How To Defile Abominations

One More Thought On Biblical Literacy (For Now)

Christians are supposed to be people of the book. Like I said in my previous post, the Bible is the sword of the Spirit in our hand. We cut the devil with it.

I’ve been reading 2 Kings devotionally as of late. The whole book is the story of how God’s people ended up in exile. And they ended up in exile because they were idolaters. It hit me the other morning that 2 Kings seems to be suggesting that when God’s people stop being people of the book, they become idolators.

We need to take that risk seriously.

In 2 Kings 22, an eight year-old boy named Josiah is coronated king of Judah. The scriptures tell us that he took after King David, who himself was a man after God’s own heart. In a show of love, Josiah commissions a renovation of the Temple in Jerusalem. And while the renovations are happening, Hilkiah the high priest happens upon the Book of the Law that—apparently—had been misplaced and lost.

How did this happen? And how long ago had it happened? The mere fact that they weren’t looking for it—they just happened upon it—suggests a deep and historic problem. And what’s so striking is that it was there, right where it ought to have been the whole time. In the Temple.

Josiah hears the words read aloud, and he tears his clothes. No doubt he sees that the Book of the Law says that God’s people are supposed to have no other gods before him, and that they are to shun idols. But Josiah sees other, foreign gods and idols all around him. So the cleansing begins: Josiah goes throughout all the land not only tearing down, but defiling the altars of Ashtoreth, Chemosh, Milcom, Baal, and Molech.

We’ve gotta read the Bible. How did it happen that we stopped? And how long ago did it happen? Idolatry is the very real risk. And exile after that.

But the Bible is there, right where it ought to be. In our churches and in our homes.

Will we tear our clothes when we read it? Others can testify to the outpouring of emotion I have had reading, studying, teaching, and preaching the Bible. I have laughed, cried, despaired, hoped, shouted, whispered, and fallen silent. Reading it reveals the altars to abominations all around me.

May the church find the Bible again.

May we read it. Study it. Meditate on it. Feel it.

May we, the Temple, be renovated.

And may we be led to defile the altars upon which our children are routinely sacrificed.