Tag: idols

Ash Wednesday and the Beginning of Lent

~ K ~ 6 Comments
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Ash Wednesday, as the venerable Wikipedia describes it, “is a day of repentance and marks the beginning of Lent”:

Ashes were used in ancient times, according to the Bible, to express mourning. Dusting oneself with ashes was the penitent’s way of expressing sorrow for sins and faults.

I had planned on going to an Ash Wednesday service at a local Roman Catholic Church today but for various reasons, won’t be able to do so.

In 1998 when I became a born-again Christian in an independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) church, the pastor (a former Roman Catholic) bashed Catholicism in nearly every possible way. Even though I finished my schooling in a Roman Catholic school 2 years later, I walked away with a dismal view of Catholicism, its doctrines, and practices.

In 2007, I joined the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). The PCA is a Christian denomination that still holds to Bible-based preaching but offers a liturgical structure similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church. After nearly a decade of being away from a liturgical service, my first experience back was a little jarring. After years of making the Bible as my only authority for Scriptural practices as an IFB, becoming a Presbyterian had me reconsidering church traditions as a supplement (not a replacement) to the Bible for Scriptural practices. (Let me state here that the Bible’s authority takes precedence over church traditions and church traditions clearly in conflict with Scripture should be modified or discarded.)

An acquaintance on a message board who went from born-again Protestant Christianity to Roman Catholicism once suggested that Catholicism may appeal to me again in the future. The likelihood of my becoming a Roman Catholic again is slim, but in a way, he was prophetic: the structure, reverence, and church traditions within Catholicism have reappealed to me and continue to do so the older I get (in age and in faith). Continue reading “Ash Wednesday and the Beginning of Lent” →

Personal thoughts on Tim Keller’s book, Counterfeit Gods

~ K ~ 1 Comment

I recently published a book review on Tim Keller’s book, Counterfeit Gods, but wanted to write a post that is a bit more personal in nature. I left off with this:

To dethrone any and all other idols apart from God, Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross must be real. The heart of the matter can be summed up in this question:

What is operating in place of Jesus Christ as your real, functional salvation and Savior?

It is a question that Christians should not neglect to ask themselves every single day.

The cynic in me struggles with this. God knows how much I am very much a doubting Thomas, plagued with questions like:

  • “Jesus, were you real?”
  • “Are you really coming back?”
  • “How come you haven’t done anything for so long?”
  • “Can the compilation of what people claim to be Your word (the Bible) really be trusted?”

I’ve come to the realization that I am the very least, a Jew. (Yeah, go ahead and make a Sammy Davis, Jr. joke now.) I believe wholeheartedly in the Old Testament. But the more I think about it, the more the Old Testament constantly points back to Jesus. (The Book of Matthew is a great book for discovering how the Old Testament continuously points to Jesus.)

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question: “What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?”
They said to Him, “The son of David.”
He said to them, “Then how does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying,

‘THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD,
“SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND,
UNTIL I PUT YOUR ENEMIES BENEATH YOUR FEET”‘?”

If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?”
No one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question. ~ Matthew 22:41-46

A puzzling question to me as well.

So the basic hurdle that I am confronted with is whether I believe fully in Jesus Christ, who he is, and his purpose for being born on earth–his existence as fully human and fully God; that he is the Son of God, born to a virgin, lived, died on a cross bearing God’s wrath for the sins of humankind, was buried, and rose again three days later. If I accept this (and I do), then I also accept that the triune God alone is worthy of worship, leading me to adhere to the following commandment:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ~Matthew 22:37

This is not in conflict with the first commandment God issues (located in Exodus and Deuteronomy):

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.  ~Exodus 20:2-3 & Deuteronomy 5:6-7

Jesus reiterates that God must take the primary place in our heart, soul, and mind. He is to be the only One people worship. He must constantly occupy our daydreams and imaginations even. I quoted this passage from Keller’s book in my previous post but it strikes and convicts me so that I feel compelled to repost it:

Archbishop William Temple once said, “Your religion is what you do with your solitude.” In other words, the true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention. What do you enjoy daydreaming about? What occupies your mind when you have nothing else to think about? Do you develop potential scenarios about career advancement? Or material goods such as a dream home? Or a relationship with a particular person? One or two daydreams are no [sic] an indication of idolatry. Ask, rather, what do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of your heart?

