Thou Shalt
Have No Other Gods Before Me
Exodus 20:3; Acts 7:35-43
It’s a famous line,
particularly in the language of the King James Version: “Thou shalt have no
other gods before me.” Although this verse actually is not a statement of
monotheism we can take it to mean for us that we are to have no God other than
the one true God.[1] We
call having a god other than the one true God idolatry, worship of an idol. An
idol is a false god, i.e., a supposed god that isn’t actually God. For
monotheists like Jews, Christians, and Muslims it is never acceptable to have
any god than God. Islam states this principle strongly and clearly in the first
line of the Shahadah, the creed of Islam: “There is no God but God.”[2]
I assume that all Christians would accept that it is impermissible to worship
or follow any god but God.
One of the perhaps
maddening things about theology is that every answer you give just raises more
questions. The statement that we are to have no god before God raises at least
two important questions. One is: What is a god? The other is: What does it mean
to put an idol, a false god, before the one true God? I will attempt to answer
those questions here. To do it I will turn to the great twentieth century
Protestant theologian Paul Tillich.[3]
We start with Tillich’s
conception of what a god is. A god, he said, is anything that is a person’s “ultimate
concern.” An ultimate concern is that which is more important to someone than
anything else. The one true God can be a person’s ultimate concern, but more
often something else is what is the most important thing to us. I have gotten
lots of nods from people when I have suggested that what is most important to
many people is their family. I confess that that is true of me. I say I confess
that it is because I know full well that my family is not the one true God. Yet
while Abraham was willing sacrifice Isaac to God, I would never do such a thing
no matter how convinced I was that God was telling me to do it (not that God
ever has or ever will tell anyone to do such a thing).[4]
Tillich suggests a couple
of things that function as an ultimate concern for many Americans. Wealth
functions as a god for far too many of us. Our culture so values wealth that a
great many of us will do anything to get it. We expect it to make life full and
meaningful. We turn to it to solve all our problems. We will oppose and avoid
anything that we think is keeping us from making more money. I saw that dynamic
at work decades ago at the downtown Seattle law firms I used to work for when I
was a lawyer. Some lawyers saw legal ethics only as something that stopped them
from doing certain things to make more money. They weren’t professional
lawyers, they were professional money makers who happened to practice law as
their way of making money. Wealth was their god, their ultimate concern.
Tillich’s other
suggestion for something that is a god for many Americans is the nation. What will
most Americans die for? The nation. What will most Americans kill for? The
nation. To what do most Americans look for safety and security? The nation. In
my neighborhood I never see people displaying the cross, a star of David, an
Islamic crescent, or any other religious symbol unless you count gawdy
Christmas decorations as Christian symbols (which I don’t). I do see the
American flag on people’s houses all the time. Two of my neighbors are
displaying them as I write. Consider: Which will get you in more trouble faster
in this country, blaspheming God or denying the greatness of the United States?
Clearly the latter. Most Americans are far more protective of this country than
they are of God. They comfort themselves for their patriotic idolatry by merging
God and country into one entity they call a Christian nation, never mind that our
country have has been and never was meant to be Christian.
We Americans make family,
wealth, the nation, or other things our ultimate concern all the time. In other
words we commit idolatry by make those things our god. An idol is a false god.
It is anything that people take as a god that is not truly God. It is something
people take as ultimate and transcendent that is neither ultimate nor
transcendent. It may be the family, wealth, or the nation as I’ve suggested.
For many Americans it is the Bible. For others it is some church. We humans are
infinitely creative in making idols for ourselves, and most of them look
nothing like a golden calf.
Tillich insisted
(correctly) that anything a person takes as ultimate that is not ultimate will
eventually fail them. Wealth, it turns out, doesn’t actually satisfy the soul. The
nation does evil things and adopts policies that are harmful rather than
constructive. The Bible is full of contradictions and states as true things no
rational person could accept as true. Your church preaches harmful moral dogmas
and fails to act for justice and peace. Even your family will fail you. Parents
get frail and die. Children go astray and reject you when you try to help.
Marriages devolve into nothing but arguments and end in divorce. A younger
generation ignores an older generation and leaves older people to live unsafe
lives in lonely isolation. Nothing that we take to be ultimate that is not
truly ultimate, that is not truly God, will not serve us well for long. Every
last one of them will fail us.
The ancient Jews of Moses’
time and the less ancient Jews of the first century CE knew about the
temptation to idolatry. In his speech to the Jewish council that got him stoned
to death St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, pointed to the idolatry of
the golden calf as one of the failings of the Jews. Acts 7:39-41. After the
text declares that Yahweh (“the Lord”)
was the Hebrew people’s God the Ten Commandments ordain: “You shall have no
other gods before me.” Exodus 20:3. In other words, you shall not commit
idolatry.
Originally when this text
says “other gods” it almost certainly meant the gods and goddesses of peoples
other than the Hebrews. I seriously doubt however that many of us are tempted
to worship Isis and Horus of the Egyptians or Ashera and Baal of the Canaanites.
We are much more likely to worship money or America, the Bible or our church.
All of those things and many others besides can easily become idols for us. They
will fail us. The one reality that is not an idol, the one true God, will never
fail us the way false idols do. God is faithful always. God is compassionate
always. God is grace always. God is love always. God saves us and all people
always. God is the only ultimate concern we can trust our whole lives long. So
let us always keep the admonition of Exodus 20:3 in mind: “Thou shalt have no
other gods before me.” May it be so.
[1]
The verse is actually a statement of something called henotheism, which is a
kind of faith that says that while there are many gods a particular people is
to worship only one god. The ancient Hebrews were henotheists until the
Babylonian Exile in the sixth century BCE. For how they developed true
monotheism during the Babylonian Exile see Sorenson, Thomas Calnan, Liberating
the Bible, A Pastor’s Guided Tour for Seeking Christians, Revised Edition,
Volume Two, The Old Testament, Coffee Press, Briarwood, NY, 2019, pp. 281-290.
[2]
You will see this line translated as “There is no God but Allah,” and some
uninformed (and probably prejudiced) people will say Allah is not God. Wrong.
The word Allah is a form of the Arabic for God. God is its correct translation.
When it’s left as Allah it’s just left in the Arabic original.
[3] If
you want to read Tillich himself on this subject see his book Dynamics of
Faith. Although this book was first published in 1958 it is still important
(it changed my life) and is readily available on line.
[4]
Yes. I know. Genesis says God told Abraham to do it. God never did. What we
have in the account of God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is a story told
to make theological points. It isn’t history. It is true, but it never
happened.
No comments:
Post a Comment