2001-08-26 - Idolatry

Passages about The Ten Commandments, Part 1

Today we begin a series on passages about the Ten Commandments. Do you ever think of yourself as an idolater? Probably not. Most of us don't bow down to statues, make burnt sacrifices etc. But many of us (including myself) have been guilty of idolatry at times. What or whom do you think about more often, love more, live more devotedly to, than God? Your children? Your boyfriend? Fashionable clothing? Your preferred baseball team? Someone has said that we can tell what we idolize by looking at our checkbook register. Today we will look at passages about idolatry.

Exodus 20:3 (RSV) You shall have no other gods before me.

1 John 5:21 (RSV) Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Matthew 6:23-25 (RSV) But if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing

2 Kings 17:6-11 (RSV) In the ninth year of Hoshe'a the king of Assyria captured Sama'ria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. And this was so, because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs which the kings of Israel had introduced. And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places at all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city; they set up for themselves pillars and Ashe'rim on every high hill and under every green tree; and there they burned incense on all the high places, as the nations did whom the LORD carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger.

Acts 14:14-15 (RSV) But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out among the multitude, crying, "Men, why are you doing this? We also are men, of like nature with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.

Jan

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