Let’s Talk: Recognizing and Fighting Idolatry

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Jackie Hill Perry
Hey y’all, welcome to let’s talk a podcast from The Gospel Coalition Podcast Network where we seek to apply biblical wisdom to everyday life. I am Jackie Hill-Perry, and I’m here with my friends Jasmine Holmes and Melissa Kruger. Today we’re going to talk about something fun. Like idolatry.

Jasmine Holmes
Light hearted.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yea, it’s great. John Calvin actually said this about idolatry. He said, The human heart is a factory of idols. Every one of us is from his mother’s womb experts in inventing idols. Do you disagree? Or do you agree with that?

Melissa Kruger
Well, if we’re looking at my heart, yes.

Jasmine Holmes
Yeah, from my heart. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Jackie Hill Perry
I think most people, not most, but sometimes we are inclined to think that idolatry is merely bowing down to a statue. And there are places in the world where that is still a thing. You know, where there’s a statue erected, and people worship it. Why do you think that some people are drawn to the literal worship of idols, especially even Israel? That’s kind of Yeah, where we saw express with them.

Jasmine Holmes
I think that was the main impact about the cultures around them. The cultures around them worships literal idols and the culture that they’ve just been enslaved to, for 400 years. Worship literal idols. And so as soon as Moses went up the mountain and they didn’t know, when he was coming back, they reverted back to what they had seen in the cultural context they had been in before.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, I think they said to Aaron, “give us gods”.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yep. Yeah. Make us gods who will go before us.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. And it’s so different than what what we think of as idols. Because I mean, I’m like, well, so I’m gonna worship the golden calf. Thank me, it seems to our minds today, not what we think of typically. But when you look at the Old Testament, it’s amazing. I mean, I’m in kings right now. I’ve been reading through the Bible in a year. And every other king, you know, he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He kept up the idols, yeah, to this God, or this God, and he did this. And so what typically happened with most of these idols is they were either Colt prostitution going on or there were sacrificing of children.

Melissa Kruger
And it’s pretty horrific. What was going on with these idols? So they weren’t just the statues kind of required things of them? Right. You know, I mean, somehow, I don’t know who made up the rules, though. It’s a fascinating like, they do. Why why do you have to do it this way, but that’s what you see over and over. And there’s something I think tangible in that that people like, so you’re saying, if I want to be fertile, once I sacrifice my baby to this, I think that was Baal worship, that was a big part of it. Then I’ll keep having more children like it. I think it felt tangible. I can do something. If I give money to this God or that God, I give my crops to this God or that God, there’s something tangible I’m doing to assure my future happiness.

Jackie Hill Perry
And there’s even having a visual image doesn’t require trust. When I was studying Exodus 32, when they made the golden calf, I remember asking myself, why did they make a bull? Yeah, why didn’t they make like a roach or there? That’s a real measly little thing. But like, another animal, right? And what I found was that the bull was actually a really venerated idol in Egypt.

Jackie Hill Perry
And it was a representation of a god named Ptah, which was the God that was like, the, like, the deity of creation or something like that. And it’s just like, Okay, if, if your expectation is that we want a God that will go before us, that will protect us that will guide us, then it doesn’t take faith to create something that will lead you that you can see, yeah, but Yawei isn’t visible. We can’t see him. We can’t We can’t contain them. We he’s not tangible, or so we think even though he manifested in the pillar of, you know, fire by cloud by day and all these things. And so it makes sense then to trust in something that I don’t know. You don’t need the faith to behold. Yeah. Interesting. Although we may not necessarily worship statues in American in America as much as other places, but we do have idols of the heart. Right.

Jackie Hill Perry
Why do we create idols? Because all of our idols are created. They’re created thing, ya know? So that could be relationships. It could be jobs, that could be food. That could be I don’t know, makeup, it could be social media. It could be religion. It could be charged. It could be my kids. It could be family. It could be all the things.

