Golden Calves

In Exodus chapter 32, it tells the story of the Israelites very quickly getting impatient waiting for Moses and they demanded an idol to worship. So Aaron told them to give him their gold earrings, which he took and made into a golden calf. And they offered sacrifices to the idol and worshipped it. I first heard this story as a kid and I thought it was so weird. My parents had taken me to farms and I'd seen cows and calves lots of times. I'd even seen calves get branded. So this story didn't make any sense to me.

First, cows are dumb, slow and easy to lead around. Calves are even dumber and easier to lead. Why on earth would anyone worship one of these dumb animals? That just seemed crazy to me. Of course, the other parts of the story were almost as hard to believe. Second, these people had seen incredible miracles with their own eyes. There were the ten plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, God holding the Egyptian army at bay until the Israelites could cross on dry land, the drowning of the Egyptian army, the pillar of cloud leading by day and pillar of fire by night, and the manna and birds that God sent to eat. And they gave up on Moses and God in favor of a golden calf when Moses was gone for only forty days. This was all just incredible to me.

As I grew up I noticed something. The supposedly God-believing adults around me had their own sacred cows. And they were ready to fight tooth and nail to defend them. I saw more than one occasion of a fully-grown adult screaming and cursing at another person because their golden calf had been contradicted. I couldn't understand where this came from.

Then I violated someone's golden calf myself. I don't remember what it was about. A friend was telling me about something going on in their life, and I quoted a couple of verses from the Bible I thought were relevant. Their reaction was shock and anger at me. And I was left confused. Later I learned that I had offended them because my words contradicted their belief. This was really weird to me. How could someone who claims to be a Christian be offended by what the Bible says? It turned out that they believed according to how their church taught them as they were growing up. The traditions of their church taught something that was contrary to the Bible. And they were holding it in greater esteem than the Bible, even Christ's own words.

It was then that I really began to understand Matthew 15. This person was just like the Pharisees that Jesus condemned for setting their tradition over God's law. This person's church had been teaching as doctrine the precepts of men. They had created their own golden calf to worship. And this golden calf was placed above God in their hearts. However, I wasn't done learning yet.

Next, the shoe was on the other foot. A pastor taught from a passage of the Bible that contradicted one of my golden calves. I was mad. I told myself that guy doesn't know what he's talking about. The Bible doesn't say that! But when I read it myself I found I was wrong, and he was right. I had read that passage several times before. But I didn't see what it was saying. I had been taught the opposite my whole life by other pastors. So when I read this passage before, I ignored what it said in favor of what I had been taught. I was censoring the Bible as I read it. I was worshiping a golden calf. Now that this pastor had pointed out something I'd never heard before I could only read the passage the way he did. I had to let go of my golden calf and accept the truth. It was the hardest thing I'd done in my Christian life to that point. (To be honest, I did an intense word study to try to prove to myself that he was actually wrong. I only further confirmed I had a golden calf instead of truth.)

Then it dawned on me. I had been just like the Pharisees. And I had more golden calves that were pointed out to me. I had read the entire Bible. So it was a shock to hear a pastor read from the Bible a passage I didn't remember ever reading. It was another passage that contradicted a golden calf of mine, so I had unconsciously censored it out of my mind. I had to let go of my golden calves. Sometimes it was hard and painful. Sometimes it was easy, and even funny that I had believed something so silly all those years.

Unfortunately, for every person who was pointing out my golden calf to me, there were ten who were trying to get me to worship theirs. I found that pharisees were in every church. I've been to six continents, and every church I've been to has pharisees and golden calves. Every church I've been to that has three or more people on the staff has at least one pharisee among them. But even if they aren't on the staff, they're in the church. And I've never met a Christian that didn't have at least one golden calf. My church has at least two pastors who have big golden calves. It doesn't make the church evil. It just means that God is still working on these two, just like he's still working on me. I still owe them respect. I just skip over the parts when one of them talks about their golden calf.

Why am I spending so much time talking about golden calves? Why do I think it's so important? Because at some point I'm going to talk about one of yours. At that point you have three options. You can get mad and never read anything else I've written. You can ignore it and skip on to the next thing. Or you can consider what I've said and what the Bible says about it. It's your choice. But ask yourself, is it worth risking my soul to hang onto a golden calf? The truth is, we've all got golden calves we hold onto. Are we willing to let them go, or will we choose to worship them over God?

I'm still learning myself. I'll still be learning until the day I die. Because I'm not perfect. I still haven't found the truth about everything yet. I still find things I haven't learned yet and things I've got wrong. I can read a passage more than once and not get it's message inside me if a golden calf is blocking me. But when I let the calf go and honestly seek the truth, I find it. I don't want to risk my soul on a falsehood. I'd rather face the truth, even when it makes me uncomfortable, and even when it hurts. How about you?