An Idol in Israel (7)

That night the Lord said to [Gideon], ‘Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.’

Gideon said… ‘Let me make a request of you: every one of you give me the earrings from his spoil." … And they spread a cloak, and every man threw in it the earrings of his spoil. And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was 1,700 shekels of gold, besides the crescent ornaments and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian, and besides the collars that were around the necks of their camels. And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.

As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made their god.

Judges 6:25-26, 8:24-27 & 8:33

To conclude the thought that I began yesterday, I have heard people say that if Christians tithe, God will bless them, often quoting Malachi chapter 3, as if tithing is all that is needed to please God. While tithing (that is, giving 10% of our income to the work of God in our churches and elsewhere) is the place to start thinking about our giving, and while it can be a good and helpful practice for many people, it has little merit for any who think that it an end in itself. It is not all there is to handling our money responsibility, especially anyone who thinks they are free to spend the remaining 90% in wanton selfishness, just because they can afford to!

I have heard Christian leaders say that by ‘sowing’ into their ministry, people can ‘reap’ an abundant harvest of blessing by getting back from God 30, 50 or 100 times as much as they gave. The parables of the sower in Matthew 14, Mark 4 and Luke 8, together with St Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 9 and Galatians 6, are sometimes cited in support of this. But while sowing and reaping is right, to do it selfishly is counterproductive and self-defeating.

These sorts of practices are no more than idols keeping Christian from true Christian liberty and lifestyle. They can narrow the focus of our spirituality. ‘As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals…’ This should not surprise us! Any idol, even one dressed up as Christian doctrine, is a stepping stone to more extreme idolatry!

Gideon turned the pagan shrine at Ophrah into a place of pilgrimage for Jews, by setting up giant gold ephod there. (I expect it was big because it was made with over 40 pounds, or about 19 kilos, of gold!) After he died, the people not only turned back to Baal worship but they made Baal-berith their special god.

Baal-berith means ‘lord of the covenant’! Might that familiarity have led many of the Israelites unawares into idolatry, mistaking it for their historic covenant with the one true God? Is it possible that we could be serving an idol that we think is true Christian spirituality?

I fear that the truth is that Christians do not have only small, Christian-like idols, such as tithing or sowing and reaping, but a great idol as alien as the shrine to Baal and Asherah that Gideon tore down. I plan to explain more next weekend but, in the meantime, I invite you to think deeply about how much influence money has on your lifestyle choices.

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