Today’s reading: Jeremiah 32; Romans 8
An idol is a false god, not just “anything that takes first place in your life before God.”
This isn’t what Jeremiah is writing about in Jeremiah 32, but as he describes the idolatry that resulted in Israel’s expulsion from the land, I couldn’t help but keep coming back to this. This is an idea/notion that you hear pretty commonly in the West, any time the issue of idolatry comes up in the Bible; pastors and teachers will say that an idol is anything you elevate to being too important, generally trying to make the discussion applicable to an audience that isn’t really tempted to go worship other gods. And while Paul does say, in Colossians, that extreme greed can be a form of idolatry, it is easy, in a historically monotheistic culture, to misunderstand what we are really talking about.
When God takes issue with Israel’s idolatry throughout the Old Testament, it was not because His people were investing too much time in their kids’ sports, putting in too many hours at the office trying to climb the corporate ladder, or worrying too much about keeping their homes and lawns nice; like so many pastors will say in application. When God takes issue with idolatry, it is because His people are worshipping other spiritual entities, looking for benefits from them.
As Jeremiah describes it in our chapter this morning, the people were making offerings to Baal, pouring out drink offerings to other gods, setting up idols to worship in the temple, and building high places to worship Baal and Molech by sacrificing their children… These idols were not mundane material things they were paying more attention to than God, these were spirits that they were bowing down to, worshipping, killing their children to placate, etc. Is this how we are thinking of idolatry when we say things like, “an idol is anything that takes first place in your life before God?”
In one sense, this comes from a well-intentioned place, trying to make various parts of the Bible applicable to every audience, but being well-intentioned doesn’t make it right. We don’t need to make every part of the Bible apply to us. Take what was happening in Jeremiah’s day, where people were sacrificing their children to other gods, for example. If we are not dealing with or teaching a people or culture that would ever kill their children like that, we don’t need to try to morph that into a teaching point. It is perfectly okay to say, “Praise God no one in my church is killing their children as an offering to Molech!” and then move on without trying to figure out or invent some modern-day American version of killing your children to admonish people about instead. Or the various times the New Testament authors speak against participating in orgies (which were more common in the ancient world as part of the worship of various gods). That prohibition would obviously still apply to us, but if the people in your church are not struggling with a lifestyle of participating in orgies, you don’t need to work out what else you could apply that prohibition to instead.
Part of the reason it bothers me to hear this kind of talk is that it has the effect of dramatically reducing the seriousness of idolatry. If worshipping another god is no worse than anything else that gets too important in your life, then why does God speak so strongly and so often about it throughout the Bible? And maybe in the past, at least in the West, it wasn’t too big of a deal if we didn’t realize how seriously God really takes worshipping other gods apart from Him, because in our Judeo-Christian culture, that wasn’t really an issue, but that is rapidly changing. As the world becomes increasingly connected and integrated, as people from polytheistic and animistic cultures and religions immigrate and assimilate into our communities, they are bringing their gods with them. I have, for example, worked for years with a number of coworkers from India, who would keep statues and pictures of various gods on their desks. My young children, in their schools, are learning about Hindu holidays and asking why their friends follow gods that we don’t. Different spiritistic and animistic practices have been coming more and more into vogue in recent years, including making headway into various Christian churches and denominational strains. If this wasn’t too much of an issue for our churches in the past, it is certainly becoming an issue today. And if we are communicating that idolatry is anything that gets to be too important, from your job, to your house, to your kids, car, hobbies, etc., then we are honestly setting a pretty low standard for concern for people flirting with the notion of adding another god into the mix.
Idolatry is a big deal to God. The root and essence of the Christian gospel is that Jesus died for our sins and we are save by placing our faith in Him and Him alone for our salvation. That completely excludes our faith being placed in other gods or spiritual entities for guidance, strength, deliverance, prosperity, or anything else. I’m afraid that, if we don’t make that distinction, we are setting the next generations up for serious failure by downplaying the sin and trouble of allowing other gods to divide our affections.
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