Idol Time

Little children, guard yourselves from idols. 1 John 5:21 NASB

Guard yourselves – You don’t worship idols, do you? You aren’t bowing down to Buddha or bringing food gifts to statues on the street, right?

Now you are a part of a much more dangerous form of idolatry. You can have the fantasy world the way you want it delivered right to your desk or phone. You are a part of the idolatry of the internet.

What is idolatry anyway? Isn’t it the attempt, by whatever means, to shape the world according to your wishes? In ancient cultures, this meant placating the gods. They had the power so if we wanted good crops or prosperous buildings or healthy children, we had to do whatever the gods demanded in order to achieve our goals. But the West replaced the gods with human technology. We have the power. That is the mantra of the West. Our “gods” are innovation, control and prediction. And the realm of our gods isn’t heaven. It’s the internet. Our gods instantaneously deliver the “appearance of reality.” They provide a near-perfect world-altering fantasy life. We can travel where we want, be who we want to be, manipulate what we want, perform as we wish with “others” who are just as unreal. The internet is a vast fantasy machine designed to let your dreams come true in spite of your real circumstances. It is heaven on cyber-earth. Neither the real world nor the heaven of YHVH can compete.

So again we must ask: Who is the idolater? Who is drawn to manipulate the world for the fulfillment of personal desires? Who leaves behind the confrontation of the real for the pleasures of the dream made real? Who uses “tinder” (the app for finding local people willing to engage in immediate and uncommitted fantasy dates) these days? Who funds fantasy with debt? Who thinks that power resides in terra-bytes? We are the invisible idolaters, privately serving the gods of fantasy created by our own technological innovation for the same purposes we once saw in gold and silver and stone.

“Guard yourselves” says John. Phylacate heauta. Aorist, active, imperative plus the pronoun. You might have expected this to be a passive construction, that is, an action done by someone to another (“yourselves”). But it isn’t. Why not? Because the action is done by us to us. We do the guarding of ourselves. No one else, including God, will do it for us. If you don’t guard yourself against idols, no one else will. It’s your choice—and your consequences. You control the delivery system and the fantasies that empower it.

Topical Index: guard, idols, I John 5:21