Everyday Idolatry: The Dramatic Tragedy of the Ages
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Modern thinking about idolatry is so fraught with far-removed associations that we miss its true threat. At the very mention of idolatry we tend to think of artifacts behind a glass case or pictures of graven stone in an issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Gilded figurines in a black, felt-lined display. Gem-studded goats. Why, at the mention of idolatry, do we often conjure something that is completely foreign to our everyday experience? Associating idols with museum pieces is like picturing Satan as a red creep with horns, wielding a farm utensil—a grave miscalculation.
Believers who are unaware of the penetrating depth and breadth of God’s Word on idolatry live in a dangerous naïveté. A superficial understanding of idolatry means a compromised ability to see it and slay it. And the trap we fall into is the one we don’t see. Satan trivializes his public image so he can carry on his deceptive schemes. As the enemy has deceived many people so that they don’t take him seriously, so it is with idolatry: there is a consequential gap between the biblical portrayal of idolatry’s threat level and modern Christians’ threat assessment. Some pressing questions beg to be answered.
What is the nature of idolatry? How does it contrast from the nature of God? What is the opposite of idolatry? Is idolatry really about the image or the idea? Is there a difference? What forms does it take? Does it matter? When does an idol become an idol? How do we identify idolatry in our lives, and how do we repent of it? As long as we regard idolatry to be merely one stratum in a supposed ‘evolution of religion’—the ancient capers of ignorant people piddling around with a chisel—the trick will be on us.
Idolatry is an idea about glory that springs from the imagination rather than revelation. From the garden to the lake of fire, it is the dramatic tragedy of mankind’s vain quest for self-glory. Let us remind ourselves: idolaters will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9–10). Especially, then, in our day when idolatry has shed its tell-tale graven images, we cannot afford to think superficially about it.
- Page Count: 244 pages
- Publisher: Expositors Press
- Publication Date: July 2025
- ISBN-13: 979-8218683801
