Q. What is the second of the Ten Commandments?
A. The second of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall not make
for yourself a graven image.”
Making a graven image refers to making some type of idol.
The command given by God was longer than the abbreviated form we memorize. God
continued:
“You
shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under
the earth.
You shall
not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the
fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those
who love me and keep my commandments.”
The command is that we are not to make
or worship anything other than God. The first commandment focused on serving
other gods, and the second goes a step further: we are not to worship any thing other than God.
In a sad case of irony, when Moses came down from Mount
Sinai with these commands, his brother Aaron had instructed the nation to make
a golden calf to worship in place of God. After all God has just done for the
Hebrews, why would they so quickly revert back to the Egyptian practice of
worshipping an idol?
Very few of us today are guilty of fashioning a carved
image, but sometimes we do in practice. Instead of a golden calf we may be
guilty of making gold our god. We give our lives in pursuit of the almighty
dollar, neglecting our families in the process.
Or maybe we give first place in our lives to people, our
possessions, or our pursuits. If Jesus doesn’t occupy first place then may as
well be worshipping a golden calf; Christians need to destroy any carved images
and worship God alone.
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