Melissa Kruger
It could be good things. Yeah,

Jasmine Holmes
It usually is.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, that’s right.

Jackie Hill Perry
Why what is that?

Jasmine Holmes
I remember When I first got pregnant with Jamie, I was like I said this to you, I don’t even know if you remember this conversation. But around 9-10 weeks, the doctors saw something. And they were like, okay, so either your baby is going to be born severely disabled. Or, more likely, since you have a history of miscarriage, you’re probably about to have another miscarriage.

Jasmine Holmes
And Jamie was our baby who I wasn’t sure, I knew that I wanted to have a third I didn’t know when pregnancies really hard on me, I just, you know, and so Jamie was our baby who I felt like God was like, it is time to have another baby. I’m entrusting you with this child. He said it to me. One week, it was January 5. But I talked to my husband, and usually takes us three, six months to get pregnant. I was pregnant, two weeks after that.

Melissa Kruger
And because you talked to your husband, I talked,

Jasmine Holmes
I talked to my husband, you were communicating, we were communicating. That’s how you get pregnant, you communicate with your husband, when I found out that Jamie was sick. My thought was immediately God, why would you ask me to get pregnant if I don’t get to keep this baby.

Jasmine Holmes
And I had to come to terms with God just asked me to carry this child. He did not say for how long he made me any promises. And so either he’s asking me to trust him and the raising of a third child, or he’s asking me to trust him in the midst of a miscarriage. But ultimately, it’s not about Jamie. Yeah. It’s about what God wanted me to do. Yeah. And it was so hard to loosen my grip on taking,

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, we trust in the gift rather than the giver. Yes, yeah. And I think you see the Israelites doing this. I mean, actually, the gold that they made the calf from it was a gift. It was a gift, they were allowed to plunder all the Egyptians when they left Egypt. So they had all this. And it was actually to build the temple of God one day, but it was being made for this calf. So they start worshipping the gifts and then you see them again, if you remember with the serpent on the pole, they have been complained, and again, and they started getting bitten by snakes. And God said, Okay, I’m going to put the serpent on a pole and you look to it, and you won’t be boy, you you’ll be healed.

Melissa Kruger
Well, later on and kings, they’re worshipping that pole. And it’s like, we worship often the things that is given to us to heal us are given to us. Great graciously by God, we turn around and take those good things. And we hope in them. It’s so again, it’s tangible. And so we have tangible things we can hope in like we can hope in our bank account. It can feel really safe or maybe not so safe. But it’s can slowly creep and say, Well, I’m going to be fine. Because I have money in my bank account. And it’s subtle. Yeah, it’s not bad to have savings. That’s a good thing.

Jackie Hill Perry
Because that’s the that’s the the subtle part of idolatry. Is that the expectation we put on our idols are our legitimate needs. Yeah. Provision is a legitimate need. Right?

Jasmine Holmes
We all want our babies to be healthy.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah. Right. Like, that’s, that’s love. Yeah. Yeah. Say I want my child to be alive and grow and all these things. But at the same time,

Jasmine Holmes
He’s fine. By the way, I just wanted to wrap that up, because I was like, he had a severe deformity, or he was going to die. He’s okay. He’s kicking out a second.

Jackie Hill Perry
We bless God. Yes. Yeah. So I guess the challenge is, how do I not only how do I acknowledge my needs, but also acknowledge the fact that only God can satisfy them truly, and the means by which He does it through the job, through birth, whatever, that those are just means right now. They’re not the source. That’s the That’s the hard part.

Melissa Kruger
And I think sometimes he graciously ask us to give up things so that he can prove himself to us, Abraham and Isaac. That’s exactly right. There’s the one story where the idolatry didn’t happen. Yeah. He said, this is actually crazy that God is asking me to do this. But we know from Hebrews that he believed God was able to raise him from the dead.

Jasmine Holmes
Yeah, you know, he made it made sense. Yeah. Since he was like, Okay, well, yeah.

