44:6]. Therefore, the heathen really make their self-invented notions and dreams of God an idol. Ultimately, they put their trust in that which is nothing. So it is with all idolatry. For it happens not merely by erecting an image and worshiping it, but rather it happens in the heart." This commandment, therefore, must be taken very seriously, for it upholds our very faith in the one true God and makes possible obedience in our life of faith. "... Where the heart is rightly set toward God [Deuteronomy 32:46] and this commandment is observed, all the other commandments follow."
The Heidelberg Catechism defines idolatry as thus:
"To imagine or possess something in which to put one's trust in place of or beside the one true God who has revealed himself in his Word."
The Westminster Catechism (Larger Catechism):
The first commandment requires "the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly..." It forbids "praying or giving any religious worship to saints, angels, or any other creatures... making men the lords of our faith and conscience... and ascribing the praise of any good, we either are, have, or can do, to fortune, idols, ourselves, or any other creature."
The Institutes of Biblical Law by Rousas John Rushdoony (just for kicks...)
The first commandment is the foundational principle of Biblical Law and the summation of what Christ calls "the first and great commandment." It is a bold statement of one God as absolute and only, and of His law as "absolute and absolutely binding on men and nations." In it, God not only repudiates blatant polytheism, but also any theology that would paint God as an evolutionary or changeable being. Man relies upon many false gods in an effort to know and control the future. Often times, this is done through "Moloch-worship" (referenced multiple times throughout the Prophets). This false god gives name to "the concept of divine kingship, the king as god, and the god as king... It was the belief that all being was one being, and the god therefore was an ascended man on that scale of being. The power manifested in the political order was thus a manifestation or apprehension and seizure of divine power.... thus a political religion." It is "the supreme effort of man to command the future, to predestine the world, and to be as God." (Added to this is, of course, divination, witchcraft, magic, and other pagan worship.) Further, the commandment requires that "a man know that his only hope of salvation is in the blood of God's sacrifice," and that since all is under his Law, "to do anything apart from God and His law-word is sin." This commandment has implications for society at large because to be governed by anyone or anything but God is blatant disobedience of the first commandment. The Law requires "that we recognize no power as true and ultimately legitimate if it be not grounded in God and His law-word. It requires that we see true law as righteousness, the righteousness of God, and as a ministry of justice, and it requires us to recognize that the inequalities of just law faithfully applied are the basic ingredients of a free and healthy society."
It seems fairly obvious that the first commandment is concerned with much more than overt worship of pagan idols. It concerns our entire person--heart, soul, mind and strength--and is the very foundation of our faith, our Church, and our lives.
Let us, therefore, decide upon this as a simple working definition of idolatry: worship of anyone/anything other than God.
And then, let's be honest and say that that we are all, many times over, guilty of idolatry.
In the next few posts, let's stray a little bit away from heady theology and explore the many faces of idolatry in our own lives. Shall we?
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I can recite the Ten Commandments from memory, thanks in part to a song that I sang in a church musical sometime in my childhood:
"Number one, we've just begun
God should be first in your life!
Number two's the idol rule:
Those pagan images aren't nice.
"Number three: God's name should be
Never spoken in jest.
Number four: the Sabbath's for
Our worship and for rest..."
I think the song is called "The Perfect Ten," and the refrain says something about God wanting us to be a "perfect 10."
In the actual Biblical text, the Ten Commandments (properly known as the "ten terms" or the "Decalogue") is read as thus:
(I have numbered them according to most Protestant traditions' numbering system.)
"I am the LORD your God...
1 : You shall have no other gods before me.
2: You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God...
3: You shall no take the name of the LORD your God in vain...
4: Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, the but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God...
5: Honor your father and mother...
6: You shall not murder.
7: And you shall not commit adultery.
8: And you shall not steal.
9: And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10: And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field... or anything that is your neighbor's."
- Deuteronomy 5: 6-21
(Interesting enough, not all Jewish and Christian traditions divide the commandments into the same numbering system. Take, for example, that the Jewish (Talmudic) tradition designates God's pronouncement "I am the LORD your God..." as the First Commandment and the commands about "no other gods" and "carved images" together as the Second. In Catholic and Lutheran traditions, the beginning pronouncement is numbered together with the second and third statements as the First Commandment and what most Protestants consider the Tenth Commandment is divided into the Ninth and Tenth. For the sake of this blog series, I would like to divide them the same as in the Jewish (Talmudic) tradition, since my understanding of the Bible presupposes that a wealth of understanding can be found among Jewish interpretations of the Old Testament. Obviously, I understand that there is a huge gap in the understanding of Jews--namely, Jesus' fulfillment of the Messianic promise--but we'll overlook that for the moment and give our Jewish friends the benefit of the doubt as it relates to the Law. It should also be said that there is legitimate reason to believe that the ten commandments listed above--the Ethical Decalogue--is, though popularly understood as God's standard of morality, not the "Ten Commandments" proper... Google "Ritual Decalogue," and see what I mean.)
