Month: November 2024

Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.

Proverbs 5:18–19

One of the duties of a teacher is to warn the sheep about the wolves, and sometimes those wolves must be specifically named.

Anyone still following Nick Fuentes by July of next year should be permanently disqualified from all positions of leadership or influence. That level of lack of discernment betrays significant intellectual and spiritual deficits.

The evil of that crowd is manifest.

This is the same level of sloppiness that ‘permits’ Baptists to ignore what Matthew 28 actually says (i.e., that baptizing is how one makes disciples).

The Second Commandment is not “Thou shalt not make a graven image.”; rather, that is a commentary on the First Commandment — “Thou shalt have no other gods.” This is made abundantly clear by the sentence that follows the one about graven/carved images: “You shall not bow down to them or serve them[.]” This is the entire point of the paragraph; it is illustrating and expanding on what it means to have no other gods.

Here is the full passage (ESV):

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Here is the Greek:

3 Οὐκ ἔσονταί σοι θεοὶ ἕτεροι πλὴν ἐμοῦ.

4 Οὐ ποιήσεις σεαυτῷ εἴδωλον οὐδὲ παντὸς ὁμοίωμα, ὅσα ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ἄνω καὶ ὅσα ἐν τῇ γῇ κάτω καὶ ὅσα ἐν τοῖς ὕδασιν ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς. 5 οὐ προσκυνήσεις αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ μὴ λατρεύσῃς αὐτοῖς· ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι Κύριος ὁ θεός σου, θεὸς ζηλωτής, ἀποδιδοὺς ἁμαρτίας πατέρων ἐπὶ τέκνα ἕως τρίτης καὶ τετάρτης γενεᾶς τοῖς μισοῦσίν με, 6 καὶ ποιῶν ἔλεος εἰς χιλιάδας τοῖς ἀγαπῶσίν με καὶ τοῖς φυλάσσουσιν τὰ προστάγματά μου.

We want to pick out the word used for ‘carved image’ — it is εἴδωλον — and the word used for ‘likeness’ — it is ὁμοίωμα. In English, we might say idol for the first and image for the second. The prohibition is on the creation of idols for the purpose of worshipping them (again, see the next sentence), and the prohibition attaches whether the thing created is an idol (e.g., of Baal or Asherah or Moloch) or an image (e.g., the golden calf).

Notably, our translation into English as “carved image” (or “graven image” for those still using the KJV) is arguably not entirely accurate. The Greek does not say carved image — it simply says idol. The translation of εἴδωλον as “carved image” begs the question in one sense and collapses what God is commanding in another. God is not simply commanding that we do not create ‘carved’ images; rather, He is expanding upon the prohibition in the First Commandment with examples (ones that were particularly relevant to the immediate audience).

At a bare minimum, those who advocate for “Thou shalt not make a graven image.” as the Second Commandment should expand it to “Thou shalt not make a graven image or a likeness of anything that is in Creation.” (or expand Creation into the full “the heaven above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth”). However, it would certainly be better just to use the actual Second Commandment:

“Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.”

Gentlemen, if you are ever tempted to despair, do not forget the current state of play:

A California attorney and a former Apple manager started a podcast and within two years have driven all of the existing ‘names’ within the ‘Christian’ sphere into such a state of hysteria that they are publishing books, blog articles, and ‘declarations’ as breakneck speed — but achieving nothing. They continue to lose ground.

God is on the move, and He will crush His enemies under His heel. Stay the course and we will win.

Soli Deo Gloria.