Idolatry

In Exodus 20:1-5,[1] the Lord God prohibited Israel from making or worshiping idols or false gods. Idolatry was a problem for Israel until after the Babylonian exile. Spending seventy years in Babylon apparently cured them, and upon their return they no longer made or worshiped idols.

So by the time of Jesus, everything should have been wonderful, right? Except that it wasn’t. The Jewish religious leaders had acquired new idols—money and power.

What do I mean by an “idol”? To answer that, I must go back to what Jesus called the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”[2] In a nutshell, that means we are to love God more than anyone or anything else. So an “idol” is anyone or anything that is more important to you than God. Idols get in the way of our relationship with God. God needs to be our top priority.

The Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’s time loved their wealth and their privileges,[3] and those had become more important to them than justice, mercy, and faithfulness to God.[4]

Do you have an idol? Ask yourself, “How do I spend my time? How do I spend my money? Am I spending my time and money the way God would want me to?” We prioritize what we value, so if your top priority is anyone or anything other than God, then you have an idol.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love other people or have other interests. But God has to come first. That is what the “greatest commandment” is saying.

[1]. Exodus 20:1-5 says: “Then God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them nor serve them. . . .’ ”

[2]. Mark 12:30; see also Matthew 22:35-37, Luke 10:25-28, and Deuteronomy 6:5

[3]. See Mark 12:38-40 and Luke 20:46-47.

[4]. See, for example, Matthew 23:23 and Luke 11:42.