If you’ve read the title for this post and you’re still here, I’ll assume you don’t want a piece that is filled with worthless platitudes. I'll even venture a guess and say you'd probably like some background so that you might better grasp how a commandment that’s thousands of years old can still apply today. And I won’t take it for granted that you love the Bible and want a better understanding of one of the most misunderstood commandments in all of scripture.
Ready for a quick Old Testament fast-forward? Allow me to first sum up Gen. 1:1-Exodus 20:1: God created man. Man sinned. God promised to redeem man. Time passes. God calls a man named Abram to follow him, changes his name to Abraham, and promises to make him a mighty nation. Later, Abraham's great-grandson, Joseph, saves his family and all of Egypt from a severe famine. Joseph and his family settle in Egypt. 400 years elapse. Joseph's family, now called the Israelites, are the size of a nation but have become enslaved by the Egyptians. God calls a man named Moses to deliver them. Pharaoh refuses to free the Jews, so God sends ten plagues, and the Israelites are set free. They then head towards the lands promised to their ancestor, Abraham. But before they enter the titular “promise land,” God wants to lay down some ground rules. Commonly referred to as the 10 commandments, these rules will help maintain a healthy relationship between the Israelites in their God.
(Pause for applause……….pause a little more…….thank you…thank you….aaaaand bow.)
Why the context? Because it's important to see that before God ever set down any formal requirements, he proved by his actions that he loved humankind. Before he ever commanded them to refrain from having other gods, he demonstrated what kind of God he was. Not until he laid out his love for them did he lay down the law before them (cf. Ex. 20:2). And the first law God instituted was this:
"You shall have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:3 (ESV)
Now, if it wasn't for God, the Israelites wouldn't even exist; in light of this fact alone, the first commandment seems a natural starting point. Their fidelity to God was to be undivided in the same way that God’s love for them had been unbroken. God deserved all the credit, and it was to him that they owed their allegiance.
What’s more, this commandment set the tone for the Jew’s entire belief system. Polytheism—a belief in multiple gods—was the norm. And while people groups may have recognized some prime deity, they often worshiped a whole pantheon of gods (i.e., Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, etc.). For God to require that the Jews worship only him, he, in essence, created the very first monotheistic—a belief in one god—religion. Meaning that, for the Jew, going and serving some other deity was a sin called idolatry.
But what does this have to do with us? Practically speaking, that meant the Jews weren't to have any idols in their home. And if our idea of an idol is nothing more than a statue made out of wood, stone, or metal, I don't think there is much of a problem today. Or, I should say, I feel that this isn't a problem for modern Christians living in a Western context. However, suppose we expand our definition of an idol to incorporate anything that draws us away from God? In that case, all of a sudden, this commandment becomes incredibly applicable.
The idols we have to be wary of today are not physical in the traditional sense. Idols carved from stone have been replaced by cars molded from steel and phones built from technology. Before, entire belief systems governed how one ought to worship an idol. Today, the only belief system that controls anything is a person's happiness. The love of self is the modern-day equivalent of idol worship.
And what's so hard about trying to talk about idolatry today is that most people don't see it for what it is. Rather than call it idolatry, they call it something like the "American dream." Rather than acknowledge that they're more concerned with their own wants and desires than with God's, they ignore the problem altogether.
But anything and everything that takes us away from God is idolatry. The dad who puts his family before God has made his family an idol. The woman who thinks only of her career has confined God to the closet of her conscience and put heart’s desire at the center of her life. Good things turn into bad things when God is not our main thing. On the flipside, when we place God first, he helps us to be a better spouse, parent, employee, friend. Priorities tend to fall into place, when we place God first.
Way back in the beginning, God told the Israelites that he ought to be the only one who sat on the throne of their hearts. How much more so for those of us who have been redeemed by God's Son? While we were like pigs wallowing in our filth, God sent his Son to die for us (cf. Rom. 5:8). What sort of allegiance ought that to instill in our hearts?
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