Question:
A correspondent quotes the second commandment and suggests that illustrations in books and pictures on the walls are a transgression of God’s law and that when we clean and dust the photos, we serve them.
Answer:
There may be men and women who cannot look at pictures without adoring or worshiping them. It may be so with our querist. Some men worship their houses, some their barns, and others their automobiles, horses, and cattle. But others can build comfortable houses, adorn the walls to make home pleasant, and keep their houses clean without worshiping anything in them. The dusting of a picture is not the serving of it but of our friends and loved ones, to whom home is made more pleasant, and we are “by love” to “serve one another.” The second commandment forbids idolatry and false worship, which begins in the heart and the root of which is selfishness.
The temple of the Lord was adorned with images of cherubim and pomegranates to beautify it, not be worshiped. If there is any transgression of the second commandment in the way our correspondent refers to it, it is generally the worship of self, but this may occur in the bare walls of a prison or a moderately furnished home. Yet, we do not believe in extravagance. Instead, the Christian should deny self for the needs of others.
