Only Images God Commands

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That’s not what the verse is talking about and the intentions are different in each of those scenarios.
 
One can bow and not be giving the worship that is due to God alone.
 
The idea that if you bow when presented to Queen Elizabeth that it does not mean you think she is a goddess? Sometimes we are allowed to use common sense.
 
Scripture is only talking about bowing to statues, whether it’s worship or not isn’t relevant.
 
I think you’re missing the forest for the trees here. I think it’s almost definitive that Exodus does not ban absolutely the making of images. If that’s the case, it’s talking about worshiping idols. The same method of interpretation applies to the bowing as well. I doubt God would be happy with kissing idols or kneeling before them rather than bowing to them. See, the whole point of this post is to find a definitive argument that the commandment against Idols is just that rather than God not liking us making images or performing one specific action while facing in their direction.

But I kindly ask that we please stay on topic as much as possible, I would like to continue the discussion about Solomon, that felt like it was really going somewhere.
 
Turn it around on the accusers:
  1. Where is the biblical evidence that Jesus founded the faith on the bible? Or any writing at all?
  2. Jesus gave the Church all power in heaven and on earth. Sad that their community neither has this power nor understands it.
  3. Ask them why they don’t harangue the Orthodox. They have even more icons than we do.
 
I think up to a certain level of lunacy there isn’t anything to say.

Only a small minority of protestants really see art and images as an intrinsically bad thing (even if a larger number might think Catholics can be over-the-top with them they dont see it as expressly evil). If you show them the examples in the Bible like the bronze serpent or the Ark of the Covenant and the Bible itself doesnt convince them, you might want to leave it be.

But take that argument to its logical conclusion. If it was only okay because God said so in a particular instance, then how can we ever know what is okay or not okay?
 
The Israelites were commanded to make images, not to worship them. Same thing with Catholics today. Images stimulate our external senses in order to assist the mind to focus on prayer as does incense and other external stimuli.
 
OP. I think it can help that Latin has three words for veneration/worship. Latria to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Hyperdulia to the Virgin Mary Mother of God. Dulia to fellow human beings like the saints.

One of the most important aspects is that God the Son became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. It was finally possible to touch God which had never happened before. There is a greater emphasis within the Catholic and Orthodox tradition to say that something created/materia is good and also very good than within the protestant tradition where there generally is a greater focus on the spiritual (good) than materia (evil). Luther and some other reformers had a negative view of the human being/materia that sort of still exists up to a point within the protestant Theology. Even though Luther was in favour of having religious artwork in churches as images for instruction and tools for devotion, there were a lot of destruction of religious artwork in countries that became protestant. This can be seen in the majority of the old medieval churches in Sweden (Lutheran today) where the statues had arms cut off, walls were whitewashed/painted after the reformation and when there are renovations taking place today the paintings are brought back to be seen. When the baptist/Pentecost denominations started there was the same thing, no decorations on the walls or paintings and other religious art. There were reactions from some parishioners when a deacon received an icon 20 years ago when she was retiring. Now it is possible to see icons in some of the denominations that started 100-170 years ago. Newer denominations starting - history is repeated.

All senses are used in the Catholic/Orthodox tradition while listening is the number one and most important in the protestant tradition. Today it is common to have such “Catholic” things like a place to light prayer candles, icon or a painting on a wall in the denominations that started during the 19th and 20th centuries. A statue or icon of the Blessed virgin Mary Mother of God is still in the future in many denomination.

The church council in 787 dealt with images like statues and icons. Key word when searching is iconoclasm.

The paintings in Täby kyrka, north of Stockholm, Sweden were never whitewashed. One of the most famous vault paintings by Albertus Pictor is “Death playing chess”. His style is very different compared to other painters who were active at the same time.

 
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