Little children, keep yourselves from idols. That’s how the
Apostle John ends his first epistle. When we finished studying the book
recently, that last admonition seemed to come out of left field. Throughout the
letter, John talks about the love of God, love of the brethren, and avoiding
sin. The warning against idol worship doesn’t appear to fit the general context
of the letter.
Certainly, idol worship is a sin. Just as certainly, John’s
audience lived in a culture where idols, literal statues of supposed gods, did
exist in plenty. Yet because the only specific sin John had mentioned in the
letter was failure to love the brethren, idolatry came as a surprise to me.
Until I looked back at the immediate context of the closing remark.
The ESV translators titled the last section beginning in
verse 13 as “That You May Know.” Know what? John wanted to be sure that his
readers knew where true life comes from. The life John refers to here is the
“life of the ages,” as the Greek puts it. It is the same life that Jesus prayed
about according to the gospel of John 17:3; knowing God and the One He sent,
Jesus said, is life, true life,
eternal life.
So John ends his letter saying we know God and His Son, and
we know He is true life. The life offered by the idols was not true life; it
was fake. The “life” offered by idols tended to lead people away from what was
true, from true life. That makes sense if you are a first century reader; idols
were everywhere. It would be easy for John’s audience to equate following idols
with sin, and that sin led away from truth, as all sin does.
But that doesn’t seem too important to John’s readers today.
There aren’t many people in the 21st century who bow to wood or
stone. But what is an idol, really? You have undoubtedly heard someone say that
modern idolatry is putting anything else in the place of God in your life. Like
putting fake life in the place of true life. Hmmmm.
It is easy to see how an addiction puts something fake in
the place of the true. A heroin addict puts finding the next fix at the center
of life. Nothing is more important than finding the next high. An alcoholic is
in much the same boat. So is the porn addict, the gambling addict, the sex
addict and so on. We can see that, but we are none of those; we are not
addicted.
Our idols are much more subtle than that. Mine is cars. I
love cars. The one time I went completely off the rails was when I bought a
$42,000 car on impulse; I succumbed to the lust to have that car. It took
center place in my mind/heart/life. I rationalized away all the reasons why I
should not buy it, and I bought it. My wife came close to throwing me out of
our house when I brought it home. (Right; I didn’t tell her what I had done.)
My salvation came in the form of a salesperson who knew me and my wife well
enough not to turn in the deal immediately. We cancelled it the next morning
with nothing but my shame to pay for.
What is your idol? If it’s not needles, it could be noodles.
If it’s not gin, it could be gin rummy (or lottery tickets). It could be
nicotine or caffeine. These “lesser” idols may not become complete masters of
your life the way drugs or alcohol can, but they can assert a kind of mastery
that becomes sin. Anything that causes you to think of it first, whether it’s
the first cigarette, the first cup of coffee or the fast lane to the job
promotion or the best golf club or whatever, it has become an idol. It has
taken first place in your heart, and it has become an idol. Idols replace the love
of what is true in our hearts. John wants his readers to know what is true. “Little
children, keep yourself from idols.” Now that makes sense.
