Idolatry is a sin that we don’t really struggle with in the 21st century world. I don’t personally know anyone that creates little idols in their garage and spends the better part of a Saturday afternoon offering incense and sacrificing animals on a homemade altar.
That doesn’t mean that idolatry is dead and gone, though. Colossians 3:5 makes a pointed remark about the nature of greed when Paul equates it to idolatry. In doing so, he defines the nature of idolatry as anything that supplants the desire for God Himself.
We have many idols in the world around us. Lots of people “worship” their job, their hobbies, relationships, politics—all of which God says must be loved less than Himself if we want to be true servants to Him (Luke 14:25-35). The moment we believe any of those things give us greater satisfaction than a life lived for God is the moment we effectively made it an idol.
That’s why the golden calf incident at the base of Mount Sinai is such a big deal. It’s not that they replaced God with another deity; you can tell from Aaron’s comment in Exodus 32:4 that they believe they’re worshipping Jehovah through the calf.
The problem was that they reduced an all-mighty, all-knowing, ever-present God to a block of gold. By compartmentalizing God inside of a physical entity, they stripped God of all His power and respect and made him something that you can touch and feel. They took the immortal, and made Him mortal.
One of the Ten Commandments mentions this specifically. They were not to make any “likenesses” of anything for the purpose of worship. Later, in Deuteronomy 4:11-20, Moses mentions how the people saw no form nor heard a voice from Mount Sinai. That was designed to form in them a sense of awe. Because of the golden calf however, they have reduced Jehovah to the form of an animal.
I’ve heard lots of people justify their idols in the same way. Someone will tell me that they obsess over their work so they can have more money to give to others. Someone else will say they skip church for family time so they can be more present and have more influence on their kids.
While good intentioned, those are the same mistakes that Israel made with the golden calf. If that person really wanted to be a good influence on their children, church would be a priority. And to the one who works 90 hours a week in order to give more money to others, the counter-argument would be that you could shave 50 hours off the top and spend it actively helping them instead. An afternoon building a porch for a widow is more beneficial to everyone than an extra $200 in her pocket.
By trying to worship God through a calf, they reconstructed worship in a way that accommodated them. They had a hard time fathoming a complex, spiritual entity that operated inside a pillar of fire, so they turned God into something they understood.
But God isn’t meant to be understood in the same way that we understand the things around us, nor is His worship meant to be adapted to suit our own needs. If we do that, we’re not worshipping God anymore, we’re worshipping ourselves.
