The Orthodox Study Bible: Idol

The Orthodox Study Bible, New Testament and Psalms, (1993) Saint Athanasius Orthodox Academy,Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 

Purchased from my employer, the Canadian Bible Society @ Cafe Logos, Vancouver. This text review continues...

The Orthodox text's definition of Idol, there is not a definition for Idolatry:

A statue or other image of a false God; also, anything that is worshiped in place of the one true God. Money, possessions, fame, even family members can become idols if we put them ahead of God. (800).
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Edited from archived entry

(Again, I do not want to reinvent the wheel with unneeded re-writes on this website)

Definitions of Idolatry

Browning writes that it is 'the cult surrounding a statue of a god or goddess'. Browning (1997: 181). 'Paul warns the Corinthian Christians about a kind of idolatry (I Corinthians 10: 14) which might have been a form of civic ceremony'. Browning (1997: 181).

'Idolatry is also used metaphorically for evil desires (Colossians 3:5)'. Browning (1997: 181).

This metaphorical use, I reason is the primary use of terms idol, idols, and idolatry in the Western evangelical church today.

Colossians 3:5 'English Standard Version (ESV)

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you:[a] sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Footnotes: Colossians 3:5 Greek therefore your members that are on the earth'

P.C. Craigie defines idolatry as 'The worship of an idol or of a deity represented by an idol, usually as an image. Craigie (1997: 542).

He as did Browning acknowledges that the New Testament deals with idolatry in a more metaphorical context than the Hebrew Bible. Craigie (1996: 542). As in one should not covet for example (Ephesians 5: 5 and Colossians 3: 5).

Ephesians 5:5 English Standard Version (ESV)

'5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.'

Evil desires are the opposite of good desires (although human desires from present human nature, are always tainted, until the resurrection). Another way a stating this would be that the Holy Spirit is not being sought in evil desires, but sinful human desires are being followed. A theological key here is the idol becomes 'the immediate focus of a person's desires and 'worship' displacing the worship of God.' Craigie (1996: 543).
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I am in agreement with Orthodox Bible that at idol is something placed ahead of God in importance.

In agreement with my edited archived work, an idol is a displacement of God.

For clarification, an idol is not an unmet need or desire that a regenerated Christian believer has that God is not meeting and causes stress and displeasure with God; an idol (idolatry) is biblically a replacement for God.

This distinction, in my humble opinion is too often misunderstood and/or ignored within evangelical church teaching.

Further, as I have written successfully accepted, biblical, Reformed, MPhil/PhD theses on the problem of evil and continued my work on this website, I can reasonably opine that many problems of evil are shuffled off as idols in ill-fated attempts to bring overly-simplistic remedies to problems of evil within the evangelical church.

BROWNING, W.R.F. (1997) Dictionary of the Bible, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

CRAIGIE, P.C. (1996) 'Idolatry', in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books.

ORR, R.W. (1986) I John, in F.F. Bruce (ed.), The International Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids, Zondervan.