Idol Worship -By Shem Godwins

According to Aristotle in his theory of art, the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things but the inward significance. It is an imitation of beauty or nature. In simple terms, art is a representation of something that exists. Aware that there’s no verse in the Bible that gives a vivid description of the appearance of Jesus Christ apart from Revelation 1:14-15 that briefly highlights the appearance of Jesus, it is therefore against the God’s commandment number two that forbids Christians from making idols. I say this because I see no spiritual value attached to such images in churches, sculptures and other designs depicting a purported image of Jesus.

Genesis 1:26 presents a deity of the three during creation, one of which is the Son, an assertion that Jesus is [God].It is therefore wrong for those who claim to be Christians to have images purported to be Jesus Christ hang on the walls inside Churches. For centuries, the most common images of Jesus Christ as presented in western cultures has been that of a bearded, fair-skinned man with long, wavy, light brown or blond hair and (often) blue eyes. But the Bible doesn’t describe Jesus physically, but what do Christians really know about his appearance?

Consider for instance a portrait of Jesus during the last supper as recorded in John 13:21,Matthew 26:17–29; Mark 14:12–25; Luke 22:7–38,of which after a lot of reading and consultations I came to realize it was originally done by one Leonardo Da Vinci (1495-1498) as was commissioned by his partrons Duke Ludovico and Beatrice d’Este to represent the event, for which none of the images captured in that portrait gives a real image of Jesus Christ or any of his Apostles. It was a work of art to illustrate the idea of the last supper and just like any other creative works of people, it was purely fictional.

Another fact check proves that the gospel books that records the life of Jesus Christ were composed forty years after he ascended to heaven, done by people who were never close to Jesus and therefore couldn’t describe Him physically(Luke1:1-4).They were not intended to be biographies of Jesus, but selective accounts that would demonstrate his significance for different cultures. The confusion brought upon Christians to an extent they bow to sculptures, curvings and images purported to be Jesus Christ is misleading. Some even hung such around their necks and wrists with notions of protection, against what? Their denominations know. Christianity is so naive, with a sheep’s instinct that will see most of them engage in sin trying to avoid sinning by not questioning why they do or observe some things within the church.

Some of the earliest known artistic representations of Jesus date to the mid-third century A.D., more than two centuries after his death. These are the paintings in the ancient catacombs of St. Domitilla in Rome, first discovered some 400 years ago. Another rare early portrait of Jesus was discovered in 2018 on the walls of a ruined church in southern Israel. Painted in the sixth century A.D., it is the earliest known image of Christ found in Israel, and portrays him with shorter, curly hair, a depiction that was common to the eastern region of the Byzantine empire―especially in Egypt and the Syria-Palestine region―but disappeared from later Byzantine art which ware influenced heavily by representations of Greek and Roman gods, particularly the all-powerful Greek god Zeus. I have seen Jesus movies played with Chinese characters as each society tries to give their version of Jesus Christ.

These are proof enough that whatever we see captured in portraits inside churches, sculptures are all wrong and should be avoided. Manipulating our faith into honoring such by bowing, chanting a prayer or anything close to that is completely blasphemous and should be done away with. Christians should stop allowing ignorance get them into sinning. Our only problem is that the Christian missionaries brought Christianity as a weapon to enslave us, weaken our reason for easy servitude. The earlier we start questioning these things, the safer our salvation will be real. Let us not blindly follow the rules, enter a church with your brain activated and charged.