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After Jacob departed privily from Laban’s house in the 31st chapter of Genesis, we see Laban come to find out that some of his images, his idols to his gods, are missing. After pursuing the vast, fleeing crowd, Laban demands to know what they have done with his gods. Of course, we saw earlier that Rachel, Laban’s daughter, had stolen them in a revenge scenario against her father. Jacob, unaware of his wife’s thievery and quick to deny any wrong-doing, proclaims his disgust at the accusation and readily follows it up with a death sentence proclamation for whomever the idols are found with. We see a bit later, Rachel hides the idols under her person, thereby avoiding being caught and the subsequent death penalty.
I include this story to remind my readers that idols have been used for a very long time. Fast forward to 2014, and it is imperative that you understand that symbology and idols are still used ubiquitously. How many of us are sitting on a little idol, much like Rachel? How many of us have these symbols all over our homes? Resting on a mantel, adorning your walls, bedecking the blankets that cover your sleeping children?
I have stated before that we became very serious about understanding everything we put in our home, the sayings we say as a culture, the traditions we keep, etc. Never wanting to be apathetic, hungry to find out that which pleases our God and that which offends Him. The different symbolism surrounding us at any given point seemed a worthy endeavor to explore.
Two of the most prominent examples of pagan symbols, or idols to Belial and the fertility goddess, are the heart and the star. In Alexander Hislop’s Tale of Two Babylons, he explains: “The “Heart” was one of the sacred symbols of Osiris when he was born again, and appeared as Harpocrates, or the infant divinity, borne in the arms of his mother Isis.” You would know this “infant divinity” as the baby “Jesus” in “Mary’s” arms or “Cupid”, the chubby little angel baby with a bow and arrow.
The heart shape began it’s use in pagan fertility worship as a symbol of the female matrix, which explains its popularity for the highly sexualized holiday of Valentine’s Day.
The star shape, also known as a pentagram for it’s 5 sides, is used in witchcraft. We see on radioliberty.com (http://www.radioliberty.com/Symbolsandtheirmeaning.html): this explanation of stars:
For a 5-pointed star pointing up- “A standard symbol for witches, freemasons, and many other pagan or occult groups. To witches, it represent the four basic elements (wind, water, earth and fire) plus a pantheistic spiritual being such as Gaia or Mother Earth. The pentagram is also “used for protection. to banish energy, or to bring it to you, depending on how it’s drawn,” wrote a Wiccan visitor.”
For a 5-pointed star pointing down- “Used in occult rituals to direct forces or energies. Often represents satanism, the horned god or various expressions of contemporary occultism, especially when a goat-head is superimposed on the inverted pentagram.
The cultural symbolism surrounding us is quite the rabbit’s hole. We choose not to use either shape on anything in our life, which means kids’ clothes, toys, blankets, etc. We get eye rolls from every direction when we try to explain why. I expect that from the world but am disappointed when Christians scoff. Aren’t we ever to be moving on toward perfection? To run the race set before us? Why would anyone knowingly want to hide a little idol on their person rather than bring it into the Light and destroy it? If the believers in Acts destroyed their things they previously used in pagan worship, why is it any different for any one of us?
Perhaps, like us, you will say you didn’t know and claim ignorance as your defense. Now you know.
I leave you with a portion of Scripture to consider: Deuteronomy 12: 2-4 “Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God.”
Deuteronomy 12: 29-31 “When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.”
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