I’ve had a maxim for a long time that goes something like this:

“God approaches us in our terms, but on his terms.”

This means that there is room within Christianity for contextualization - allowing the Gospel to take root in different cultures, and to adapt to the unique character of different people groups. We are free to speak of God in culturally relevant terms.

The second part - “on his terms” - was brought to my recollection today by a section from Kary Oberbrunner’s book Journey Towards Relevance. He recalls being taught the second commandment - “you shall not make for yourself an idol” - as a child and thinking that the Israelites were kind of dumb for bowing down to golden statues and the like.

It was not until years later, when I read The Knowledge of the Holy that I truly understood the grotesque idols that captured the affections of my own mind. A.W. Tozer wrote, “The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is. . . . The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.”

. . . In the Old Testament, when people worshipped God on their own terms, in their own ways, it meant judgment, death, and discipline. . . . God did not view these as misunderstandings, but rather idolatrous attempts that elevated worship to a higher level than God himself. Remember, God stated in black and white, “You shall not make for yourselves other gods before me.”

Suddenly the Israelites don’t look that dumb. . .

Tozer continues, “If we insist upon trying to imagine Him, we end up with an idol, made not with hands, but with thoughts; and an idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand. Left to ourselves, we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want a god we can control. We need the feeling of security that comes from knowing what God is like.” p100-101

Powerful and indicting words. I’ve often felt the same way about idolatry commandments, and I’ve always been dissatisfied with the traditional teaching that idolatry is simply valuing anything above God. Saying I’m idolatrous about [insert thing I like] may be a good way for a friend to point out an excess in my life, but it never hit me like Tozer’s definition. I don’t have to “worship a false God” like money to be idolatrous. I just have to think less of God than I should - to build on my maxim above, to approach God on my own terms.

I’m not talking about right or wrong ways to worship. That discussion could be held, but I’m not interested. Instead, I think of worshipping God on my own terms in the sense of relationship. An arm’s-length, conditional allegiance to God, wherein I give God credit for certain things if He agrees to stay out of certain parts of my life, won’t cut it. God’s terms are total and life-capturing. I almost said life-consuming, but actually, I think that’s backwards. It’s more like our lives consume themselves (watch American TV if you aren’t sure what I mean), but God offers the chance to become a significant part of something bigger and greater than ourselves -the expression of His desire to draw all people to life in Christ.

See also: Meganarrative