Melissa Kruger
So his faith was strong enough to say, I know, this is a good God, He’s not asking me to do like, because it’s a bad thing to kill your son, you know, but God’s asking something that he’s gonna rectify, because give me this promise that I’m gonna they’re gonna be nations who come from me and all this stuff. And so he believed by faith, and was able so I think the honest truth is it takes belief in God by faith to fight and kill our idols.

Jasmine Holmes
And it’s the most beautiful illustration because he stayed Abraham’s hand from killing his son, so that Isaac could one day be the father of many nations leading to Christ and so that God could not stay his hand and sacrifice his son. Exactly like he’s there’s so much illustration that’s taking place that some we don’t even realize what’s taking place.

Melissa Kruger
Jackie is teaching on this, aren’t you? Not the one you’re teaching at TGC22 Oh, sure, you are.

Jackie Hill Perry
Good. Look at that. I’m so excited. Y’all give me really good passages.

Melissa Kruger
That was the passage.

Jasmine Holmes
I just got that this year. Yeah, like literally just this year, I got that. I was like, we were filming. I were talking. And we were out. Because again, we were listening to the Bible at night. Yeah. And we were talking about Abraham, and I was like, I just, you know, it didn’t sit too well with me. How swiftly Abraham obeyed. Immediately, yeah, I’m like, you ain’t try to negotiate away.

Jasmine Holmes
He was like “what if there’s this many righteous people?” He was just like, No, I’m doing this. And Phillip and I were talking about and I was like, I just said “That that don’t sit right with me.” But then I was like, sacrificing son thought the son would raise from dead.

Melissa Kruger
All the little parallels, right? Yes. It’s like, he tells him God will provide Yes. Yeah. For the sacrifice. And then I don’t know if he knows like the Son has to curious would Yes. It’s yeah, Jesus can.

Jackie Hill Perry
He called them only begotten son. Yes, yes. Yes.

Jasmine Holmes
Yes. Yeah. It’s just like a sacrifice didn’t for Isaac a sacrifice deeds did for us.

Jasmine Holmes
She’s been a Christian forever. But like, just literally last week. Oh, my gosh, this is amazing. Everybody look at this. Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry
And the beautiful thing, again, is what will help you to resist the temptation to make an idol is to be convinced about the nature of God. Because he was fully convinced he was willing to not hold withhold his son from God, because he believed that God was able to raise him from the dead, meaning he had a concept. He had faith in the power of God to do something that he had not even seen him do before. Like, and so even when we bring that down to our level, it’s just like, God, I don’t have to, like, hold on so tightly to this job. Why? Because you gave Israel manna. Yeah, you feed the birds of the air, and they don’t do nothing. That’s right. So surely you’re gonna take care of me?

Jasmine Holmes
Yeah, it’s a really small thing. And the way he does that, we talked about this already with the way he just provids manna minute every single day on day, like you just had to trust him for every single day. No saving until tomorrow, unless tomorrow was Sunday.

Jackie Hill Perry
Alright, you all want some meat…okay, let me send this wind over here.

Jasmine Holmes
And then of course, they’re like, Oh, God, thank you. You know, thank you so much for this man. You thank you so much for this quail. And then they’re like, we’re so tired of eating.

Jackie Hill Perry
We want to be slaves again. So we get some salt. Yeah. I mean, I understand.

Melissa Kruger
Idolatry is us going back to slavery. Mm hmm. It is. It’s saying I choose this thing that could promise me nothing really promised me nothing. Because you know, whatever it may be for us. It’s not a turtle. It’s not God. We go back to the same old thing. We’re just like them. We’re saying take me back to Egypt. Yeah, I was eating pots of meat every day there or whatever. Yeah, nevermind that they were like killing my firstborn. Yes. It’s like we forget the slavery.

