Do you think this picture is Jesus? Why or why not

[BPPLEE]

For example, would you not be disturbed if you came home one day and seen a 10 foot tall statue of Mary in your home?
What if it was a ton of statues of the saints on tables and shelves everywhere your house?
Would you not be convicted by God to destroy these things if you found them in your home?
I know I would because these are clearly idols in our world today.
People bow down to such statues thinking they aid in their prayers, etcetera.
They think the statue has some kind of power.
While an idol is nothing, we are not to make them or own them because we are to be holy and separate from this world. This world has no problem with idol statues or images that abound abundantly all over the earth.

Statues are used as idols and are prevalent in a certain denomination. There was one in my hometown of a girl praying to a statue of Mary that particularly disturbed me

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Statues are used as idols and are prevalent in a certain denomination. There was one in my hometown of a girl praying to a statue of Mary that particularly disturbed me

Yeah, things like that are creepy as clowns to me. But I guess folks like weird stuff. All we can do is pray for them and preach the truth from God’s Word.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Sometimes a statue is just a statue.

If one’s worldview is not from the perspective of the Holy Scriptures, I am sure one can say that. But if one is born again and they follow the Bible, this is not the case. There are lots of evidences that show the Bible to be true. One of my favorite categories is Bible Numerics. It shows the text to be of divine origin.

Check out this vid:

It is mind blowing.

 

[Tinker Grey]

There are lots of evidences that show the Bible to be true.

In this case, it is not a question of whether it is true; it's a question of whether your interpretation is true.

A statue *might* be an idol, but not all statues are idols.

 

[Robban]

Abraham's father owned an idol shop, he sold idols.

One day he came to the shop and found the idols all smashed, except one.

He said to Abraham, wonder who could have done this,
said Abraham,
"The one left standing "
Impossible, said his father, idols cannot do anything.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

In this case, it is not a question of whether it is true; it's a question of whether your interpretation is true.

A statue *might* be an idol, but not all statues are idols.

Right, I was referring to statues God does not tell His people to make. Obviously the ark of the covenant and the serpent on the pole were not created with the intent to be idols. Although, later, the serpent on the pole was worshiped and thus it was destroyed.

 

[Aaron112]

Right, I was referring to statues God does not tell His people to make.

A Jewish excerpt about statues:
"We didn’t want statues from Greeks and Romans in our holy temples in the times of our sages. And had we wanted our own heroes, we’d have probably argued about who ought to be a statue in the first place. In any event, before the State of Israel, Jews didn’t do statues.SO HOW is it we remember as a people, scattered over dozens of countries worldwide, our history – and the goodies and the baddies? Our community memory is an oral memory; we are not called the People of the Book for nothing. We write things down and discuss them. We made sure they were handed down from generation to generation.I was discussing the statue crisis with my son Levi (a very bright 15-year-old) last week. He reminded me about the story of Passover. There couldn’t be a better story to illustrate why we don’t need statues.Passover is about God taking the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and liberating them from slavery. Yes, slavery. Working for nothing. Being totally owned by a ruthless and bloody dictator, Ramses of Egypt. Men separated from women, night shifts and day shifts around the clock. Punishment, and always torture and death. But no Moses statue.My son reminded me that when we read every year at our Seder table the story of our liberation from the land of bondage to freedom, to become an independent people and a nation, we were told by God to do two things.First, to remind every generation that we were slaves in Egypt; how we were slaves in Egypt, what they did to us, and how we were freed by a mighty hand.Second, and perhaps most importantly, we were told that every generation must tell this story as if we were the slaves of Egypt, that we went through the years of bitterness and struggle, and God freed us.Every year since I can remember, we read this and we remember. We are commanded to remember other things too; that the Amalekites bravely attacked the Jewish women and children who walked at the back of the march out of Egypt – unarmed and easy targets. But we don’t remember any of them with statues. Nor do we build statues of Esther, or Mordechai, or Judah Maccabee."
"I think I can fairly say most Jews remember and respect both our Jewish heroes and our non-Jewish heroes and our enemies through the oldest media in the world: oral and written history. No need for statues then. What do you think?The writer is a former deputy editor of the Sunday Express, features editor of The Sunday Mirror, editor-in-chief of the Boston Jewish Advocate, The Jewish News, and a published author. He is currently a media trainer and consultant."

 

[RDKirk]

Yes. Those are all examples of idols that were worshipped. Having an idol is condemned. But a painting of Jesus is not an idol unless you bow down and worship it. Just to be safe I don’t have such things but I don’t think artworks are necessarily condemned

I would say the "bow down and worship" misses the essence of what an idol (or better, "false god") is.

"Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey" Romans 6.

A "god" is one's authority on morality and behavior. If we base our decisions and behavior on anything, that thing is our god for that decision or behavior. And we might have many gods. We may have one god that directs our eating habits, another god that directs us in the clothes we buy, another god that directs us in our romantic lives. Most often, our god is merely our own flesh.

It's not necessary to explicitly "bow down and worship" an idol for it to be an idol. All that's necessary is that one lets something control one's decisions and actions. If it commands your obedience, it's your idol.

Back to this particular topic, no, I don't think an artist's concept of what Jesus looked like is anyone's false god in that way. But it's also silly. It's just silly. Yeah, I know there are icons venerated by Christians past and present, but it's still fundamentally silly.

I've seen some historical photographs of black people from the 1800s that I'd love to say were my great-great-grandparents...but they simply aren't. I even yearn for photographs of my ancestors. I have no good way of knowing what my great-great grandparents looked like, but I'm not going to just grab a picture of some black people and say, "Well...the physical characteristics probably match...."

Giving any kind of religious or spiritual credence to artists' conceptions of Jesus is just silly.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

I've seen some historical photographs of black people from the 1800s that I'd love to say were my great-great-grandparents...but they simply aren't. I even yearn for photographs of my ancestors. I have no good way of knowing what my great-great grandparents looked like, but I'm not going to just grab a picture of some black people and say, "Well...the physical characteristics probably match...."

Giving any kind of religious or spiritual credence to artists' conceptions of Jesus is just silly.

I like what you said at this point here.
Great analogy.

Peace and blessings be unto you in the Lord.

Side Note:

My apologies for laying on the heavy sarcasm in post #191. I edited the post to be more friendlier.

 

[Aaron112]

Statues are used as idols and are prevalent in a certain denomination. There was one in my hometown of a girl praying to a statue of Mary that particularly disturbed me

In many grocery or other stores in the usa idols are filling the shelves. Worldwide most groups , cities, countries, have widespread acceptance of idols without any consciousness of the wickedness in the world. i.e. sin is commonplace, and promoted.

 

[Landon Caeli]