Commentary and Devotional

Though we do not face a pantheon of false gods like the Israelites did, we face pressures from a pantheon of false values--materialism, love of leisure, sensuality, worship of self, security, and many others. The second commandment deals with idols. This may be something that most of us can't relate to--unless we include life goals that revolve around something other than God Himself. What is the object of our affections, our efforts, and our attention? Where does the majority of our time go? On what do we spend the greatest amount of our resources?

Today in the Word, June 14, 1989.

What other gods could we have besides the Lord? Plenty. For Israel there were the Canaanite Baals, those jolly nature gods whose worship was a rampage of gluttony, drunkenness, and ritual prostitution. For us there are still the great gods Sex, Shekels, and Stomach (an unholy trinity constituting one god: self), and the other enslaving trio, Pleasure, Possessions, and Position, whose worship is described as "The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16). Football, the Firm, and Family are also gods for some. Indeed the list of other gods is endless, for anything that anyone allows to run his life becomes his god and the claimants for this prerogative are legion. In the matter of life's basic loyalty, temptation is a many-headed monster.

James Packer, Your Father Loves You, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986.

Today's idols are more in the self than on the shelf.

Goudzwaard's three basic Biblical rules:

1. Every person is serving god(s) in his life.
2. Every person is transformed into an image of his god.
3. Mankind creates and forms a structure of society in its own image.

That for which I would give anything and accept nothing in exchange is the most important thing in my life. Whatever that is is my god (cf. Isa. 44:6-20).

J. McMath.