If I’m honest, I must admit God does not constantly occupy my thoughts as He should. I also frequently fail to follow this directive from the apostle Paul as listed in Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

How often do I dwell on the things that are false, dishonorable, wrong, impure, ugly, and bad repute, full of mediocrity and worthy of condemnation!

As a result, I’ve instantly created an idol. Keller writes:

Idolatry is not just a failure to obey God, it is a setting of the whole heart on something besides God.

In my previous post, I listed all the idols Keller identifies. While I’ve struggled with many of those idols at one time or another, these are the main idols that currently dethrone God in my life: Continue reading “Personal thoughts on Tim Keller’s book, Counterfeit Gods” →

Tim Keller’s Counterfeit Gods (Book Review)

~ K ~ 7 Comments

My church recently distributed Tim Keller’s book, Counterfeit Gods, for Christmas to whomever wanted it. I’ve heard people sing Tim Keller’s praises but have never read his books or visited his church or church plants. Therefore, I decided to pick this book up first before picking up Keller’s other bestsellers that have piqued my interest: The Reason for God and The Prodigal God. And besides, it was FREE. How can you beat a FREE book?

I made a goal to finish reading the book before the clock struck midnight for 2010 and achieved that goal. The hardcover book, barely larger than 5 x 7 inches, is just under a 200-page read (including the Introduction but not including Notes, Bibliography, or Acknowledgments). I’m a bit of a slow reader so I was able to complete the book in about three days (of dedicated reading). A fast reader could easily complete this book in a day–it’s that small.

Upon completion of the book, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much I enjoyed it. And it stood in marked contrast to a book I most recently finished, It’s Your Time by Joel Osteen, that touts health and wealth as proof of God’s favor upon an individual. Usually, I take a couple of days and allow my mind to fully absorb the contents from the book before making a full judgment, however, Counterfeit Gods impacted me so much, I view it as a life-changing book.

Perhaps life-changing seems like an exaggeration but for me it is not. I operate on a five-star rating scale, basically using the Amazon system:

* (one star) – I hated it
** (two stars) – I didn’t like it
*** (three stars) – It’s OK
**** (four stars) – I liked it
***** (five stars) – I loved it

Counterfeit Gods gets FIVE stars from me. It’s not easy for a book to garner that high a rating from me but I personally can’t find any fault with it. (Perhaps a pastor or some high-falutin’ theologian would.) Keller is clear, concise, uses modern-day and Biblical examples to support his points, and instructs readers on how to identify and replace any idols in their lives.

Keller leaves no graven image unturned in this book. This book, aptly titled Counterfeit Gods, could also have been titled If You’re Breathing, You’re Probably Breaking the First Commandment. Keller posits that anything that dethrones Jesus Christ as the sole object of worship in our lives is an idol. He also asserts that the remaining nine commandments are basically elaborations on the first:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.  ~Exodus 20:2-3 & Deuteronomy 5:6-7

Since Counterfeit Gods is a relatively recent book, he begins by addressing the economic fallout of 2008-2009 that led the United States into a recession. He refers to wealthy investors who made money their sole god. So when the bottom dropped out of the economy and those investors lost millions upon millions of dollars, they had nothing left to turn to. As a result, many of them committed suicide. Except for one bright shining hope in an investor named Bill who gave his life to Christ in 2005. Bill testifies:

If this economic meltdown had happened more than three years ago, well, I don’t know how I could have faced it, how I would have even kept going. Today, I can tell you honestly, I’ve never been happier in my life.

Don’t get the idea that Keller is saying becoming a follower of Jesus Christ leads to a life of butterflies and sunshine. Quite the contrary, he implies Christians have a tougher road ahead of them because they are called to a higher standard. As a result, Keller points out that today’s (mainly Western) Christians often don’t look much different from non-Christians.

Contemporary observers have often noted that modern Christians are just as materialistic as everyone else in our culture. Could this be because our preaching of the gospel does not, like Saint Paul’s, include the exposure of our culture’s counterfeit gods?

Harsh words. It certainly convicted me.

For starters, it would be good to define what an idol is. Here is the basic definition Keller provides:

It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.

Despite the book’s subtitle, The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters, Keller does not limit his discussion of idols to money, sex, and power. Not at all. Here’s a full list of the idols he identifies (located in the Notes section) with brief descriptions: Continue reading “Tim Keller’s Counterfeit Gods (Book Review)” →