Idols and Graven Images

An interesting example of idolatry in the Bible is Moses' bronze snake healing rod, which starts as a non-idol and later becomes an idol.

Numbers 21:8-9 "The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived."

2 Kings 18:4 "He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)"

These passages also give some context to what does not count as a graven image in the second commandment of Mosaic Law. This symbol of a snake and a rod is used in modern medical symbols:



It's not the object that makes something an idol, it is the behaviour toward the object. The same question might be put to modern Roman Catholic Patron Saints, such as St. Christopher for finding lost things or Mother Mary. Are these idols? That dividing line isn't always clear.

What is idolatry? What are graven images?

If we value money more than we value God, wouldn't you say that money becomes an idol we worship?

Blik is accurate. God gives us all sorts of things in this world that we are free to use. Anything that we elevate to a position of priority above God himself then becomes an idol. That could include money, as Blik indicates, but also sex, food, career, relationships or anything else. All of these items are good and proper in their context provided they are all kept in proper context in relationship to God himself.

One could certainly make an idol of money: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon [money]" - Mat 6:23-26 KJV

Money isn't always idolised.

Colossians chapter 3

[5] Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
[6] For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:

Ephesians chapter 5

[5] For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
[6] Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

Idols and graven images are not only about physical objects. You can have a false christ engraved in your heart that you worship as an idol. False ideas about God and false gospels are idolatry all along. So people can pride themselves in and boast about "oh, I don't worship Mary", yet if they believe in a false gospel and a false christ, unable to save them, they are still idolaters all along, before God.

Didn't one of the Reformers rightly say that the heart is an idol factory.?

What I understand about idolatry is the act of paying attention to something that keeps us away from the real God, Creator of all things that exist. Having unrighteous thoughts is idolatry, not being present is idolatry, anything created that we consider a source of happiness or use as a source of happiness is idolatry, our hearts‘ desires are idolatrous unless they are backed up with he word of God through his Spirit. Even worshiping God is idolatry if this is not done in truth and in spirit. Pantheism is idolatry, and the list goes on and on...