Modern Day Idolatry

Throughout the ages the Bible has been scoured and scrutinized in an effort to understand the nature of God, to learn what is required of man and to learn how we should live in an effort to please our Creator. It is honorable to search and research scripture and we are even encouraged to do so in the Bible itself. One of the many places in the Bible where we are encouraged to study and learn is found in 2 Timothy 3:14-17 where Paul said “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. “

What often happens however, is that writers, teachers and pastors take liberties and literary license to stretch and expand what was originally being said and taught in the original text of scripture. They will grab on to a nugget of truth or a relevant verse and build an entire sermon, or even a book around a hypothetical truth that many times do not stand up to exhaustive Biblical scrutiny. This writer could probably be accused of similar practices at times however I try to be careful to add disclaimers such as “This is just a personal thought” or “I can’t back this up with scripture or prove this but I wonder……..”. Today we see and hear many that use no such disclaimer and the language they use is more like “The Bible says  and means) this…..” in a very declarative tone or even worse “God told me the meaning of this” as if God somehow kept the meaning of his Word a secret until now. I feel this is dangerous ground to walk yet we see this more and more as time goes on, and even scarier is that fewer and fewer people are challenging these statements and often follow en masse these teachings without a thorough scriptural scrutiny to either validate, negate or modify such claims and teachings.

One such teaching (in this writer’s humble opinion) is the growing movement and teaching about Modern Day Idolatry. It seems that this topic has spawned a plethora of sermons which are easily delivered and even easier for listeners to hear. Contemporary teachers are taking a very ancient practice found in scripture (primarily in the Old Testament) and then attempting to make the teaching relevant for today, which I feel is entirely appropriate if based on truth and Biblical validation.

The message generally follows the following outline:

•  Is God the most important thing in your life?
•  Is God the sole focus of your worship?
•  Is there anything in your life that impedes your worship to God?
•  If anything hinders your worship then it is an idol.
•  These things are idols because they are too important in relation to your worship to God.
•  You must make these things less important so that they are no longer idols.

Then the writer or speaker generally goes on not to talk about idols such as we see in the Old Testament, or even idols such as Buddha or many other forms of idol worship. What they do is then list all of the things that might be too important in our life. Some of the common examples I have heard and read are things such as: one’s career, or wealth, or a fancy car, or a hobby, or a social cause, or even a relationship such as with your husband, wife or kids. Yes I have even heard that you can love your wife so much that your love for her becomes and idol before God. In fact the teaching today is that anything that is too important in your life is by default and idol and the appeal is to modify one’s priorities such that these things are no longer idols standing between your and a pure worship of God.

Counselors are being trained to quickly identify the idols in a patient’s hearts before they can truly be healed of emotional issues or sin that drove them to counseling in the first place. Congregations and multitudes of Believer’s are being challenged to determine what their personal idols are so that they can realign these “idolatrous” issues so that they no longer become idols in our lives.

The most commonly noted verses quoted to validate this teaching come from 2 places in the Bible. The first of which is

            Ezekiel 14:3 – “Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face”

The phrase “idols in their heart” is both poetic and compelling and the modern day teachers will then make the connection between these idols mentioned in the Old Testament and relate them to anything that might dwell in our heart that affects our relationship with God. The second common text quoted in these teachings if from the New Testament in

          Colossians  3:5 – “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry”

The context I have heard taught with this verse is that our heart must be purged of the things in our life that can be compared to, or even labeled as actual idolatry.

I think that this teaching of Modern Day Idolatry was probably made popular in 2008 at a national religious conference when a very well-known author introduced the concept. While I want to be a critical thinker, I don’t want to be a critic of personalities so I will not mention the names of the teachers who are the most prominent in this movement. I should add though, that this notion and teaching has become insidious, penetrates many denominations and is taught by hundreds of modern day teachers. In fact, I am quite sure that I am in the minority with my concerns and thoughts about this movement. That said, here are my concerns and what I would challenge readers to consider.

First, let’s take a look at the Biblical term of idolatry. Never do I see in scripture where idolatry was an issue of priorities. Idolatry in the Old Testament was always in the context of competing deities, or in other words false gods. God was very clear that there were to be no other gods but Him. He not so delicately declared his jealousy and of all the sins He might have appeared to turn a blind eye on in the Old Testament, we see instant judgment and punishment at any point where his deity and sovereign power was challenged. Pagan cultures of biblical times (and some today still) would build physical idols of stone, wood, or precious metals and were literal objects of worship. These were not issues of the heart, they were literal pagan gods made of materials.

The context of the passage in Ezekiel where the “idols of their hearts” are mentioned was relating to men who had come from a pagan culture where false idols had been worshipped. While they were now in a place where those idols had been destroyed, these men still held those literal idols sacred in their hearts and had not truly purged the competing deities within their hearts, even though the physical idols had been destroyed. Based on today’s modern teaching of idolatry, God’s Old Testament warnings would have gone something like this:

“Though shalt have no other god’s before me that are too important. If you have a false god that is too important then you need to re-prioritize  your gods so that I am the most popular of your gods”

That’s not what we see at all in scripture. We see that:

The sovereign God of all creation was a jealous God who would tolerate no other gods:

Exodus 34:14 – “You are never to bow down to another god because Yahweh, being jealous by nature, is a jealous God.”

Exodus 20:5 – “You must not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ sin, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me”

Ezekiel 30:13 – This is what the Lord GOD says: I will destroy the idols and put an end to the false gods …….

None of these texts sound like God was asking them to reprioritize their favorite idols or false gods. The idols were impediments to true worship. They were instruments of direct competition for the worship and affection of the almighty God verses the images that represented the gods that man could create from a wayward imagination of his own ego and resilience to submission.

If we move to the New Testament passage mentioned earlier in Colossians, the sins that were listed there were just that ….. sins! If we look at the passage closely we see a couple of things. The passage starts with the word “mortify” which means put to death, eradicate, annihilate or in other words these things should not have any place in your heart. Again looking at the modern day teaching we would have to conclude that fornication should not be eliminated from our lives, just made less important. That covetousness isn’t all that bad if you just place it down low enough on the totem pole of your heart so that it doesn’t get in the way of your worship.

This sounds foolish right? Yes but it sounds equally foolish to say that an education, or a car, or a job or even a relationship is an idol. These are not deities in competition with God. These are potentially good things that can be used to glorify God if properly aligned with His will and purpose. Old Testament idols were implicitly bad and subject to obliteration, not prioritization. The sins in Colossians had NO business in the presence of the Savior and were not objects to be realigned in our sphere of worship.

So am I stating that putting earthly things in the path of our relationship with God is OK? Am I saying that serious problems can’t be created in our faith if we misalign our priorities? Certainly not to both questions. But these things, I believe are not idols, they are just things. Used to glorify God they become objects of goodness; and used to glorify ourselves they become objects of evil. Idolatry is a sin against God. Under no circumstance were idols in the Bible potential objects of goodness. Idolatry is listed as a sin along with other sins in scripture. It is not analogous to sin, it is one of the sins, and I don’t believe that “modern day idols” have to be removed to reveal our sin. Anything that we as Believers allow to impugn our relationship with God is ultimately going to spawn behavior that the Bible calls sin. So let’s just have the courage to call it that. I fear that the teaching of Modern Day Idolatry has resonated in the hearts of Christians because we are a generation that doesn’t like to talk about sin, or judgment. It’s much easier to talk about “realigning activities or behaviors” than it is to talk about sin.

As stated before, this teaching is compelling and feels right, but does it stand the scrutiny of Scripture? I don’t see that it does.