Exodus 20:3-5 no other spiritual gods before me

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dann

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Exodus 20:3-5… No other spiritual gods before me.
Doesn’t this identify to Not pray to other spiritual entitys??

Don’t pray to other gods?

Deuteronomy 13.
 
dann said:
Doesn’t this identify to Not pray to other spiritual entitys??
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No. It’s pretty specific. It says not to place other (false) gods before God, to not have other gods, false gods.

There are spiritual beings in Heaven united to God but are not God, and it is just fine to pray with and to them for intercession before God.
 
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dann said:
No other spiritual gods before me.

Doesn’t this identify to Not pray to other spiritual entitys??
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What translation are you using to include the word ‘spiritual’?
 
The jewish religion is of course always viewed as monotheistic but its actually pretty complicated. Many text in the OT suggest that there are many Gods and Jahweh is just the one the jews should pray to.
Even today when the jews speak about God they usually call Him Elohim, which is plural. The kabbalists have a whole system of deities that these Elohim are.
 
ComplineSanFran said:
What translation are you using to include the word ‘spiritual’?
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Yeah, that was the first question that popped into my mind. The cultures of those days didn’t pray to spiritual entities; they set up physical idols and prayed to them.

D
 
Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. [4] Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. [5] Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

If there rise in the midst of thee a prophet or one that saith he hath dreamed a dream, and he foretell a sign and a wonder, [2] And that come to pass which he spoke, and he say to thee: Let us go and follow strange gods, which thou knowest not, and let us serve them: [3] Thou shalt not hear the words of that prophet or dreamer: for the Lord your God trieth you, that it may appear whether you love him with all your heart, and with all your soul, or not. [4] Follow the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and hear his voice: him you shall serve, and to him you shall cleave. [5] And that prophet or forger of dreams shall be slain: because he spoke to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of bondage: to make thee go out of the way, which the Lord thy God commanded thee: and thou shalt take away the evil out of the midst of thee.

[6] If thy brother the son of thy mother, or thy son, or daughter, or thy wife that is in thy bosom, or thy friend, whom thou lovest as thy own soul, would persuade thee secretly, saying: Let us go, and serve strange gods, which thou knowest not, nor thy fathers, [7] Of all the nations round about, that are near or afar off, from one end of the earth to the other, [8] Consent not to him, hear him not, neither let thy eye spare him to pity and conceal him, [9] But thou shalt presently put him to death. It Let thy hand be first upon him, and afterwards the hands of all the people. [10] With stones shall he be stoned to death: because he would have withdrawn thee from the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage:

[11] That all Israel hearing may fear, and may do no more any thing like this. [12
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Nothing there about ‘spiritual gods’, nothing there about prayer (prayer is simply communication, not something dedicated to God alone. I can pray to you, “I pray you, sir, answer me”. I can, as Catholics do with saints, ask them to ‘pray for us’, like we do asking Mary to pray for us (to God).

We don’t worship saints. We only worship God.
 
Yeah, don’t pray to other gods. Though it says worship.

If you ever come across someone asking you to pray to Zeus or Thor or Athena or something, kindly refuse.
 
What is the context?

God’s message to mankind is not a bunch of jumbled words to be used in a theological Scrabble game. Everything recorded has a context. Did the Hebrews force Aaron to make a golden calf - then worship it, bowing down?

Yes.

Take it out of context and you are doing what God did not do; intending what God did not intend.

Read Hebrews 12. We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. Who are they? Who do they witness to?
 
Dann.

You might ask your friend . . . .

.
. . . . In Genesis 32 (if I recall the location correctly) Jacob eventually realized he was wrestling with a being from Heaven.

Jacob prayed to that Heavenly spiritual being asking for a blessing. But Jacob did NOT WORSHIP this Heavenly spiritual being.

Jacob received his blessing and was given a name change (to Israel) suggesting this.

Was Jacob “wrong” here?
Was the angel out of line?
Was God mistaken when He sent this angel to Jacob-Israel?
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.

Let me know how your friend replies please.

Not all prayerful supplication = WORSHIP.

That is the mistake your friend is making. Your friend is mistaken in assuming. . .

. . . ALL prayerful supplication = WORSHIP

.

He (she?) is ADDING this concept to Sacred Scripture when it’s not there.

God bless.

Cathoholic
 
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Wow I should have never put that together that way. Jacob and the wrestling with a Angel. Hmmmm
 
Look up the Communion of Saints. Very sadly, Bible Christians struggle along not knowing that those who have gone before us are 1) still alive and 2) can and do pray for us. This has been believed since before the bible ever came to be.

What an utter poverty that so many Christians suffer - not knowing that we have “friends in high places.”
 
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