Jasmine Holmes
We forget all of the ugly part. Yeah. And we only focus on the thing that we’re wanting the thing that we’re craving. Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry
What I wonder about that I was listening to this IG live with Eric Mason. And he was talking about witchcraft. And he was saying that he the appeal of witchcraft is that you can get something that God has promised you but at a quicker pace. Yes. And I think that is a part of the appeal of idolatry is that we don’t have to endure. We don’t have to wait. Yeah, we don’t we don’t even like we don’t have to do those things. We could just get it right.

Melissa Kruger
Satan tempted Jesus. Yeah. I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the earth. What’s Jesus coming to get all the kingdom right there. Right. But he was trying to get it to Jesus without the crop.

Jasmine Holmes
Like right now. You don’t have to. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You don’t have to endure

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. And so it’s even in the garden in some ways. Oh, absolutely. You know, you had eternal life. And now yeah, oh, but you need some knowledge. Yeah, let me maybe I think all idolatry, maybe rest and maybe God’s holding out on me in some way. So I need I need this thing. Because God might not be true to his word. Yeah, he might not be enough. So I need to make sure I have this other thing.

Jackie Hill Perry
He’s not as generous as he presents himself to be. That’s right. Which is a demonic thought. Not saying your demon possessed. Yeah, that’s a temptation.

Melissa Kruger
I mean Paul hits on this in Romans 8, when he says if he gave you Christ, while he graciously give you all things, if he has secured our eternity, can we trust them? With our temporal illness? What is this? This temporal being? Yeah, can we just trust them? I mean, if he’s gone to all that work, that’s true. Will he leave us? You know, without without him? I mean, yeah, he’s gonna provide us and safely bring us out.

Jackie Hill Perry
So then how do we, how do we discern our idols? Because the heart is deceitful? Yeah. Many of our idols are cultural. And so it’s normal to be on social media for 15 hours. But you know, so I could get hard to discern was that his ideology? Because everybody does it. That’s right. So what do we do?

Melissa Kruger
I like, I think it was Tim Keller, who said this, but if I’m wrong, you can tell me, yeah, whatever. But he had for what I like roots of idolatry, power control, comfort and approval. And so like, you and I may have the same, we both may go after money, but you may go after it for power, and I’m gonna go after it for comfort. Does that make sense? Like so certain, like money is a perfect one, because it can be control. It can let you control your life. It can give you approval from people, it can give you comfort, because it can pay for them.

Melissa Kruger
And it can give you power. But the route might be different for a different person. So why I’m chasing it might be different. But I think those are helpful. And for me, it’s typically comfort. Oh, I don’t want to power for anything. You know, I don’t really want control. I just want to be comfortable.

Jasmine Holmes
I want control. Like I want to know, I want to know the outcome. Yeah, what’s gonna happen?

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. What do you do to try to get control?

Jasmine Holmes
Well, with my so with the recent example with Jamie, as soon as I got pregnant, I took pregnancy test every day, for the first month.

Jasmine Holmes
And now taking the pregnancy test wasn’t gonna control whether or not I stayed pregnant. But Ingrid sure what you knew, right? Yeah. And so it was like my only way that I knew how to how to, okay, I’m still pregnant. Okay, so pregnant. Okay. I’m still pregnant. Okay. And even that, it’s just, it’s I just want to control I just wanted to know, yeah, um, my, my idolatry is often in the form of my children wanting them to be safe wanting to be okay. It comes from trauma comes from loss. And comes from my sinful nature.

Jasmine Holmes
Yeah, that’s a really big struggle for me. And, which is why I was like, Abraham, you didn’t even fight. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so it’s, for me, it’s just like that worry, just that constant like thinking about it and replaying it and trying to see what I can do to control the outcome.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah, I often will ask myself, What is it, that I’m trusting to save me from something? Because I don’t know how often we frame idolatry in terms of salvation. But that that is what it is, is that I’m looking to a creative thing to deliver me from something. Yeah, so pain or hurt, or, you know, unease? Like all the things and so I think when I asked myself that question, then I can I can start to identify a lot of things that are trying to sustain me, but never will.

