“Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.”
Acts 17:16, 22 ESV
(Note: this post isn’t about the Bible reading for Day 347. It’s about something Tara-Leigh Cobble said in the TBR Podcast for Day 347)
If you listened to the afterword in Tara-Leigh’s podcast today, you heard her talking about idols and idolatry. She talked about how we may not worship statues like we’ve seen all throughout Scripture, but idols of the heart are still alive and well in our culture.”
She’s right in our culture, but there are other cultures that take idols to a whole other level. Recently I spent a week in South Asia, visiting two of the orphanages our church helps support through RiceBowls, an organization that provides food for orphanages around the world. My guide took me to an area of stone temples and shrines dating back to the fourth century AD. The place has been designated a World Heritage site. Each of these temples, shrines, and idols are carved from a single rock.
And just in case you’re thinking, “Yeah, but that was from 1600 years ago,” our next stop was a stone foundry where idols are still carved and sold. Through my interpreter, I asked one of them how long it took to carve a single statue. He said fourteen days, I counted a dozen craftsmen working on various statues.
John Calvin once said, “The human heart is a factory for idols.” I will always imagine this place when I read that quote from now on.
They actually had a gift shop. I started thinking of it as “Idols R Us.” Not everything was an idol. I bought a little stone sea turtle for my wife.
Hinduism has over one hundred million gods. And they have no problem making Jesus one of them. The challenge when sharing with a Hindu isn’t convincing them that Jesus is God. The challenge is convincing them Jesus is the only God.
I was fascinated, though, to learn that many Hindus are very secular in their view of religion. On a beautiful beach, I had a long conversation with a kind and gracious Hindu man, who apparently enjoyed talking with me so much that as I was leaving, he called his family out of the water so they could get a picture with me.
By the way, South Asia is the easiest place in the world to have a conversation about faith. You can tell whether they are Hindu or Muslim based on whether they have a dot on their forehead, or whether their women wear bright colors (Hindu or Christian) or black (Muslim). With a little study, you can even tell what sect of Hinduism they represent (You know how libraries put different colored dots on books to identify the genre? Same thing.).
My new friend told me that while he still makes offerings to the gods occasionally (especially his family god, which is apparently a thing), it is really based more on tradition than personal faith. I asked him (again, through a translator), “So, you believe that you have had many past lives, and how you live in this life determines what kind of next life you have?” His answer threw me:
“No, I believe this life is all there is. Life a good life, not so you’ll come back as a better person, but so you can be a better person now.” I asked him what he believed would happen to him when he died. “Nothing happens. That’s it.”
A hundred million gods, and not a single one gave him any assurance or hope for eternity.
About three weeks later, a massive cyclone hit this city. Our ministry partners had to evacuate their children out of their neighborhood with an inflatable kiddie pool. Their car, motorcycle, and everything on the ground floor of their home was destroyed, including electronics, furniture, the refrigerator, everything. It all had to be thrown out.
I am thankful my ministry friends are okay and that their faith in Christ sustained them. I’m thankful that none of the things that went to the landfill were objects of worship for them. But I thought about my new Hindu friend. Were his idols swept away? Not all are made of stone, after all. Many are wooden. When families were allowed back into flooded areas, did they have to throw out their moldy, mildewy, waterlogged “gods”? And worse for my friend who doesn’t believe in any god: what did he turn to while the cyclone raged outside?
Back to Tara-Leigh’s afterword. In the west, we don’t often worship statues. But look again at the picture of the ground floor of my friend’s house.
If this had been your house, how many idols would you have lost?
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