One Size Fits All

Read Exodus 32:1–34:35

1. When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Come on,” they said, “make us some gods who can lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.”
2. So Aaron said, “Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.”
3. All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.
4. Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
5. Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!” Exodus 32:1-5

Bill is a Hindu. Sandy is a Muslim. You’re a Christian. Your friend Rich says you’re all pretty much the same. “You’re all religious,” he says. “You all believe in God.” Is he right, or does it make a difference what a person believes—in whom a person believes?

Israel is still at Sinai after receiving many of God’s laws on holy living and worship. Moses periodically brings God’s words to them from the mountain. But the Israelites tire of waiting for Moses, so they sculpt and worship a golden calf instead. Here is a perfect example of the human tendency to remake God into something other than who he is.

Also watch for two other lessons in this passage: from the people, we learn that it’s never too late to seek God’s forgiveness; from Aaron, we learn that leading with integrity really does matter.

Even though the Israelites had seen the invisible God in action, they still wanted gods they could see and shape into whatever image they desired (Exodus 32:1-10). Two popular Egyptian gods, Hapi (Apis) and Hathor, were thought of as a bull and a heifer (Exodus 32:4-5). The Canaanites around them worshiped Baal, pictured as a bull. No doubt the Israelites, fresh from Egypt, found it quite natural to make a golden calf to represent the God that had just delivered them from their oppressors. They were weary of a God without a face. But they were ignoring the command God had just given them: “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea” (Exodus 20:4). How much like the Israelites we are—wanting to shape God to our liking and make him into a thing for which we merely perform rituals, while we live as we please. Yet we, too, know that there is only one God, and he alone deserves to be worshiped. The gods we create blind us to reality and to the love that God wants to shower on us. God cannot work in us when we elevate anyone or anything above him.