Using a Statue or Image as a Reminder

[kepha1]

You have not answered my questions so I will ask them again…

Firstly - Where were you commanded to bow before a shrine to worship? AGAIN…I am not saying you worship the shrine itself…I am saying that you use it to worship as if its physical presence is important. That is the key. I keep being told on here that I am saying that you worship the shrine or whatever. Please, stop making this accusation…

Then you stop making false accusations. Our spiritual forefathers were killed for refusing to pay homage to Roman gods, and your false charge is an insult to the early church martyrs. (who were Catholic) The Catholic Church knows what idolotry is, and has been condemning it for 1500 years before the first Protestant was born.

The physical presence of statues, paintings and shrines are not essential, but they help ascend the mind to God. God ordered the religious use of statuary in the Temple, a fact that you keep ignoring. Exodus 25:18-22; 26:1,31 - for example, God commands the making of the image of a golden cherubim. This heavenly image, of course, is not worshiped by the Israelites. Instead, the image disposes their minds to the supernatural and draws them to God. It is the same with pictures and statues that, for the most part, help people understand Bible truths because most people could not read.

Secondly…what does the second commandment say over and above the first commandment…

• Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Yes, we know that. You acknowledged that we do not worship statues or paintings and now you accuse us of making them into gods with this quote, in the context of the thread. This is vain repetition.

• Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; (Exodus 20:3-5)

What is it saying? That is the question.

It’s close to the biblical definition of “idol” that you keep ignoring. Instead, you have adopted a post-reformist iconoclastic definition that is false and misreprentative of the truth.

What you are saying is bowing or kneeling is the same as worship. That is false.

*Deut. 5:9 - God’s command, “you shall not bow down to them” means “do not worship them.” But not all bowing is worship. Here God’s command is connected to false worship. *

*Rev. 3:9 - Jesus said people would bow down before the faithful members of the church of Philadelphia. This bowing before the faithful is not worship, just as kissing a picture of a family member is not worship. *
*Gen. 19:1 - Lot bowed down to the ground in veneration before two angels in Sodom. *
*Gen. 42:6 - Joseph’s brothers bow before Joseph with the face to the ground. *
*Jos. 5:14 - Joshua fell to the ground prostrate in veneration before an angel. *
*1 Sam. 28:14 - Saul bows down before Samuel with his face to the ground in honor and veneration. *
*1 Kings 1:23 - the prophet Nathan bows down before King David. *
*2 Kings 2:15 - the sons of the prophets bow down to Elisha at Jericho. *
*1 Chron. 21:21 - Ornan the Jebusite did obeisance to king David with his face to the ground. *
*1 Chron. 29:20 - Israelites bowed down to worship God and give honor to the king. *
*Tobit 12:16 - Tobiah and Tobit fell down to the ground in veneration before the angel Raphael. *
*Judith 14:7 - Achior the Ammonite kneels before Judith venerating her and praising God. *
*Psalm 138:2 - David bows down before God’s Holy Temple. *
*Dan. 2:46 - the king fell down on his face paying homage to Daniel and commands that an offering be made to him. **Dan. 8:17 - Daniel fell down prostrate in veneration before the angel Gabriel. *
scripturecatholic.com/saints.html#saints-V

This proves that all bowing and kneeling is not worship. You just refuse to see it any other way.

 

[kepha1]

You have not answered my questions so I will ask them again…

Firstly - Where were you commanded to bow before a shrine to worship? AGAIN…I am not saying you worship the shrine itself…I am saying that you use it to worship as if its physical presence is important. That is the key. I keep being told on here that I am saying that you worship the shrine or whatever. Please, stop making this accusation.

Shrines are nice, but not essential. Most Catholic parishes have no shrines, and many churches have a minimum of 0-2 statues, and at no time is a statue ever placed on the altar. Again, they are nice when understood, but not essential to the faith, which blows your theory of idolotry. For if your false charge was true, there would be hundreds in every church and many in every home, and they would be worshipped as part of our liturgy. This is obviously not the case.

Secondly…what does the second commandment say over and above the first commandment…
(message truncated)
(Exodus 20:3-5)

What is it saying? That is the question.

The Scripture is very specific about what constitutes an idol. It is the image of a creature (bird or animal) that is worshipped as a god. One has to look at when the Law was given to the people to find the clue as to God’s original meaning. The Hebrew had been rescued from Egypt by God.

If you look closely at the ten plagues for instance you can see that each plague represented the destruction of the gods of Egypt. By bringing the plagues upon Egypt God was showing that He was mightier than any human understanding of a god. The Hebrew had been affected by these gods in Egypt and in their hearts they wanted to continue to follow these gods.

The history of Israel is full of examples of the apostasy of Israel as it fell into this form of idol worship and was punished for doing so. The Golden Calf incident was an attempt by the Hebrew to worship the false gods that they had left behind in Egypt. Before the Golden Calf incident the Hebrew did not have to offer animal sacrifices, yet after that incident they had to do so. Why? Because God wanted to make sure that the Israelites were forced to renounce animal worship.

The false idols that we have today are not the statues of Jesus and Mary that one sees in a Church. For starters, Mary was truly a human person and the early Christians depicted both Mary and Jesus in their human image, as they saw them. The idols of paganism, on the other hand were idols that come from the imagination of the human mind.

What we are confronted with today are the images of pop stars, movie stars, consumerism, materialism, flag worship, of sport stars, worship of the body. Where is God in any of these images? These are the false gods of today. It is the false god called “ego” that is in conflict with the real image of God.

Col. 1:15 - the only image of God that Catholics worship is Jesus Christ, who is the “image” (Greek “eikon”) of the invisible God.