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Judges, Kings, Chronicles – Who Do We Trust?
When reading the period of the Judges and Kings, one sad fact overwhelmingly – and even numbingly – is present: the draw of idolatry. It is easy for us to isolate the sensuality involved in fertility cults and wholly blame that as the sole cause. After all, we are good Christians who are not overtly affected by sexual sin (right?). We live good moral lives (don’t we?). We don’t get pulled down in the gutter of immorality (do we?). Our clothing style and computer files are pure (yes?). So it is easy – because sinful sensuality doesn’t apply to us – to isolate the sexual draw of idolatry. It is safe for us to point that pure finger of ours. Hopefully – even if I did imply a little bit of sarcasm.
Yes, I think that the overt sensual draw is part of idolatry’s power, but short sighted. That answer is too easy, too nonpersonal. But look deeper, in some pagan religions there was human sacrifice, even of one’s own offspring – hardly an act of sensual pleasure. So could there have been another attraction to idolatry? Listen to the following quote – listen and apply:
“Israel believed in a God who had intervened in her history: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God-who-brought-us-out-of-slavery. This God guided the people when they were wandering in the desert and he brought them into the land of Canaan.
“Now, however, Israel had settled down: the people have fields and towns. What concerns them is how to make sure that the soil and their flocks are fertile. To whom should they pray to have rain in due season? They found an established religion which was well equipped to answer these needs: the Baals, divinized forms of the storm and the rain, and the Astartes, divinized forms of sexuality and fertility….
“A God who intervened in history – that was all very well. But one had to make a living, and it was safer to rely on the Baals.
“We should not imagine too quickly that this problem is an obsolete one: the Baals have simply changed their name. The Christian may easily experience the same conflict: he believes in a God who has intervened in history and in his son Jesus, but what does this faith have to do with economic necessities? Is it not safer to rely on the ‘powers’ of nature (one’s bank balance, one’s own skills and power)? (How To Read the Bible, Charpentier, p.47)
Ouch! We’ve got to make a living, right? That finger is no longer pointing out at others. It is poking us in the eye!
Colossians 3:5 (HCSB) Therefore, put to death what belongs to your worldly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.
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