Jasmine Holmes
Yeah. Do you think there’s some idolatry going on in the garden? When they eat the forbidden fruit?

Melissa Kruger
That’s probably power and control.

Jasmine Holmes
I was reading um, I talked about this in a shame episode, but I read untamed. And she was talking about the story of Eve. And she was saying that the way that she remembered the story being told to her was that Eve wanted too much. And so that’s why she got punished because she wanted too much. She wanted all this knowledge. And God didn’t want her to have it. And so because she like, it’s like Icarus flew too close to the sun.

Jasmine Holmes
And I read it and it just struck me that in reality, idolatry is wanting too little, because she had access to all of the knowledge of the universe. Right, like it’s beginning and it’s in its originator. And instead, she chose temporal knowledge that led to shame and destruction. And just like I would have never put idolatry in the garden until I had heard that interpretation of it. And then I realized like, that was of course it was I voluntary Of course, it was. God, I don’t want to do what you say. I want this thing that you provide. But I want it without you.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah. Oh, oh, yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry
I think it’s a really interesting way. I think idolatry manifested as well. Is that you know, it says God was walking in the cooler today, and how they hid themselves and this like, Man, did you somehow think that this tree could save you from the consequence that God was about to bring you where it’s like legalism is a kind of idolatry is that I can do something I can hide behind my gifts and hide behind my ministry and hide behind these things. And I can I can construct all of these different ways to save myself from coming judgment. And that’s not true the only Savior we have available as Jesus Yeah, it’s I think the garden is like definitely the Genesis pun intended. of idolatry.

Melissa Kruger
And it does show we want to work for our salvation. Idolatry shows that like because when you were just saying that Jesus is offered to us a free gift, but no, I’d rather work and figure out my own mode of being saved. At some level we just it really is, “I want safety and security and all the things of life without needing God”.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah, because you’re right your idols expect something but they don’t expect much right?

Jasmine Holmes
Just enough for them to just pull your eyes off Jesus

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah, like somebody posted a Why are so many people trusting in the universe over God? And I come into it because the universe angle tell you to take up your cross and die. Yeah, your idols will have the same moral standard that you have. Yeah. God he Oh, you’re like Nakada kind of wants your whole heart your whole so your whole body, your mind your money, your hands, your children, your marriage. Yeah, all the things but it’s it’s because I deserve it.

Jasmine Holmes
Harkening back to our deconstruction episode, our falling away episode, Jackie said something interesting as we were kind of like talking talking about recording this recording that episode, that oftentimes when people turn away from the faith, they say they feel free. And we talk about that offline. Yeah, yeah, we did. It was right before it was right before we started recording, but I want to talk I want you to talk about cuz I cuz I think that goes that goes into this. You said it good. I’m not gonna say like you because I’m not a poet or writer.

Jasmine Holmes
Okay. But basically, rather than obey God, they have found freedom in something that is designed to look more free to feel more free to be more free. So when somebody walks away from the faith, and they say, like, I feel so free, I feel a burden lifted from my shoulders. It’s like, well, yeah, the cross is happy. That makes sense. Like, it makes sense that you feel like you can frolic and skip and jump now because the yoke thing that God has asked us to carry.

Melissa Kruger
We were talking earlier, I was quoting from precious remedies against Satan’s devices. And I said, there’s this line and it says, Satan shows the bait and hides the hook. But you know, I think God shows the cross and offers glory. But But Satan hides it. So they think they feel more free. Yeah, but they don’t know their cause.

