When we think of idolatry, we may think of statues made of wood, stone, or metal, like the ones we see in history museums or read about in the Bible. Consider these examples:
- “And [Aaron] received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” (Exodus 32:4)
- “And [Israel] abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.” (2 Kings 17:16)
- “Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols… For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god...’” (Acts 17:16, 23)
Throughout the Bible, people find “things” to put above God. Sometimes this literally takes the form of some sort of animal (like a golden calf), an altar to a foreign god (like Baal or “the unknown god,”) or even a human form (Asherah were often long, skinny, wooden figures carved to look like female bodies.) While in some parts of the world, there may be places where people worship or pay homage to some sort of statue like Buddha or Mohammed, in 21st century America this is not very common. So is idolatry just not an issue anymore? This could not be farther from the truth!
The Bible indicates that idolatry will always be an issue. Romans 1 gives us special insight into what “modern” idolatry may look like and how modern idolatry relates to past idolatry.
Paul talks about the ungodliness and unrighteousness in the world that is indicated by the sin we see all around us. He explains that the root of sin is the fact that many people do not honor God or give thanks to Him (vs. 22). He goes on to summarize sin this way: they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things…they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (vss. 23, 25). What a harrowing definition of idolatry: to exchange all the glory of the Almighty Creator of the Universe for just images of animals. One way, then, for us to think about what idolatry looks like in our lives is by asking this question: what are we exchanging the glory of God for?
Paul continues talking about God’s glory in Romans 8:18 when He says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Here, rather than talking about God’s glory in the negative context of sin and idolatry, he refers to the fact that those who are saved in Christ have a hope of sharing in God’s glory in the future.
Really, idolatry comes down to putting God in His proper place: as our number one priority in life! We may not struggle with bowing down to images of wood or stone, but Paul makes it clear that in order to share in future glory, we need to glorify God now: with our words, our actions, our bodies, our time, our money—everything about who we are and what we do should glorify God!
When we prioritize things—even things that are not inherently bad, or abstract things like our ambition, our ego, or our comfort—above God, we are committing a grave mistake that humanity has literally struggled with since the beginning of time. Are you serving the “creature” or the Creator?
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