No Pagan Practices

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Pagan ways must have no part in worship.

Deuteronomy 23.17-18

 “None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, and none of the sons of Israel shall be a cult prostitute. You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a dog into the house of the LORD your God in payment for any vow, for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God.”

The use of prostitutes in conjunction with rituals of worship was not uncommon among pagan religions. God is here forbidding any such practice, and, in so doing, reinforcing the idea that Israel must not allow pagan preferences or protocols to infect the pure worship of the living God. Just because the pagans do it, it’s part of the culture with which they are familiar, and it might be a way of wooing them into the community of God’s people – none of these are good reasons to compromise the worship of God.

Here are words of warning we would do well to reflect on in our day, when so many contemporary forms and elements have found their way into the worship of God in virtually every church. I will have more to say about this in my comments on the Second Commandment.

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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.

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