The Second Commandment – Worship God’s Way

The Second Commandment

2.1 Worship God’s way

The worship of God is not to be conducted with pagan ways or practices. All elements of pagan worship are to be excluded from the worship of God, Who is holy and pure, and Who shows us how to worship Him as we ought.

Exodus 23:23-25, 32, 33

“When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you…. You shall make no covenant with them and their gods.… They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

2 Corinthians 10:3-5; Numbers 33:50-52

Deuteronomy 12:2-4

“You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way.”

Acts 19:18, 19

Deuteronomy 12:29-31

“When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?–that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.”

This series of In the Gates provides the Scriptural support for the Ten Commandments and their supporting statutes, rules, and precepts. A complete version of this series is available as The Law of God. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this book.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.