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Graven Images

            Praise the Lord. Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands. (Psalm 112:1)

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)

 

Let’s begin with yesterday’s reasonable conclusion. If God is, in fact, the only god, it makes sense that we should not have other gods before Him. If God is the only god, it also makes sense that we should not treat other beings as being equal to or greater than He is or put them in His place. It also makes sense that we should not attach to Him conceptualizations that would minimize or trivialize Him in our minds and hearts.

Another way in which depicting any god as an animal does us harm is that it tends to lead to our depicting the animal as a god. In other words, it lies both about God (or the god) and the animal.

This passage introduces another concept for our consideration: the jealous god. Recently, someone complained that the whole idea of a god being jealous seemed to be nonsense to him. Why would a god who created everything have any reason to be jealous? I didn’t ask him, but I suspect part of the problem was that he defined jealousy as being resentful or unhappy because someone else possesses what He wants. That’s the common definition, but I don’t think it’s accurate. That describes envy. Jealousy is the negative response to someone else having or enjoying what is yours.

In other words, jealousy is the response when we bow down to or worship that which is not actually God, because by right, that worship belongs to God. Giving ourselves in worship to that which is not a god provokes jealousy because rightfully, we belong to God and commit a form of adultery when we give ourselves to another “god.”

A third aspect is that if love is wanting what is in the best interest of the beloved, then not being jealous when that beloved is seduced by what is not a true god, away from the God who actually loves the beloved would be to demonstrate a lack of love. Why would someone who loves their beloved want their beloved to hang around with someone who harms them?

 

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