Jackie Hill Perry
It’s an easier one. Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes
I wouldn’t say lighter. Yeah. It’s designed to feel like yeah, God’s yoke is not designed to feel it is like whether you believe it or not, whether you feel we’re there feels heavy or not, whether you trust the crisis carrying or not, it’s like, yeah, but the other yoke is designed to feel like it’s designed to feel like you’re footloose and fancy free. It’s designed to feel like okay, I don’t have to, I don’t have to try anymore. I don’t have to, like keep living up to that standard, which again, is when you’re living in it in and of your own power and trying to earn your salvation and trying to earn your way into the kingdom, then, yes, of course, that’s heavy. Of course. That’s yeah, yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry
And not to be real deep, that just think a lot of this goes back to we don’t like to be human. And idolatry gives us the ability to not have to be needy, to not have to be dependent, namely on God for anything. You know, I have my job. I’m good. I have my wife, my husband, I’m good. I have my kids. I’m straight. I have my act Ottawa alcohol, I got peace now, like, I didn’t have to pray for that. I didn’t have to seek God for that, you know, I’m saying like, I have my friends, I don’t need to go to churches, it’s just we want to be independent of everything.

Jackie Hill Perry
But that kind of state is only reserved for God Himself. And so, like, I think what might help us to relinquish our idols is us being okay with embracing our creature leanness, and that is we are inherently dependent. It isn’t God that we live and move and have our being. And it’s okay to need him for all things. But pride, you know, messes up everything.

Melissa Kruger
It’s just, it is an interesting choice. And yet I do it every day, all the time, meaning like, it’s, it’s still just so easy to turn to whatever it may be. And different in our lives. Are there some other things that you think that you see in our culture today? I mean, so I gave some general root ones, but how is it they’re always being expressed or manifested in certain ways in our culture? That I think we can spot pretty easily. What do you think to our today’s idols, where we live here in the West

Jasmine Holmes
Identity, an identity apart from Christ, whether it’s sexual identity, or a lot of sexual identity, political identity, national identity, like however we identify ourselves, apart from who that is? becomes an idol.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah, so as we said earlier, like, a lot of times idols are good things. Like family, ministry, children, spouses, food. Yeah, all good things. How do we how do we, how do we fight that? Because it’s not like we can just destroy these things. Right. Like they could destroy the golden calf. I can’t destroy my family. Yeah. And so how do I still engage and love my family? Rightly? When I can’t like, get rid of them? Like I could a statue?

Melissa Kruger
Was it Thomas Chalmers talked about the explosive power of the new affection and new affection? Yeah, like, I think the only way to protect is to continue to grow our affection for the Lord. I don’t know. Because you’re right. It’s not like you can go cold turkey and quit having your family. And it’s not right to withdraw from them. And like, I think sometimes our attempt is to so hard in our heart towards everything. Oh, nothing really matters. I don’t do we don’t love deeply.

Melissa Kruger
We don’t enter in because we’re just guarding our own heart. Yeah, in some sense, so that we don’t have to feel. But that’s just probably another hole idle. I mean, so I think there’s this situation, the only way I can love them rightly, is by loving God more, and hold them in the right place. And actually, that’s going to take time and effort, like any relationship. So I mean, to me, if I’m not spending time in the Word and spending time in prayer, and spending time knowing God, I’m going to be increasingly in danger of idolatry growing in my heart.

Jasmine Holmes
It’s true. Yeah. But it’s abiding. Yeah, that’s the only way. Yeah, cuz it’s like, like you said it. And it’s not like, it’s not like God is gonna test all of us the same way. Like, it’s not like he’s gonna say, “Hey, Jasmine, you really love Jamie, take him up to the top of the mountain and sacrifice him”. Like, that’s, that’s not going to happen. Right? It’d be like Jasmine, I don’t think you’re hearing him correctly. No, come after you. So it’s, it’s not always gonna be that that clear to us. But I think those illustrated moments do come up where it’s like, hey, this ultrasound doesn’t look right. Now, you gotta wait a few days. Okay, what are you going to turn to?

Jasmine Holmes
What’s going to be your comfort? Okay, we ran into a snag, and our marriage ran into a trust issue. Okay, what am I getting cleaned to what’s gonna be my comfort here? And so I think it kind of starts to show when things are not going well, with whatever your idle orientation towards idolatry is. My idolatry flares up when things aren’t going the way that I need them to go for my husband, for my kids, for my ministry, for whatever, that’s when the rubber meets the road. And it really shows what my priorities are.

