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 thinking about the Ten Commandments, one of the Ten Commandments is,
"Thou shalt 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 under 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, okay, 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.
You know 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, so I've heard some people they go so far with this where they don't even see idolatry
anymore as statues.
They just say oh it's just when you love a, no no no it's 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.