By Andrew Rudisill, Pastor at Perry Community Church
“Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.’’
1 Corinthians 10:14
As I continue through this year’s Proclamation Track called “Addressing Idolatry and Biblical Illiteracy,” I am reminded of two facts. First, our nation, being both Godless and god-filled, seeks new and creative ways to “exchange the truth of God for a lie” and second, because of that, I am called to “be separate from them” (Romans 1:25; 2 Cor. 6:17).
I’ve learned this simple reality: Biblical literacy is a primary means given by God to empower believers to become separated from idolatry. To the degree that Scripture motivates a love for God, is to the degree one’s heart is constrained from a love for idols.
However, Biblical literacy must not to be equated with Biblical knowledge. Jesus testifies that one can have a knowledge about God while rejecting knowing God. He says in John 5, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” The pursuit of Biblical literacy is not to come into the knowledge of WHAT the Bible says but WHY the Bible says it.
And so, we must scripturally understand why the Bible commands us to “flee idolatry.” Idolatry is the rejection and replacement of God as the heart’s highest affection. Therefore, fleeing idolatry is the active rejection of the replacement of God as the heart’s highest affection through active contentment in God as the heart’s highest affection.
We are called to flee idolatry because our heart can quickly become tempted to elevate a good from God to God and be found enjoying a good from God apart from God. How quickly we are tempted to believe regarding our spouse, “I don’t know where I’d be without you.” Or “My life couldn’t go on if anything happened to my children.” Or “I am the best person for the job.” Or “Now we have a better income and security.” Or “Our church is growing we must be doing something right!” Or “My trust is in this man/woman to lead.”
For this reason, the starting blocks on which one puts their feet for fleeing idolatry is found in Psalm 16:2 and 8, “I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you” and “I have set the Lord always before me.” For when the Lord is the good set before me, He will become the only good my eyes will see because He is the only good my heart will long for and the only good my feet are pointed towards.
The one who is Biblically literate knows that God has become their heart’s highest affection and why He must remain as their heart’s highest affection. Then, even if all the earthly good of God be taken away, there remains the eternal good of God and that person will proclaim, “Blessed be the name of the Lord”.
May God grant to you the grace to seek after and “taste and see that the Lord is good” in all aspects of His goodness, in all aspects of your life, and discover the things of earth growing strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.