Rooted in the first of the Ten Commandments God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, Judaism has a central tenet known as the Shema: “Hear O Israel there is one God. The Lord is our God . . .”
However, when we look carefully at God’s wording of the First Commandment:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:2-3 NIV).
God seems to be recognizing that people can have other gods, albeit counterfeit. Paraphrasing: “You should center yourselves in God only and avoid those “other gods.”
The Second Commandment carries forward the thought commanding that the starting place for serving God only is:
“. . . not make[ing] for yourself an image [that which arises from our imagination; i.e. our thought life] in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. . .(Exodus 20:4-6 NIV).”
So the question before us is: cloaked in the cultural norms and routines of our day to day, are there “other gods” represented by material objects or thought-occupying objects of affection that hold our attention, divert and consume our money and energy into unhealthy and improper uses, and intrude upon our thoughts and attitudes such that they in sum “come before” God. Do we feel like we’ve become enslaved by something/someone that at first promised much and asked little only to later realize we’ve become subservient to what has given little and taken from us much? That’s what “other gods” do.
To learn more about these “other gods” and how they can affect our lives, check out our Counterfeit Gods series here!
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