This past Sabbath we continued our studies in the NT book of Acts and made a fantastic discovery about IDOLATRY. The thing that’s so great about our discovery is it’s the connection between MODERN-DAY LIVING and ANCIENT IDOLATRY. I’m going to show you our historical finding, and then I’ll tell you what the connection is. But first, let me tell you a little story from my past:
When I was in training to be in modern churchian leadership, I read a lot of the ancients on ‘Christian living’. They talked about bringing your beliefs into every day life. Other than generalized statements, they never really made a point about MEASURING YOUR BEHAVIOR to ensure you were living according to the Bible in your daily life. It was more like emotionalized thinking than anything else. But after I learned about the NECESSITY for Christians to obey God’s law, I got my STANDARD FOR MEASURING BEHAVIOR for daily Christian living. But that’s beside the point. One thing we KNEW about NOT living according to the Bible is, it was IN SOME WAY equivalent to IDOLATRY. Idolatry is the #1 SIN in the Bible, so it’s the WORST SIN you can commit.
Now the Apostle Paul comes right out and says it like this:
Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. (Colossians 3:5)
Sounds good, right? There you see the Apostle Paul connecting IDOLATRY to GREED (modern COMMERCE). But that really doesn’t give me the PRINCIPLE OF IDOLATRY, nor does it explain to me the CONNECTION between GREED and IDOLATRY. In this blog, I’m going to tell you the PRINCIPLE OF IDOLATRY. Here it is:
IDOLATRY IS HONORING AN AUTHORITY THAT JUSTIFIES YOUR LAWLESS BEHAVIOR.
By LAWLESS BEHAVIOR, I mean disobeying any of God’s laws. In other words, you are an IDOLATER when you have ROLE MODELS whom you use to JUSTIFY your DISOBEDIENCE to GOD’S LAW. We found this little tidbit in a very interesting way while studying the book of Acts. In Acts 14, we found two of the Greek gods, ZEUS and HERMES:
11 When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they raised their voice, saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have become like men and have come down to us.” 12 And they began calling Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. (Acts 14)
First off, let’s RECOGNIZE that IDOLATRY PERMEATED ancient society. It was part of the FABRIC of their SOCIAL PROCESS. We see in the above text the RELIGIOUS TEMPLE was bound up in the IDOL WORSHIP. In other words, it’s like GOING TO CHURCH or TEMPLE today in America. It’s what people did. It’s what they based their life on. Just think about all the kinds of Christians you know. I was raised Catholic. You see the ‘devout’ Catholics and the ‘hypocrites’. The devout Catholics go to mass 3X/week, and they give lots of their money in the basket, and they dutifully learn and follow the catechisms and liturgies, and dutifully obey the Priest and Pope, and even donate lots of their time to church causes. They GIVE THEIR ALLEGIANCE FULLY TO THE CHURCH (sounds like our 1st Commandment blog, right?!). And we also know about the hypocrites, who SIN DURING THE WEEK, and then GO TO CONFESSION every day before mass. But then there are what we called the ‘C.E. Catholics’. They show up in church on Christmas and Easter, and send their kids to church, but don’t care what their kids do with Catholicism after they become adults. So that’s what I surmise society was like for the ancient IDOLATERS. And so, it wasn’t really any different from today’s religion and social process, because HUMAN NATURE has not changed throughout human history.
Anyways, we read some history about both of the above mentioned IDOLS and discovered that HERMES is quite the ROLE MODEL. Let’s face it, IDOLATRY boils down to people’s ROLE MODELS and society’s ROLE MODELS. These ROLE MODELS are the AUTHORITY-BASIS of SOCIAL CUSTOM and PERSONAL HABIT. They are the gods of the people. These ROLE MODELS are their AUTHORITY!
Here’s what we discovered about HERMES: He’s a ‘BAD AZZ’. He ‘controls’ many areas of life, one of which is what we know today as COMMERCE or BUSINESS. Let me quote out of Dictionary of Deities and Demons, ‘HERMES’:
As the deity chartered by Zeus himself to preside over trade (H. Merc. 516-517), Hermes was invoked further as the “hermes of the Market” (Pausanias 1.15.1, 2.9.8, 3.11.11, 7.22.2, 9.17.2, and deity of Merchandise and Sales (Aristides, Or. 37.21). Diodorus Siculus reports that Hermes invented ‘measures and weights and profits to be gained through merchandizing, and how also to appropriate the property of others all unbeknown to them’ (5.75.2), an association between commerce and theft already explicitly in the Homeric Hymn (H. Merc. 514-517). And, the Greek Magical Papyri preserve a spell in which a figure of Hermes, the “finder of thieves” (PGM 5.188), was used to promote good business (PGM 4.2359-2379). Even today, in parts of modern Greece, theft is equated with courage, ingenuity and entrepreneurship, an ethos of cunning deception that is still considered primarily a sporting contest in which a challenge with respect to status is communicated (STEWARD 1991:73, 62).
