Idolatry: Carved Images or Misplaced Priorities?

Is idolatry just a thing of the ancient, superstitious past? Or are there modern forms of this sin that we need to be aware of?

It’s easy to think that idolatry is not really an issue anymore in today’s modern world. While statues and images still play a significant part in many religions around the world even in this skeptical age, much of Western society looks on the worshipping of statues, animals and imagined beings as a remnant of ancient ignorance and superstition.

Idolatry is perhaps a thing of the past in some nations, but God in His eternal wisdom included laws against it among the other commandments that we are required to follow today. Is there more to idolatry than just adoring a statue?

The Second Commandment

The book of Exodus records this second of God’s Ten Commandments: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them” (Exodus 20:4-5).

Surely we don’t make images and bow down to them in the midst of computers, cell phones, iPads and social networks, right? But maybe idolatry has never been quite that cut-and-dry.

Our own handiwork

William Hazlitt, a 19th century British essayist and critic, wrote in his essay “Man Is a Toad-Eating Animal” about what he claimed was idolatry in his world, where kings and governments claimed “divine right” in their oppressive rules. In the middle of this essay, Hazlitt gives an interesting definition of idolatry:

“The principle of idolatry is … a voluntary tribute of admiration which does not compromise our vanity: it is setting something up over all the rest of the world, to which we feel ourselves to be superior, for it is our own handy-work; so that the more perverse the homage we pay to it, the more it pampers our self-will.”

There’s a lot in that statement that has nothing to do with carving images and worshipping them.

With these ideas in mind, let’s take a closer look at God’s commandments. Just a verse before the one about carved images, our God in His abundant understanding prefaces all the commandments with this one: “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3, emphasis added).

We could amend Hazlitt’s point with this one—that idolatry is “setting something up over God, to which we feel ourselves superior, for it is our own handy-work.” So how does this apply to us?

The answer to idolatry

Jesus Christ gives us a very important clue in Matthew’s account of His life and ministry. When a lawyer tried to catch Jesus in a trap of words by asking which commandment was greatest, the Messiah deftly answered, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38).

This is God’s answer to idolatry. We love God by keeping His Word and following all of His commandments and laws (1 John 2:5). This includes worshipping God the way that He outlines for us and seeking Him before all else (Matthew 6:33).

Our priorities

Consider how much of a priority seeking and worshipping God is to you. How much time do we spend intently looking into “the perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25)? Do we talk with God daily (Psalm 55:17)? Do we have the right focus on God’s Sabbath (Isaiah 58:13-14)?

How much do the distractions of this electronic world or our own habits and rituals interfere with putting God first every day (Matthew 13:22)? Are we growing in the way that we seek Him, or are we producing only stunted fruit (Luke 8:14)?

The spirit of idolatry is not only worshipping a false god. It is lifting anything up to a greater priority or importance than our great and eternal Creator. Let us seek God with all our hearts, bodies and minds, pushing away those things that we may have put in His place, no matter how big or small.

Jedd Cole attends the Cincinnati/Dayton, Ohio, congregation of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association.

For more about idolatry, related sins and the great commandment, see:

• The Second Commandment: You Shall Not Make a Carved Image
• Avoiding Lust: “I Have Made a Covenant With My Eyes”
• The Great Commandment