IDOLATRY, BIBLIOLATRY, AND FAITHFULNESS TO GOD

Some church-goers accuse evangelicals of worshiping the Bible rather than God. They call this “bibliolatry” to impugn adherence to the Bible as a form of “idolatry,” false worship. But is our devotion to the Word of God false worship? Instead, it is the very thing that God had consistently demanded:

·       "Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deuteronomy 6:1-7)

Israel’s faithful response to God’s Word was the only way to love Him (John 14:21-24). Israel was never commanded to imagine or to experience God or to delight in a God of their own preference. Instead, the worship of God had to be in truth. This meant it had to be according to God’s Word, His revelation. Therefore, to worship a god of our own imagination was to worship a different god.

Jesus also insisted that God had to be worshipped according to the truth of His Word:

·       “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:24)

This left no room for any worship apart from what God had designated in His Word.

King Saul, the first king of Israel began to depart from God’s Word as he grew in self-confidence:

·       [The Prophet] Samuel said [to Saul], "Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, 'Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?" (1 Samuel 15:17-19)

As king, Saul had become proud, but he didn’t respond to Samuel’s charge by saying, “You are insisting on bibliolatry, a false worship of God.” Nor is this charge ever made in the Bible. Everyone agreed that God required precise fidelity to His commands. Instead, King Saul insisted that he had been faithful to the commands of God and had saved the best cattle of the Amalekites to sacrifice to the Lord. However, Samuel cut through Saul’s rationalizations:

·       And Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king...For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel." (1 Samuel 15:22-23, 26)

Saul’s disobedience was a matter of rebellion. By rejecting God’s Word, Saul had actually rejected God Himself. Therefore, God would reject Saul.

True worship and obedience is always a matter of following the Word of God. Therefore, condemning adherence to God’s Word, as a form of idolatry, is entirely misguided, even devious and deceptive.

We cannot be faithful to God apart from following His Word in faith and obedience. Similarly, there is no rebellion against God, which is not also rebellion against His Word. Therefore, the way we respond to the Word is the measure of our love for God.