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Bible, Church, Christianity

Bible and life

Tell me, why is it that when we are commanded, "You shall not make for yourself an idol," and not to pray to anyone but God, we pray to various saints, whom we idolize just as we do Him?

The prayerful invocation of saints by Christians differs radically from prayer to the One God. Christians do not idolize the saints; conversely, those who do idolize the saints cannot be Christians.

We turn to the saints asking them to pray for us in the exact same manner as we ask one another, for the saints are our brothers and members of the same Church. In most languages spoken by Christian peoples, there is even a terminological distinction: our relationship with God and our prayer to Him is called worship, and we render it only to the One God. Our relationship with the saints we call veneration.

The essence of the distinction is that we ask for the saints' prayers on our behalf, but God alone has the sovereign power to fulfill their prayers (as well as ours).

In general, the commandment "You shall not make for yourself an idol" entails not only a prohibition against depicting God, but also, naturally, a prohibition against worshiping anyone but Him. The biblical text states, "you shall not bow down to them or serve them."

An idol for us can be more than merely images, people, or spirits. Any situation in which we dedicate our lives to anything other than God, or when we serve anything other than God, constitutes idolatry. In the modern world, the most prevalent idols are money, power, and pleasure; and for the more cultured individuals—culture itself, "spirituality," and so forth.

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