Idol worship

[Grace2022]

Exodus chapter 20 verse 4.
God forbids us to worship images and idols of any kind.
I presume this means no depictions of Christ. No paintings.No ornaments. Nothing. Ideally in a church of bare walls. As well as of course never to worship the other numerous idols in life such as money, material things.
How deeply does this command apply? How seriously do you take it?

 

[Radagast]

God forbids us to worship images and idols of any kind.

Which means that pictures are OK if we don't worship them.

I presume this means no depictions of Christ.

Some people to take it that way.

 

[Mark_Sam]

However, a few chapters later, God instructs Moses:
“You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another." (Exodus 25:17-20)

Here, God directly mandates the use of statues in the Holy of Holies, on the ark itself, in sacred worship. And the angel statues are certainly made in "likeness of [something] that is in heaven above." (Exodus 20:4).

So the commandment is best understood as prohibiting the worship of statues, idols and pictures, not a ban on statues and pictures in and of themselves. For then the Bible would contradict itself.

As well as of course never to worship the other numerous idols in life such as money, material things.

I agree. Sex and money are probably the most-worshipped idols in our society today.

 

[Heavenhome]

I take it as never any pictures of Jesus as we do not know what he really looks like.
I truly believe that God in all His wisdom made this because man for some reason tends to worship "things" look at the golden calf in the desert for example.
When you think of it people worldwide would see these pictures we have made of Jesus and whether Christian or not they will say that's Jesus. I think we may be shocked when we do see Him for we will know Him.

This is merely speculation on my part but can you think in of a better deception from Satan if he was at the back of the pictures the world recognizes as Jesus. think about it....... ..

 

[R. Hartono]

The problem that some church worship the statues of saints

 

[seeking.IAM]

I have a concrete interpretation. I think it strictly means not to worship objects that we have endowed with the qualities of a diety. Having a knick-knack of a ceramic unicorn is fine; thinking it is a god and worshipping it is not.

Also, I've never thought it applies to other things we give too much priority to in life, for example "money." I think some have taken great liberty to expand what verses about idol worship and graven images mean. You have to remember that the faith co-existed in a time when pagan worship of hand-crafted gods was common, maybe more common than Judaism or Christianity which were minority religions to begin with.

 

[tdidymas]

Exodus chapter 20 verse 4.
God forbids us to worship images and idols of any kind.
I presume this means no depictions of Christ. No paintings.No ornaments. Nothing. Ideally in a church of bare walls. As well as of course never to worship the other numerous idols in life such as money, material things.
How deeply does this command apply? How seriously do you take it?

"You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." Worship is closely related to serving. So when Jesus said "you cannot serve both God and Mammon," He was talking about who or what we really worship by our lifestyle.

Idolators are people who believe in an idea - that there is a supernatural power behind the images they create. We call this superstition, and people who believe in superstitions do things in response. In essence, they are serving the idea with their actions or lifestyle. Knocking on wood, saying "bless you" if someone sneezes, avoiding black cats, throwing salt, etc. ad infinitum, are all actions that serve superstitions. Serving money is having the belief (and acting accordingly) that more money is desperately needed to "save" the family from poverty - thus the lack of generosity, tithing, and contributing to the community, as well as excessive working to the detriment of social health for self and family, and other practices like that - are all forms of serving money. Or such things could be forms of serving selfish pride and other sins.

However, some of those actions are what is called "grey area" because they could be done for completely different reasons. For example, saying "bless you" when someone sneezes might just be a polite way of acknowledging that person's need to be healthy, and a wish (prayer) that God would grant health. It doesn't have to be a belief that evil spirits are in the sneeze. So then, the way I take the command against idolatry is that it has more to do with the purpose, reasons, etc. of my actions than it does with the act itself. If I love God, then I'm not going to commit idolatry, even if I have a statue in my house, or a cross in my church, or watch TV.

We don't have to be iconoclasts. If we say that a church should be bare-walled, and yet have pictures in our house (even pictures of family), then where does integrity end and hypocrisy begin?
TD

 

[tdidymas]

duplicate deleted

 

[JackRT]

An icon is not an idol. An icon is an aid to worship, it is not the object of worship.

 

[JackRT]

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[faroukfarouk]

I take it as never any pictures of Jesus as we do not know what he really looks like.
I truly believe that God in all His wisdom made this because man for some reason tends to worship "things" look at the golden calf in the desert for example.
When you think of it people worldwide would see these pictures we have made of Jesus and whether Christian or not they will say that's Jesus. I think we may be shocked when we do see Him for we will know Him.

This is merely speculation on my part but can you think in of a better deception from Satan if he was at the back of the pictures the world recognizes as Jesus. think about it....... ..

Heavenhome:

We can only imagine what this meant, physically:

"his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men" (Isaiah 52.14).

We do by faith something of what it meant in a unique, spiritual way as the Lord Jesus suffered for sin at the Cross, even though we cannot remotely enter into its sheer depths.

 

[GUANO]

Exodus chapter 20 verse 4.
God forbids us to worship images and idols of any kind.
I presume this means no depictions of Christ. No paintings.No ornaments. Nothing. Ideally in a church of bare walls. As well as of course never to worship the other numerous idols in life such as money, material things.
How deeply does this command apply? How seriously do you take it?

I have studied ritual magic and sorcery for many years. It goes way deeper than just the things you mention... Idolatry has reached its most advanced form and permeates every part of our lives.