So here is HOW MODERN COMMERCE EQUALS IDOLATRY:
1. “greed, which amounts to idolatry” (Apostle Paul – Colossians 3:5)
2. “how also to appropriate the property of others all unbeknown to them” (Diodorus Siculus 5.75.2)
3. “an association between commerce and theft already explicitly in the Homeric Hymn (H. Merc. 514-517)”
4. The Jewish rabbis consider GREED to be at the heart of THEFT, and FRAUD to be part of the PROCESS of stealing.
The simple fact is, GREED (+ SLOTH + EGO) is the M.O. for THEFT. Hence, we can substitute terms and re-translate the NT as, “theft which amounts to idolatry”. And when you INSTITUTIONALIZE THEFT, you have it as PART OF SOCIAL PROCESS, which makes ALL OF SOCIETY IDOLATERS. Amazingly simple, right?!
We see this destructive social garbage all too well today EVERYWHERE in marketing and business. We see this especially in the ‘hallowed halls’ of government. LAWYER and LIAR are synonyms! GREED/THEFT is the PRINCIPLE that HERMES the god embodies. And doing it as a CHEATER and SWINDLER is the stuff this god is made of. It’s nothing less than BUSINESS COMBINED WITH DECEITFUL THEFT, and DONE TO THE MASSES both professionally and institutionally. Today’s American courts call this DEFRAUDING and FRAUD. It’s a CIVIL offense. It can also be a CRIMINAL offense. Let me tell you from experience, the American government PRACTICES THEFT as a matter of PUBLIC POLICY! That’s what we call THE BIG TIME. The old-time mafia would be jealous. But wait, the mafia IS the government! But that’s another story for another blog.
Suffice to say that HERMES is, UNBEKNOWNST to most Americans, the IDOL they follow when they GO ALONG TO GET ALONG in order to make a living (at least). HUH?? That’s right. You see this mostly in the corporate, finance-controlled life of American society. You also see it in just about every government activity, which is INSTITUTIONALIZED MAFIA, so to speak (= the mega protection racket). For us little people who learn OBEDIENCE TO COMMERCE from our youth, this is called LIVING A ‘SCRIPTED’ LIFE. We learn OBEDIENCE TO COMMERCE from our earliest days as little children, via our parents, the TV, the radio, MUSIC, our school teachers, public officials, etc., right? All our PUBLIC SCHOOLS teach commerce, and commerce alone. MORALS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. In fact, ‘the law’ BANS teaching “religion and morality” … well, not exactly. They ban teaching the BIBLE, but allow other religions to pray and do other stuff that CHRISTIANS are prohibited from doing IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Talk about ‘hypocrisy’ and wickedness! This IDOLATRY is such BLASPHEMY!
And all this happens because OUR PARENTS PASSIVELY ALLOW IT. Don’t get me wrong, our parents are not ‘bad people’. They’re just NOT what the Bible says God requires them to be as ‘Christians’. Actually, our parents consider themselves ‘good people’ because they live a HARMONIOUS LIFE in society. They go to work, provide for their families, and take good care of their property and possessions. They don’t INTENTIONALLY do anything that society would frown upon, especially they don’t OPENLY BREAK THE LAW. God forbid! They consider themselves ‘good law-abiding citizens’. Only one thing’s wrong with that picture: They obey MAN’S LAW instead of GOD’S LAW. And as we’ve seen in previous blogs, MAN’S LAW DOES NOT ‘SERVE GOD’. Instead man’s law serves COMMERCE and VIOLENCE!
