"Idols of the Heart" by Gary Amirault

[Webster Fields Jr]

I felt lead to Google "Idols of the Heart" which is a term that has been on my heart ALOT recently. This article demonstrates and puts into words alot of what God has been teaching me about following Christ to crucifixion in the past year. It's pretty cool to see in writing alot of the concepts and revelations that God has given me this past year and it being someone else that has written it.. not me lol.

Hope this helps you all.

http://www.tentmaker.org/Dew/Dew8/D8-DeliveranceFromIdols.html

[Dennis Bratcher]

NIV: Ezekiel 14:3 Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces.

NRSV: Ezekiel 14:3 Mortal, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and placed their iniquity as a stumbling block before them; This is a good example of a questionable or interpretative translation being used to promote ideas that are far from the meaning of the biblical text. The NIV has left out the pronoun “their” with idols and “iniquity” as well as making the noun “iniquity” into the adjective “wicked.” Yet, the pronouns are present in the biblical text.

In making these subtle changes, the NIV has altered specific references (“their idols,” “their iniquity”), which are parallel references to the same thing, physical idols, into a general and abstract one (“idols”). While seemingly insignificant, the NIV gives the verse a different nuance. The NIV allows idols to be abstracted into generic idols, similar to what Mr. Amirault does, while the biblical text is too specific to allow that kind of generalization or abstraction.

The NRSV is more faithful to the Hebrew text. In the context of Ezekiel, as well as this particular passage, “their idols” and “their iniquity” clearly refers to physical idols. In Hebrew culture and language, the heart is the center of will and volition. To take something to heart, or to act out of the heart, is a Hebraic way to say that a person has made a deliberate and willful decision for a certain course of action. The point that Ezekiel is making is that the people are so committed to idolatrous worship that it has become a stumbling block to them. It is Ezekiel’s version of Jeremiah’s declaration about the people in Jeremiah 13.

Mr. Amirault tales the text as a starting point although using a less than accurate translation, and then proceeds by a wide ranging analogy to a very allegorical interpretation. That is not good biblical interpretation.

But then again, he is not doing biblical interpretation.

“For those who will allow the "spirit of revelation" to open up these passages and many more like them, let us look into a couple of the false images we may perhaps be hiding in our own tent.”

At best this is application (as I have heard more than once from preachers). But it is not really an application based very soundly in the biblical texts. At worst, this is saying what one wants to say and using the Bible as an authority for it (one danger of “spirit led” truth, as discussed in an earlier post). I have also heard that more than once from preachers. Neither is necessarily a word from God.

Grace and peace,

Dennis B.