1 Then God said to Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there, and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee, when thou fleddest from Esau thy brother.
2 Then said Jacob unto his household and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and cleanse yourselves, and change your garments:
3 For we will rise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there unto God, which heard me in the day of my tribulation, and was with me in the way which I went. Genesis 35:1-3 (1599 Geneva Bible)
idolatry 1: the worship of a physical object as a god 2: immoderate attachment or devotion to something (from Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary)
I’m sure that most Christians’ conception of idolatry is one in which people fall down and worship some statue or image or a facsimile of something that appears to resemble a god….
While that is an example of idolatry there is a more subtle form of idolatry that all people are neck deep in outside of the grace of God. If we look closely at the dictionary definition above, we will see that the first definition is our conception while the second is the reality of which we must all agree that we are guilty. The last word in that definition could easily be change from “something” to “someone.” Then all we have to do is look in a mirror to see who that someone is. We are all guilty of idolatry to some level. <Continue reading post>