Most of us who are moderately schooled in Christian theology have at least an elementary understanding of what each of the commandments means.
Take, for example, the commandment about adultery:
A smart "church kid" can tell you that God was speaking about both extramarital and premarital sex.
And that under the Mosaic law, the penalty was death by stoning.
And that adultery is Biblical grounds for divorce.
And that having sex with a divorced woman is considered "adultery."
And an even smarter church kid can tell you that Jesus turned this commandment upside down when he said that whoever lusts after another person has already committed adultery in his/her heart.
Did you hear that?
Jesus says that anyone who even thinks of committing the sin of adultery has already sinned in his heart.
Bummer, right?
Right.
We believe that Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not to cancel it. (Matthew 5:17-20)
So, although we can rest in the assurance that our righteousness before God comes through faith and not works, we have not been given a free pass to approach sin the way we approach choosing a parking space.
In other words, even though God no longer contends with us based on our sin, sin still matters to Him and it should matter to us.
Even more so, we understand (thanks to Jesus) that our sinfulness lies in our hearts and minds long before it manifests itself in something like a adulterous relationship.
So, why am I talking about adultery when the title of this blog said "Idolatry?"
I use the example of adultery to illustrate the point that whether we publicly admit it or not, we know we are still accountable to obey the Law--the commandments of God.
Adultery seems like an obvious way to illustrate this. No Christian, in his right mind, would assume that because Christ died for sin, we are now free to have sex with whomever we desire, whenever we desire.
In fact, the Church--Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox alike (with exception of some "progressive" sects that miss this along with a million other points entirely)--still take the commandment about adultery so seriously that we hold youth conferences to teach our kids the dangers of premarital sex, we've had to create retreat and counseling centers for Christians trapped in sexual sin, and we have a hard time mentioning even married sex in public because it feels too near to the ungodly kinds of sex that it makes us uncomfortable. The necessity of obeying God's commandments against adultery is obvious to us because we see the results of this sin in the degradation of our communities, marriages, minds, hearts, and bodies.
So, what about the First Commandment?
You know, the one where God says, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."
Why did I never go with my church youth group to a conference about the dangers of idolatry?
Why don't we have "idol-burning" parties the way we have bonfires to torch porn collections? (You've seen these, right? The boys from the youth group get together and toss their stolen Victoria's Secret catalogues into a huge bonfire as a symbol of purging their sexual sin. The effects last for a few weeks, usually, until they remember that the images have already been planted in their brains and all they need to do is close their eyes to lust and lust again... but, I digress.)
Why don't we talk about the way idolatry destroys our minds, our hearts, our relationships, and our communities?
Do we simply no longer encounter the sin of idolatry in our contemporary world?
Is the commandment about idolatry only applicable today to Christians living in overtly pagan places in the world where physical, man-made idols are bowed before in worship?
I know and respect the belief that there is an actual, qualifiable difference between overt idolatry--such as the idolatry seen in many Eastern religions--and the covert idolatry that does not manifest itself in such a tangible way. My contention, though, is that even if overt idolatry is more explicitly commanded against in many places in the Bible (due, in part, to the fact that so many of Israel's neighbors practiced such overt idolatry), covert idolatry is just as sinful and dangerous. In fact, I would almost contend that covert idolatry can be more damaging than overt idolatry because of the way is subtly transforms our hearts and minds, while manifesting itself so intangibly and seemingly innocently, until it becomes such a problem that we must purge ourselves of more than just a few copies of Victoria's Secret. Our very allegiance, at that point, is in question. In short: I don't know of many Christian counseling centers for recovering idolaters.
In other words, yes, I will admit that there is a difference between the moments I love my son more than my God and the act of physically bowing down to a graven image of my baby.
In the same way, it is good that I don't have an extramarital affair with the man for whom I take a second glance in the grocery line, deciding instead to keep my sin of adultery safe behind my suddenly diverted eyes.
But why, although this difference between overt and covert sin seems clear to us, don't we talk as much about covert idolatry as we talk about the sinfulness of covert adultery, hatred, covetousness, etc.?
Are we afraid of what we'll see when we crack open our hearts and minds?
Perhaps we'll find that most of us are more often guilty of idolatry than of any of the other sins God could count against us.
So, let us thank our good God that He no longer contends with us based on our sin.
And let us talk openly about our hidden idols.
Next time...
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