The Idolatry of Good Things
After reading this week’s blog, please see “Some Housekeeping Things” at the end.
“The carpenter…cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak…Half of the wood he burns in the fire. Over [that] half, he roasts meat; he eats it and is satisfied. Also, he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down before it and worships it. He prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god!’” (Isaiah 44:13-17).
Isaiah paints a picture of a man who used wood from the same tree to both cook his dinner and to carve an idol that he worships. It's easy to dismiss this as absurd. We’d never do something like that.
But as John Calvin famously stated, our hearts are idol factories. This means that we are all constantly producing idols from our hearts.
When good things—family, careers, education—become ultimate things that we hope will give us what we want—love, security, meaning, approval, pleasure—that is idolatry. We can even do this with our religion.
Consider Henry, an inmate in a Florida prison. He was deeply committed to his faith, attending every service, class, and study at the prison chapel. He believed that because of his religious devotion, he would be granted his most fervent desire, early release from prison. He was using religion to get his true greatest desire: going home. He longed to go home more than he longed to know God. That was idolatry.
It is not uncommon for religion to become an idol for prisoners who think that religion will give them their dearest wish to leave incarceration.
Recently, during a prison worship service, one of the men quoted Mark 11:24, “Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. I have prayed to go home,’ he said, ‘I believe I am going home, and I am sure that I will be going home!’”
In John 6, we read about a time when a large crowd followed Jesus. They had seen and heard about him healing the sick, and now they wanted to see what else Jesus would do. Seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus asked Philip where they could get food to feed so many people.
“We don’t have enough money to buy food for all these people,” Philip replied.
Andrew offered, “There is a boy with five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they for such a crowd?”
“Have the people sit down,” said Jesus. He then gave thanks and started handing out bread and fish. By the time he finished, five thousand men, plus women and children, had eaten their full.
There were some theologically astute people in the crowd. When they saw what Jesus had done with the boy's lunch, they knew the theological implications.
“This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” they cried.
Not a prophet, but the Prophet. And they started to go take Jesus and, by force, make him a king.
Who is the Prophet?
In Deuteronomy 18:15-18, Moses said that the Lord was going to raise up a prophet like him. This was the longed-for Messiah. As Moses had led the people to the Promised Land the Prophet would lead the people into an era of peace and prosperity.
The people realized this was him. Jesus is the Prophet; he is the Messiah. What was the tip-off?
It was the food.
Moses had given the people manna in the wilderness. For forty years, an entire nation had eaten free food. Nothing like that had ever happened before or since. Now, here was Jesus, feeding thousands with a boy’s sack lunch.
The people were ready for a Messiah, a king, who would lead them to political freedom and, as a bonus, handed out free lunches.
The next day, though, Jesus explained that they had missed the point. The point was not to follow him to get free food; the point was to follow him to get him.
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus said. The food is not the bread of life; Jesus is the bread of life. “In fact,” Jesus said, “you must eat my flesh and drink my blood in order to receive eternal life.”
One commentator said that Jesus used the language of eating his flesh and drinking his blood “to illustrate the intimacy of union between Christ and the believer.” In other words, Jesus was not offering these people a lifetime of free meals; he was offering them himself.
At that, many of the people who had been following him “turned back and no longer walked with him.”
Their religion, their following Jesus, had been about getting something that they wanted. First, it was about Jesus healing sick people. Then it was about getting a lifetime supply of free meals. It had never been about getting Jesus. And that is idolatry.
Christian discipleship for the sake of things we can get from God, even things good in themselves, is not true worship or love. It is a form of idolatry.
Are there good things that we expect God to give us because we follow Jesus? Do we expect a happy marriage, healthy children, financial prosperity, security, as a reward for being Jesus’ disciples? Are we more invested in the things that God can provide or in simply knowing him better? Would we continue to follow him with the same fervor if we lost all our “things?”
Will my prisoner friends keep following Jesus even if they don’t go home early and must serve their entire sentences?
I hope so.
God doesn’t want us to seek him for what we can get from him. He wants us to seek him for him, to get more of him.
Let’s pray and ask the Lord to give us eyes to see where we have made good things into ultimate things and the grace to turn our hearts fully to him.
Much love, Barry
Some Housekeeping Things
Beginning next week, my weekly devotional blogs will move to a different platform. I’ll be using Substack for the devotionals. There are some features on Substack, once I’ve learned how to use them, that I think will make for a better experience. My ministry newsletters will, at least for the time being, continue to come from this website. Thank you for reading these devotionals and newsletters. I appreciate you!
Please pray for our prison ministries. Click here for our May prayer requests.