How to trust and worship God right

1 Kings 12:25-33

Can God be trusted? This is the most fundamental question in our relationship with Him, the one challenged by the serpent in Eden. As so often, what God says or promises seems less likely than its opposite (will the first couple really die from eating a fruit that looks so appealing? Gen 2:17; 3:6). It takes a conscious effort of will to place our trust in the Lord. Ironically, God has often granted already what we may crave. Humanity was made in the image of God sharing His role of king and priest and His rest (Gen 1:26; see my post Temple, rest and fellowship with God). They were already like God, but the serpent convinced them that eating from the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil (making autonomous choices about right and wrong) would make them truly God-like (Gen 3:5). Evil always offers an alternative route to what God wants to give.

Jeroboam’s choice: to trust God or not

The dynamics revealed in this quintessential story of human sin in Genesis 3 play out in our reading about Jeroboam. He has already received a kingdom and was promised an enduring dynasty if he obeyed the Lord (1 Kings 11:37-38). Most fundamentally, such obedience meant faithful worship of the true God rather than following other gods. Yet, the new king fears losing his power and throne, and ultimately his life, if the whole country keeps going down to Jerusalem to worship at the temple (1 Kings 12:27). Our walk with God is never by sight but by faith and it was no different for Jeroboam. What he fears makes good sense and it is a realistic possibility; trusting God is indeed counter-intuitive.

The roots of false worship

Like Rehoboam, the new king takes counsel (1 Kings 12:28), but not from God or His prophet. Jeroboam hopes to secure the kingdom by alternative worship sites at convenient locations (Bethel is on the southern border and Dan at the northernmost end), so Israel need not go to Jerusalem. Continuity with past practice (both Bethel and Dan had a long history of worship; Gen 28:16; 35:1; Judges 18:29-30) would have felt reassuringly familiar. The golden calves hark back to the exodus (1 Kings 12:28-29) and are not meant as alternative gods, but as representations of the God who saved them from hard labour (from Pharaoh and now from Solomon).[1] Bulls were symbols of strength and virility in both Egypt and Canaan, an association applied to Israel’s God. Yet, such representation was a parody of the living God and as such, ended up as a false god. Having priests from any of the tribes and moving the Feast of Tabernacles a month later (perhaps to coincide with the later harvest in the north; 1 Kings 12:31-32) may have seemed like small tweaks. Nevertheless, along with the visual representation of God they created a counterfeit religion masquerading as true worship.

Learning from a bad example

Jeroboam’s story challenges us in several ways. First, do we trust God even if He leads us in ways that are counter-intuitive, where we must walk by faith not by sight? Do we look to Him for reassurance in our fears, strength when we are weak? Do we believe that He has already promised and given us what we crave most: new life, true fellowship with Him, peace and a secure identity in Him, among other things? Second, it is tempting to approach the Lord and worship Him on our terms and in ways convenient to us. For instance, it may be appealing to choose a church that does not upset our boat and will not confront us in the matter of sin. Finally, it is a constant challenge not to alter our image of God to suit us but to safeguard our understanding of God. Thus, in our Western context, we may try to tame Him to make Him easier to live with and gloss over the uncomfortable truths regarding His justice and judgment. For some who react to Western culture or who come from a non-Western background, the shift might be towards forgetting God’s goodness and surprising grace in favour of justice. Whatever our starting point, our only hope is to keep readjusting our vision by looking to Scripture and to Jesus Christ as portrayed in the New Testament in whom God fully revealed Himself.  

[1] The second half of 1 Kings 12:28 (‘behold your gods…) is a quotation from Exodus 32:4 and connects the two incidents. Elohim in the Hebrew is a plural noun that can mean gods or a god. When Israel’s God is meant, the verb is generally (though not always) singular. In both the Kings quote and in Exodus the verb is plural (‘they brought you out’). However, the worship of the calf in Exodus is in the context of a feast to the LORD (Hebrew Yahweh, Exod 32:5), which indicates that Israelites think of the calf as a representation of Yahweh, their God. R.W.L. Moberly argues that the plural is meant to indicate the pagan associations attached to their worship rather than the idea that they attribute their redemption to an entirely different god. At the Mountain of God: Story and Theology in Exodus 32-34 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1983), 47-48.                  

Since Kings quotes the verse from Exodus, it leaves the plural verb (‘they brought you out’) intact and in any case, two calves are set up by Jeroboam, so the plural is less of an issue here. The distinction between setting up another god or gods for Israel to worship or worshipping the true God in a false way may seem like hair-splitting. It matters, however, because it is easier to accept this new form of worship when it reaches back to familiar forms of doing so and claims that Israel will still serve the true God. It also makes it harder for Israel to recognise that they are doing anything wrong. Likewise in our context, something that fits in with cultural expectations and masquerades as true worship of God is more insidious than blatant adherence to another religion.