So there are many, many examples of this.
Go, if you would, to Ephesians, chapter number 5, Ephesians 5.
And I'm going to show you some more examples of this
from the New Testament.
In Colossians, the Bible said in chapter 3, verse 5,
mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth,
fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection,
evil concupiscence, and watch this, and covetousness,
which is idolatry.
So the Bible says that covetousness is idolatry.
So when we go back to think about the Ten Commandments,
one of the Ten Commandments is, thou
shall not make unto thee any graven image.
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.
So there's that commandment.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
And obviously, we should always go first
with the primary meaning of don't carve idols
and worship them.
Don't carve images or have molten images
and bow down and worship them.
That's the literal meaning of what idolatry is.
So when we talk about idolatry, we're
talking about a carved image.
We're talking about a molten image.
But if we expand on that, we can say, OK, not only should we not
bow down and worship a little statue,
but we should not worship mammon or worship money.
And there are people who are covetous,
or their life is ruled by the love of money,
and they could worship, quote unquote, their car
or worship their fancy house or the boat or the RV.
So we expand on that command not to worship idols,
to flee idolatry.
And we understand that also to mean
not to love other things on this earth
more than we love the Lord.
Not to love the car or the boat or the house or the bank
account or the stocks and bonds more than we love the Lord.
Now, when we go with these expansive understandings
of God's commandments, we never want
to lose sight of the literal meaning.
Obviously, it would be very foolish
to go with the expanded meaning of not loving
your car or your money or your house
more than you love the Lord.
But then having a carved little Jesus in your house is fine.
No, it's not fine.
That's the primary prohibition.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
That is idolatry.
So I've heard some people, they go so far with this
where they don't even see idolatry anymore as statues.
They just think, oh, it's just when you love a statue.
You carve an image of a false god or a demon or a saint
or whatever you think that is that you're
bowing down and praying to or worshipping or kissing
or venerating that image.
That is literal idolatry.
But we go beyond that and say, you know what?
We don't want to have any idolatry in our lives,
even an idolatry that's less obvious.