from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, a Th.M. from Northwestern College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a M.A. Elmer Towns is a college and seminary professor, an author of popular and scholarly works (the editor of two encyclopedias), a popular seminar lecturer, and dedicated worker in Sunday school, and has developed over 20 resource packets for leadership education.His personal education includes a B.S. Therefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you, And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6: 15-18)ĭr. “And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. This could include allowing certain objects, such as Satan worship objects or other religious symbolic objects, to influence their lives. The Christian is to live a separated life from the ungodly things that would cause difficulty in their lives as well as in other lives. The Christian is to be careful, however, not to be a stumbling block or cause offense in doing anything that could cause someone to reject the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 6:3). The Christian life itself is a life abundant in Christ and a life of liberty to serve God freely and wholly throughout our daily living. “…Him only shalt thou serve” (Matthew 4:10).

Christians are not to divide their devotion time due to God alone with any other object or activity. The application of this commandment for the modern day Christians would be simply that Christians are not to place their faith in any other object or person other than the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The commandment, therefore, would be “you must not make for yourself an idol.” Similarly, in the next verse, the core of the command would seem to have been “you must not bow down to them.” (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Exodus, pp. The Israelites, however, lived in the midst of a polytheistic world thus the apodeictic commandments (short, sharp “you must not”) were a prohibition by God to His people that He would not share their worship with any other God. The children of God – Israel – were monotheistic, that is they worshipped one God. It may be that these images were in use among Israel’s ancestors (even Orthodox Jewish tradition allows that Terah, Abraham’s father, was an idol-maker). The condemnation of images clearly includes images that were idols. The actual Hebrew word for graven images means “carved image.” The Hebrew means something hacked or chisled into some “likeness.” These idols were normally of wood (though the word could cover stone carvings as well), usually with some precious metal covering. The presence of the invisible God was to be marked by no symbol of Himself, but by His words written on stone, preserved in the arc of the Holy of Holies and covered by the mercy seat. The first commandment therefore forbids the worship of any false god, seen or unseen, it is here forbidden to worship an image of any sort, whether the figure of a false deity or one in any way symbolical of Jehovah. Here, the theological truth is that the essence of God is spiritual and unseen (John 4:24). All Scripture is consistent in condemnation of the worship of any created thing in place of the Creator.

The clarification as to what graven images really are does not forbid painting, sculpture, or other art forms as such, it does, however, forbid selling art as a point of contact for worship. God is spirit and cannot be represented by statues or any likeness. The commandment forbidding any graven image specifically demands that thou shalt not bow down thyself to them. There is no other God, and no false gods are to have place in our lives. The first commandment stresses God’s complete uniqueness.

The main prohibition to graven images is found in the Ten Commandments as located in Exodus 20:4,5 and also Deuteronomy 5:8. The reference to graven images may be found in several locations throughout the Old and New Testaments. Old and New Testament Mentions of “Graven Images”

Are pictures graven images