Human beings have, it seems, an innate ability to make idols of almost everything in life. Perhaps there is something inside that makes it easier to accept and worship many gods as opposed to one God. The Roman Empire was for the most part quite open to a variety of faiths and worship experiences. However, it did find suspect any faith that only worshipped one God. To worship one God was to be seen as being unpatriotic and against the community because such a belief meant that one did not worship the god of the city or the state or of the harvest or of the “whatever.”

To worship one God was to be set apart, to be different than one’s neighbors and fellow citizens. As a result one would have found oneself to be suspect in terms of one’s commitment to the world in which one lived.

The worship of many gods is grounded in the understanding that each one only asks the person for a little. Each is willing to share the individual with others. To worship one God is to find oneself in an exclusive relationship. Here that one God expects the whole of the person who worships and has faith. Such a God is a jealous God, who really is unwilling to share the individual with even the best of causes or competing demands.

The culture in which we find ourselves today is a culture that encourages the worship of many gods and affirms the idolatries of human beings. Nation, flag, patriotism, motherhood, fatherhood, sports, entertainment, even the Bible, can each in its own way become an idol in the hearts and minds of proponents. To blindly follow because it seems to be the thing to do is the most dangerous of activities in which one can engage.

Like many other times in the history of humanity, it is time for renewal. It is time to once again hear the call of that one God. It is time to set aside false gods and idols that do not give life and to trust with all of one’s heart, soul and mind, the one who gives life in fullness and abundance now and always.