Jackie Hill Perry
Yeah, I think we reminding ourselves that these are all things created are broken, all things created, like a broken system, like in Jeremiah, but God is the fountain of living water. And so who’s the real source and satisfier of my needs? It’s God and the way I remember that is continuing to read the scriptures and not just reading them to read them. but to learn about God, You who has He revealed Himself to be so that when the temptation arises, I can divert back to Oh, no, like you you can’t you ain’t God though you might be good. But but you’re not God. Right? Yeah, he’s the one that I need. And let me acknowledge that, and let me work towards it.

Melissa Kruger
We all live in the same world we live. I mean, I think sometimes we think of Psalm 23 Only when someone is dying. But we live in the shadow of death every day. Like, nothing’s guaranteed, except God will never leave or forsake me. Amen. And he’s the only one who can make that promise. And I think the heart of idolatry is almost like I make a promise to myself and to get out of my idol doesn’t keep it. Yeah. Or, like we make up I mean, this gets into, I mean, one of the biggest idols may be a self. Yeah, I don’t know if you ever hear people say, Well, my God wouldn’t do X, Y, or Z. And tell me about your God.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, I mean, like, but it’s kind of like, we create my god in my image. Like, basically, I want to worship the God who is just like the just like me, but a little bit cleaned up. Mm hmm. You know, who does everything right all the time, rather than actually submit to who God is? And even with his uncomfortability? Because I think sometimes, you know, he’s not safe, as they say in Narnia. But he’s good. Yeah. And I think there’s the sense that he can be uncomfortable, he can ask tough things of us. And we don’t want to, we don’t, we can still believe the world’s better.

Jackie Hill Perry
This question is random, but I think it it’s fitting. So if we’re gonna be honest, I think the TGC community can be made up of people who may or may not notice that they idolize theology. And I don’t think we think that could be an idol. And so what would be your counsel to how to identify when theology has become a god because they, you might think that your idolatry of idolatry of the ology is really just love for God’s word. And so it’s harder to discern. But it does not bear the same fruit.

Jasmine Holmes
When it’s puffing you up would be one sign. I have found in times where I was feeling very theologically astute. I’ve gotten very prideful about all the stuff that I know. I’ve also become argumentative, always looking for an opportunity to kind of flex my theological muscles. When theology becomes performative and not something that’s worshipful.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, I think, when I’m looking down on other people, because they don’t believe like me, and I think when we see that in our worlds, like, oh, they just haven’t studied very much. But but in a prideful looking down rather than, Oh, maybe they just don’t know this. Let’s talk about it. That’s different. I think one of the ways that theological idolatry shows up is that we look down on other people who don’t, yeah, agree with us. And we set ourselves up to be better than versus someone who has just had an opportunity for different teaching.

Melissa Kruger
Because I think I think this is why the scriptures always put life and doctrine together. So if we really believe in the sovereignty of God, and that he has taught us everything, why am I any better than anyone else? If I know someone, because that means the sovereign God put me in a place where I learned it. And who am I to look down on anyone else? Who might not be there yet? Because maybe they haven’t had that opportunity. I mean, what do you have that you didn’t receive? I guess that’s the reality.

Jasmine Holmes
And you don’t know where you’re where you’re not there yet. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Melissa Kruger
And we can all look back to places and things we said in small groups, and Bible says, And we’re like, oh, that was not right. Yeah. And we look back. And so rather than just saying, oh, you know, we’re learning about God together. But I think in the reformed tradition, we can struggle with idolizing theology and sometimes missing a heart for God, and just keeping him as our first love. We love what we know. But he calls us to love him. Yeah. And that’s, that’s it’s a slight difference, but it is our love for Him shouldn’t make us want to know him. That’s not a bad thing. But it’s when they get flipped. That we have a problem. That’s good.

Jackie Hill Perry
Amen. Yeah, glorify God and enjoy him forever. Amen. The reformed saints love that.

