By: Faith

Read: Leviticus 25:47-27:13, Mark 10:32-52, Psalm 45:1-17, Proverbs 10:22

Do not make idols or set up carved images, or sacred pillars,
or sculptured stones in your land so you may worship them.
I am the Lord your God. You must keep my Sabbath days of rest
and show reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
(Leviticus 27:1-2)

Relate: Growing up as a missionary kid in Northern Japan, I was constantly surrounded by Idols. I could not walk a mile away from my house without seeing one. Shintoism is the primary religion of Japan, with around 70% of people identifying as Shinto and just a mere 1.5% identifying as Christians. With so many converts it was naturally a big part of Japanese culture. When I was in second grade, my class had to visit a temple. The school sent out a flyer to the parents previously that their children would be leaving campus, but left out what we would be doing there, as it was considered common courtesy. So my parents had not talked to me before I went to school, nor had I ever really asked what I should do if I was ever in the situation that I was about to end up in. When we got to the temple, the teachers took us in and the head priest of the temple told us to kneel and pray to pay our respects to the idol. I was still eight years old and unsure of what I should do. I knew very well that the chunk of shaped metal in front of me was most certainly not God and at first I didn’t have any trouble saying “No”. But in that environment I felt a pressure almost physically pressing down on my heart as my feet grew heavy. Next thing I knew, I felt my teacher’s hand on the scruff of my shirt as she pushed me down, “Everyone else is doing it, you must do it too”. Never before had I heard such a vacuous reason coming from an adult, but talking back once was bad enough, I thought, it was unheard of and I felt guilty for doing so. I saw the head priest with a stick and although I knew that he wasn’t actually going to hit me, it was enough to keep me kneeling down just like the rest of my classmates. I was too ashamed to tell my parents and kept my mouth shut about the incident. What doesn’t sit right with me is how eerily similar that situation was to the situation I found myself in within a Christian environment.

React: Leviticus 26 talks about the Blessing for Obedience, but mainly that we shall not bow down to or worship idols. Specifically, it says that we shall not make idols for ourselves or erect an image or pillar, or figured stone. After physically bowing down to a piece of metal once, I have been particularly careful that I won’t ever do that again. But the challenges many Christians find themselves facing are with the idols that we cannot see, that we create ourselves. An Idol can be a person or a thing, and we often forget about the “thing” part. It can be a sport, it can be your grades or anything really that you commit an ungodly devotion to. The predicament that a lot of Christians find themselves in is an environment created by other people to “worship God” yet, they themselves conduct the worship instead of the liturgical forms which remove authority from the individual “leader” and replace it with Jesus Christ and His Church; This I believe to be Christian Doctrine. A leader must have narcissistic tendencies and selfish ambition to make a crowd follow exactly what they do, and to teach very boldly their interpretations as facts which are clearly not from above. When listening to them, you might feel uneasy but not fully equipped to explain why. But these are the qualities found within leaders in corrupt and fallen churches. And it happens more than you might realize, or maybe you grew up with it and are just going with the flow. It’s a forced and manipulative form of worship that creates spiritual mysticism where a leader creates an environment that causes people to be psychologically and emotionally manipulated. Kind of like how they do at Rock concerts with all the lights and smoke and music. The crowds always go crazy. At first, when exposed to this form of fallen leadership, you might feel touched seeing all the people that appear to be deep into worship, but you’re left with an unsettling feeling in your gut when you see them walk out of the room and then go about their days like nothing happened. The “touching atmosphere” might actually be creating a further distinction between your personal life/space and “God’s space”. Simply visually pleasing the worship leaders in the church to make them feel as if they truly “accomplished” something and not actually seeking to worship God with your mind and with your heart is simply people pleasing. I am not saying all of this to judge those who openly worship at Church. I believe that there is nothing to be afraid of amongst those who faithfully, wholeheartedly follow Christ. There is no “set way” to worship that is doctrine, which is why I wanted to call out the hypocrisy amongst worship leaders who use that and their authority – which they shouldn’t even be placing on themselves in the first place – to their advantage and force people to conform to a certain style of worship. Judgment will be harsher on those who are teachers as it is stated in James 3:1 for no man is perfect. So, just like Matthew did, I urge you to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves when discerning whether what you are doing is truly for God and to glorify Him or to feed the selfish ambition of another person.

Respond:

Our Father in heaven,
Thank you for the freedom that You have given us. The freedom we find in being slaves to You and not to sin. Father, I pray that You will give Your children eyes to see and a mind to discern what is not from above. Father, I pray that You give us courage and strength to stand firm in our faith for our earthly bodies constantly betray us and give out. Do not let us harbor resentment towards those who have wronged us but show us how to love in the way that You love us. Father, we find shelter in Your grace and love, I pray that Your hand of protection be over all Your children around the world.
Amen.