Are Those Really Idols in Your Life?

Recently, I posted a blog where I discussed and critiqued the common phrase, “Accept Jesus Into Your Heart.” The funny thing about the phrase, despite it being so widespread, is that it actually isn’t in the Bible, or even biblical. Recognizing this shows us how it can be helpful to critically exam our Christianese. Doing so helps us stay self-aware about both our speech and our beliefs. 

There is another word that I think is very often abused within evangelical circles. Interestingly, this word is about as biblical as it gets. The issue is not that the word or concept is not part of Scripture’s own language, but rather that we misuse it and thus fail to accurately reflect the idea that the Bible has in mind when it uses the word. The word I’m talking about is: idol or idolatry.

In fact, the common usage of this word has bothered me for years. It gets used in so many ways and in an array of settings. From small groups to sermons, we are very often told to examine our idols. Or perhaps, to search our heart for idols. The implication being, of course, that we do have them. Hobbies, family, food, work, and many other good things are regularly assumed to be idolatrous if they dare distract us in the slightest way from glorifying God.

To be clear, all of these things (though good), can be devastating to our faith. Jesus warns us very clearly of misplaced affections. All of these items could function as an idol if truly placed as lord of our lives over Christ. But that’s just it. If we’ve done this, by Jesus’s own words, we cannot be his disciple (Luke 14:26-27). At the heart of idolatry is worship. At the heart of discipleship is worship. You can’t do both. It is following after another god against the true and living God.

The word idolatry just shouldn’t be used as casually as it so often is. We must retain the word in our Christian vocabulary. We need to realize that there is a dynamic range of what could be considered idolatry. Things such as greed, lust, sexual immorality, and evil desire all amount to idolatry (Colossians 3:5). But note the severity of Paul’s next verse: “it is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience” (Col. 3:6). And for the Christian? It is true that “in them you also once walked, when you were living in them” (Col. 3:7). But although a Christian may struggle against these things, they must not surrender to them, they must not live in them. For doing so, would amount to idolatry. Something the Christian no longer walks in.

Kaitlyn Schiess puts it like this:

Christians tend to apply the language of idolatry to every area of our lives. Yet our habit of identifying anything from chocolate chip cookies to football teams as idols lessens the impact of the real meaning of the word… The prophets who so consistently communicate this judgment don’t describe her idolatry as merely misplaced valuing of some good thing (as we often use the term), but as capitulation to a different story and set of values. Idols make promises of protection and provision, and they require allegiance. Their worshipers don’t merely love them too much; they submit to these idols and worship them… we’ve watered down the language of idolatry.¹

We should be able to recognize that idolatry does have a bent toward worshiping the created over the Creator. This is, I believe, what many Christians are really trying to communicate when they talk about their idol of chocolate chip cookies. They are properly recognizing that they ought to have their affections properly aligned. They are properly understanding that good things can eventually draw us to the point of idolatry.

In the classic novel Jayne Eyre we read a good description of what this can look like in a relationship: “He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.”² All of these recognitions made by common discussions of idolatry are good, yet they have the tendency to grossly exaggerate the scope of the problem.

If we’re really dealing with idolatry, the matter is one of extreme importance. But most of the time, by the way we use the word idolatry, we are really talking about matters of maturity, growth, balance, wisdom, prudence, and obedience. If that’s the case, we should be more accurate and true to Scripture with our word choice. Idols must be destroyed completely. We shouldn’t use the word then, if that’s not what we’re talking about doing.

Notes:

1. Kaitlyn Schiess, The Liturgy of Politics (Dover Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 35
2. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, (London, England: Puffin Books 1994), 386

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