Jasmine Holmes
Let’s talk about our favorite things but not in an idolatrous way. Just know I like them, but we don’t worship them kind of way. Jackie, Melissa, I want to know, what is the most useful thing in your kitchen?

Jackie Hill Perry
The microwave.

Melissa Kruger
It is useful it is. Mine was broken for the past month.

Jackie Hill Perry
You put anything in it and it gets hot. I had a friend at Church in Chicago. She didn’t own one. And she didn’t want one. And I just remember thinking, man, everything you eat. You had to make Yeah. And like heated up in the oven. Yeah, it’s just you got so much. I just felt more spirit. Yeah, it just like it just got so much patient like them pioneers. Ain’t no frozen. Aint no Hot Pocket. Put them in the airfryer. I don’t got an airfryer I’m scared to get one. Because I feel like if I get it, I’m not going going to use it

Jasmine Holmes
We don’t use ours that much.

Jackie Hill Perry
It’s a big little thing. And so yeah, it’s like a crock pot is I don’t really want to make space for you.

Melissa Kruger
I get that. Yeah. Mine is actually an Oulu knife. Okay, it’s from Alaska. My mom went to Alaska to do for work one time and she came back. And it’s just it’s a knife. It has a wooden bar here. And then it has a blade that’s like this. And I use it all the time. When I had young kids Oh, it chops like this. Yeah, but it’s just a smaller one. So it’s not that big one. It’s so you just take it and you can. You can cut pizza with it. Like whenever you’re cutting your kids food when they need a small food, but I use it every day to cut stuff like so anytime I need to dye something up real quickly. Because it just it just rolls and so I love it. And that’s the thing I use every day. It’s my kitchen. What about you?

Jasmine Holmes
My le creuset dutch oven.

Melissa Kruger
Oh, you have one of the fancy ones. See I have the off brand one.

Jasmine Holmes
If you want like we say come to Mississippi cuz we got the outlet.

Melissa Kruger
Reasons to come visit Jasmine.

Jackie Hill Perry
Priorities, but you don’t have a Chipotle.

Melissa Kruger
I’ll bring you some much.

Jasmine Holmes
We are really excited to talk to you guys about our sponsor for this season Crossway they sent us so many amazing books, and Bibles and Scripture journals. And so we’re going to be talking about the ESV scripture journals today.

Melissa Kruger
Yes, when these came in the mail, my daughter was like, “Can I please have those?” Yeah, because I love them too. I don’t know if you ever use these? Stick my use this.

Jasmine Holmes
I can’t because I’m afraid of not making it as beautiful as the journal. Oh, really? So that’s my issue with the script. So I just own them. And I just like, yeah, you just add the illuminated ones. So they’re just like set up? Well, I don’t use them like they’re so pretty.

Melissa Kruger
They’re a decorative item. But I actually like it because when you’re studying, like if your church goes through book of the Bible, or however they do preaching, I like it because I can just take this and put all my notes in it on the side. But I think it’s great for that we actually we gave away James at the conference are great for things like that to promote your conference where you know, you’re going to just study one book, you can you can actually buy them as just you don’t have to get the whole set. But you can just get one individual ones as well. And they have these that are just playing and then they have the illuminated ones that are really pretty and colorful.

Jasmine Holmes
They are colorful. I love them. Yeah, yeah. When I got them in the mail, I was like, I know, I felt like the Jeffersons I was like we made it up we got the illustrator ones. Jackie, where can the people get get the illustrated ones or the plane whatever you want to do?

Jackie Hill Perry
I’m pretty sure you can get them at TGCW22. But until then, you can go to crossway.org/plus and you might find out how to get them put 30% off because two people have a discount. Yes they do. All right. Well, thank you all for listening to another episode of Let’s Talk. Next week is our final episode of season three (queue tears) and we are going to be answering questions that have come in from listeners so we hope you won’t miss it. Have a great day, morning, evening night whatever. Bye