Getting Idolatry Right
A Rainy Day Conversation around Greatheart's Table
For an explanation of the name and intention of these occasional interviews, read this, or listen to it here or here.
During seminary I worked as a stock clerk at a local grocery store. One day a co-worker came out of the back room, and shouted “Looove” with sarcastic scorn dripping from the saying of it. I suppose it had been a bad day. Perhaps he had been dumped the night before. Whatever it had been, he clearly was working hard to put some protective shielding around his heart. His stoic independent masculinity was his fortress. And a lonely one at that.
Today I am releasing as a podcast (available here or here) a discussion with pastor and scholar, Dr. Trey Martin, a campus pastor serving students on the campus of the University of North Georgia. Our conversation was about idolatry, and in particular the contribution that Tim Keller made to our understanding of idolatry. But any conversation of idolatry becomes a conversation about love, not only what we love, but how we love. To consider the things we care deeply about is to lead us to ask whether we love the wrong things too much, or do not love the right things enough.
Our conversation begins where Tim Keller began, with one of the most difficult and puzzling episodes of Scripture, where God calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Where Tim Keller presents this as a test of Abraham’s love, Dr. Martin understands it as a test of Abraham’s faith.1 From there, though, the conversation began to explore the intersection of these concepts, particularly concerning the object of human worship.
I found in our discussion that Trey and I are kindred spirits, both greatly appreciative and deeply impacted by the teaching of Tim Keller regarding love and idolatry, and at the same time both puzzling over the right and wrong ways to apply this to our daily lives as Christians. And, as well, as pastors.
We both want Christians to love, and to love well. And we want no one to end up like my seemingly stoic friend, cutting himself off from the vulnerability of love because he has never found a love that endures forever.
I think you will find Dr. Martin’s words challenging, stimulating, and ultimately deeply satisfying. I’d love to hear what you think.
Used by the kind permission from Covenant Theological Seminary. For information about the academic-pastoral journal Presbyterion, go to https://www.covenantseminary.edu/publications.