Meaning of Idolatry

Sorry I'm late, guys! Covetousness is idolotry, because the bible says it is. How is it different from the actual act of worshipping an image? It is an internal, spiritual if you will, idolotry. Just as the Lord tells us we can commit fornication in our heart, we can commit idolatry in our heart when allow our lusts to supplant the rule of God in our lives. It is not necessarily the worship of money, although that may be the case. It is more the worship of our own desires over the will of God.

Philippians 3:19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

just a thought.

 

John of Japan wrote,

God is not a dysfunctional illiterate high school dropout! He is God! If He wanted to say that, he is more than capable of saying it. What He did say, through the Apostle Paul, is that covetousness in idolatry. His statements that this is so in Colossians and Ephesians are crystal clear and I am not aware of a single New Testament Scholar who has found any ambiguity in these statements.

 

John of Japan wrote,

I am not a fundamentalist in the modern sense of the word; I am a conservative evangelical Christian who believes in the Christian Fundamentals of the faith.

 

John of Japan wrote,

How could I possibly have any disdain for you in my heart when I know virtually nothing about you or what you believe? I do, however, have very much disdain in my heart for the "interpretation" that you have put forth in this thread regarding two of the clearest and least ambiguous statements found anywhere in the Hoy Scriptures. If you are imagining that you are finding disdain for you in my posts, perhaps you are also imagining that Paul didn’t write what he wrote, and that he wrote something else instead.

 

We are discussing a very important issue here, so it might be a good idea for us to try to write as clearly and unambiguously as did Paul in Col. 3:5 and Eph. 5:5 when he wrote that covetousness is idolatry and that a covetous man is an idolater.

 

Idolatry includes misdirected worship from Baal to Ego--the human kind suffers from the malady called sin which includes idolatry. There is only one remedy: Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Physical idolatry is an oxymoron!

 

The U.S. of A. is probably one of the most idolatrous regions on the globe. We are a rather large spectrum of Heddonistic Materialists. We worship our dwelling places, our cars, our boats, our bank accounts, our stock portfolios, our IRAs, Superbowl and Madonna, just to name a few.

This is probably not a new feature of the human kind. We have been depraved ever since Adam fell.

There is only one remedy for sin: the shed blood of Jesus, Christ.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

John of Japan wrote,

Yes it was a good post, and I pretty much agree with it also. And of course covetousness is spiritual idolatry—that’s the only kind of idolatry that there is. What you call “physical idolatry” is not idolatry at all—it is merely an outward expression of the idolatry in the heart of the individual. The physical act of bowing down to an idol is NOT in and of itself idolatry. Take away the intent of the heart, and the act is totally innocent. Consider for a moment a quadriplegic sitting in a wheel chair before an idol. If in his heart he is bowing down to it, he is committing idolatry just as much as the man beside him who is also physically bowing down to the idol. And the severely retarded man next to that man, bowing down before the idol but not having the cognitive ability to understand that the thing in front of him is an idol, and merely imitating the physical gesture of the man next to him who is worshipping the idol, is not himself worshiping the idol, nor is he committing the sin of idolatry.

Working long hours and carefully investing in the stock market is not idolatry. These, in and of themselves, are entirely innocent acts. But when these acts are an outward expression of covetousness, we see that the sin of idolatry is being committed—not by the physical acts, but by the intention of the heart. I am by no means a cultural anthropologist, but the study of the cultures of man has been a hobby of mine for many years. And over those years I have learned that we live in a world of many diverse cultures, many past, and many surviving or developing today. And in each of these cultures we find idolatry being physically expressed in different ways, but it is always in the heart of the people and we become aware of it when we see the outward expressions of what is in the evil hearts of men. Covetousness is a sinful condition of the heart and the more severe the covetousness is, the more severe will be the outward manifestations of it. They may be as mild as working a few hours of overtime or as severe as murder for financial gain. But if covetousness in the heart is the cause of these outward expressions, these outward expressions are expressions of idolatry.

 

In the case of adultery, the physical act is NOT a sin any more than the physical act of bowing down to an idol is a sin. It is the willful desire and intent of the heart that is a sin, the physical act is nothing but an outward expression of the sin. A severely retarded young man who has not the ability to know any better and who looks at a woman and desires to know her (in the Biblical sense) is not sinning, and if that woman is a married woman who is compliant, and they perform the deed, the man has not sinned, but the woman has, unless she also had not the ability to know any better.

The physical act, in and of itself, is NEVER sin. It is the willful desire and intent of the heart that is sin. When a young child accidentally spills a glass of milk, without any willful carelessness or disobedience, the child has not sinned. But if that child has been told to pick up the glass of milk using both hands, and the child willfully and intentionally disobeys and picks up the glass of milk with one hand and spills it, that child has sinned.

I have myself seen the most horrendous acts of barbarism in the name of idol worship, but it is only the desire and intent of the heart that is sin. When the desire and the intent of the heart is covetousness, that is idolatry, and we have clear and express statements to that effect in the New Testament. No, it is not the outward expression of idolatry that you have seen time and again in Japan, nor is it the outward expression of idolatry that I have seen in Singapore, but nonetheless Paul says that covetousness is idolatry and that those who are guilty covetousness are idolaters. Of this fact there is neither doubt nor question. Perhaps Paul was mistaken, but I don’t think so because, as I have posted, his opinion was common among ancient Jews, and I believe that Paul’s writings were inspired. And let’s not forget that Paul traveled, and everywhere he went he saw idol worship like you have seen in Japan and like I have seen in Singapore.

 

And the condemnation of sin is in our denial of sin, the rejection of the reproval of sin. Often times (maybe always) accompanied by deceitful fleshy works to try to cover the evidence.

John 3
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

1 John 1
5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

We have a remedy:

Matthew 11
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

 

Getting out more:
--having seen in person the various Far Eastern religion shrines in Thailand, Viet Nam, Japan, Philippines, Hawaii; and having seen the iconism in Cathedrals in Antokya(bible: Antioch), Turkey, New Orleans, etc. etc. I left out: Voodoo/Catholicism, ancestor worship/saint worship. All of this is pagan idolatry--lust of the eyes.

God is Spirit, they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. God does not dwell in temples made with hands.

It is the spiritual idolatry that gets us into trouble--Israel has the same problem.

These are examples of the great malady of man: totally depravity. By himself, man has not a clue as to what is good--everything he does is evil.

Jesus is the only remedy.

Selah,

Bro. James