J24-27: Why The Ancient Israelites Thought It Was Okay To Worship God Along With Other Gods

You know, it’s interesting how the modern gentile church hasn’t taken very seriously certain warning statements contained in our Bibles.

Particularly in the New Testament.

God is made out to be this frustrated parent issuing meaningless threats to His children that He doesn’t really have any serious intention of following up on.

Well, I’ve got news for you.

That’s just not the case.

The context of Joshua Chapter 24 (and pretty much the whole Bible including the NT actually) is that Israel is in severe danger of falling into idolatry.

And the warnings God is issuing through Joshua and then later through the prophets were anything but hollow.

When Joshua told the people they weren’t capable of worshipping the Lord their God, he wasn’t being rhetorical.

In fact, his words reflect such deep and profound theological truths about the human condition, I don’t even know if I can explain it properly.

But man I’m gonna try.

Here’s the thing.

When Joshua warned the people “If you abandon Adonai and serve foreign gods, he will turn, doing you harm and destroying you after he has done you good”, he wasn’t talking about some distant time in the future.

He was talking about a very real and present reality occurring right then and there.

Because here’s the truth.

Even if they thought they were innocent, there was a good portion of the population currently practicing idolatry.

In the emotional heat of the moment, they may have denied it just to get along with everyone.

Even though the priests of Israel had made it clear that service to other gods was a big no-no, the truth was, it was still happening.

In fact, many of the Israelites were participating in all kinds of idolatrous shenanigans.

Some of the Hebrews had idols in their homes.

They presented food, gifts and prayers to these little gods.

And they even buried them.

Heck, it ain’t much different than many Jews today who participate in all kinds of yoga and New Age practices.

In fact, some of them are leaders in these movements.

But here’s the thing.

Even though the people were engaged in all of these idolatrous practices, in their minds, it’s not like they had discarded Hashem.

They had no intention of giving up worship of the God who saved them from slavery in Egypt.

They obviously acknowledged His power.

They knew He was the one who had rescued them from Pharaoh and kept them alive in the wilderness.

They were well aware that it was YAHWEH who had defeated their enemies and that He was the reason they were now living comfortably in a land they could call their own.

But, and this is a huge “but”…

There is a HUGE difference between promising to not abandon the God of Israel and instead serve other Gods…

…and…

….completely abandoning other gods and ONLY serving the God of Israel.

Are you catching this distinction?

Because it’s a biggie in our discussion of idolatry here.

This was the very point Joshua was nailing them on.

You may wonder, is it really true that the people still thought it was okay to serve other gods while also pledging allegiance to Hashem?

Were they trying to keep their options open?

The answer is no.

Recall everything we’ve talked about concerning the ancient mindset.

To the ancient Middle Eastern mind, it wasn’t necessarily considered treasonous to worship one set of gods to receive blessings in one area of their life and worship another set of gods for another thing.

That was par for the norm.

So whenever the people were warned to be loyal to Hashem, in their minds it didn’t mean they couldn’t also deal with deities from other traditions and cultures.

In fact, in those days, harboring any other notion would have been considered absurd.