Although our parents certainly don’t do the big wrongs, such as murder, cheat on your neighbor, etc., they DO do the HIDDEN WRONGS, such as going along with CORPORATE POLICY, ‘just following orders’ as law enforcement and military, living like everybody else, etc. And as we all know, corporate policy, or ‘just following orders’ (to name two) amounts to FOLLOWING SOME MAN (or group of men). And who do you suppose you’re OBEYING? You got it! Men who are serving HERMES. They may not KNOW they’re serving Hermes, but IN PRINCIPLE, they ARE. As a result, you are participating in RAPING (figuratively) every person and thing on the planet. But, this RAPING activity of yours is UNNOTICEABLE, because it happens in bits and pieces, gradually over very long periods of time. It’s GREED-DRIVEN, POWER-BROKERING, SOCIETY-DESTROYING social process, which you willingly and unquestioningly participate in to make your living. Like the Apostle Paul says:
For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience (Colossians 3:6)
It’s OBVIOUS that God CONDEMNS this kind of behavior and social process. It’s also obvious that God PROHIBITS Christians from participating in this kind of behavior (from ANY source). But unfortunately, BECAUSE SOCIETY SANCTIONS THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR, these people don’t think anything about it! The LAST thing they’ll ever think about is WHAT GOD REQUIRES. All they know is, if SOCIETY approves, it just CAN’T be wrong! And did you ever notice that the higher you go up the food chain in the business world and in government, the worse the SINS are that these people commit … against God, people, society, and all of God’s creation? And they don’t think anything about it. Why? Because it’s SOCIAL CUSTOM! Or, because THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT. How? Who’s going to hold them accountable? They OWN the public officials. They CONTROL the legal process. They have all the guns and power. So one way or the other, FOR THE WEALTHY, swindling as a social custom ‘IS THE LAW’! That is PRECISELY WHERE God expects us to obey Him INSTEAD OF them. That’s what IDOLATRY is, in a nutshell. And you can MEASURE YOUR PROGRESS in this. It’s OBVIOUS to see when you’re CHEATING, SWINDLING, STEALING, LEGALLY PLUNDERING. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that!
So there you have it: MODERN IDOLATRY = VIOLATING GOD’S LAW BECAUSE YOU FOLLOW ANOTHER PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION (another LAW) BASED ON ANOTHER AUTHORITY (an IDOL). In the above example, MODERN IDOLATRY = PARTICIPATING IN COMMERCE due to the GREED, FRAUD and THEFT involved. The Apostle Paul talks about this PRINCIPLE in his NT letter to the ROMANS.
The point I’m making is this:
THE PRINCIPLES OF LAWLESSNESS IS EMBODIED IN THE ANCIENT IDOLS.
THE PRINCIPLE OF FRAUD AND THEFT IS EMBODIED IN THE IDOL HERMES.
That’s WHY God prohibits WORSHIPING IDOLS. I believe we briefly mentioned what it means to WORSHIP, when we summarized the first 2 Commandments of God’s Law (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5) in previous blogs. It means GIVE YOUR ALLEGIANCE and OBEY THEIR DICTATES. So effectively, everybody who does NOT obey God’s law is WORSHIPING IDOLS of one sort or another. Crazy when you think about it!
But wait! How can *** I *** be responsible for something that *** I *** don’t know about, and have been tricked into doing? The thing is, you DO know about it, and you DO know you’re do it! HOW? Simple. You suck-down all the garbage that the educational system, the news media and the entertainment system (including music!) feeds you day-in-and-day-out. And you allow that LAWLESSNESS to CONDITION your thoughts and actions, INSTEAD OF LEARNING THE BIBLE.
WHO do you suppose CRAFTS all that education (text books and curriculum), social media (of all kinds), marketing, PROPAGANDA. etc.? And WHY do you suppose it’s done like THAT? Let me quote it from above: “how also to appropriate the property of others all unbeknown to them”. You’ve been DUPED by someone else. And as we’ve seen in another blog, it’s THE IDLE RICH who do this to you USING THE GOVERNMENT’S LEGAL SYSTEM. And they do it to you to COERCE YOU INTO OBEYING THEM, so that THEY don’t have to work for a living. Crazy huh?! Brilliant nonetheless!
BUT, we Christians KNOW that it’s really THE DEVIL who’s behind all those people and all their SOCIAL SIN, even if most of them don’t have a clue about it. That’s what we learn in the Bible. Whether or not we have PERSONALLY EXPERIENCED “the devil” like that is another story. Ultimately, WHO do you think INVENTED these DECEPTIONS in the first place? And for what PURPOSE? I’ll leave that up to your imagination!
To sum up: The PRINCIPLE OF IDOLATRY is found in modern society based on the very same PRINCIPLES that operated in ancient society, which the peoples of ancient society LEARNED from the PROPAGANDA ARTISTS of the time, just like people do today. For the most part, the PROPAGANDA ARTISTS were the MERCHANTS of the time, most of whom were JEWS. The only difference is, here in ‘Christian America’, the propaganda artists must be SHREWD in their implementation of their propaganda in order to DECEIVE the stupid Christians (churchians) into obeying the same principles that were used by the public officials during ancient times. But DO NOT BE DECEIVED BY OUTWARD APPEARANCES, the very same PRINCIPLES of IDOLATRY that societies followed in ancient times are followed by MODERN AMERICANS today in our society.
HERMES IS ALIVE AND WELL IN AMERICA TODAY THROUGH BANKING & FINANCE, AND COMMERCE & BUSINESS!
See you in the next blog.
Reality Bible 