My husband receives these great little booklets once in a while from the Free Grace Broadcaster. Each one has various articles from writers in the past writing on a particular topic. In the fall of 2004, the topic was Idolatry and the issue is filled with very interesting and thought provoking articles.
I've had open one article in particular for quite some time and I've been reading over a section almost daily because I think it's so important. The article is titled Idolatrous Worship and the author is John Flavel. Flavel lived in the 1600s so sometimes the reading of his work is a bit difficult but very worth it.
Under the second point in the article which is:
"Because nothing more provokes and inflames the fiery wrath of the Lord, Who is a jealous God than this [Idolatry] doth," Flavel asks the question:
"But what mean you by idolatry and superstition? We hope there are no such things practiced among us; Pagans ... may be guilty of it?"
He responds to the question ... and here's the meat of what I keep coming to as I read:
"Idolatry then, according to the true and generally received definition of it, is a religious worship given either to that which is not the true God or to the true God Himself, but otherwise than He hath prescribed in His Word. From hence we plainly see that worship may be idolatrous in two ways:
"1. In respect of object: if it have any thing besides the true God for it's object, it is gross idolatry such as the First Commandment condemns, i.e., pagan idolatry, which the light of the gospel hath long since profligated (driven away) and expelled out of these parts of the world. Or,
"2. In respect of the manner: when we worship the true God, but in a way and manner which He hath not prescribed in His word, but is invented and devised by ourselves. And this is condemned as idolatry in the Second Commandment; 'Thou shalt not make unto thee, i.e., out of thing own brain or out of thine own head, any graven image under which title all human inventions, corruptiong the pure and simple worship of God, are prohibited as idolatrous. This inventing or making to ourselves is that which makes it idolatry (Amos 5:26, Numbers 15:59). Hence the molten calf became an idol to the Israelites - not because it was the object of their worship, for it is plaint it was Jehovah, the true God, they intended to worship by it - appears from Exodus 32:4,5: 'Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.' But yet it being a way or manner of worshipping the true God, which was of their own devising, it became idolatry."
So idolatry then is not just bowing down to something you've created and now call "god" but it's also thinking up your own ways to worship the true and living God that hasn't been specifically dictated in His word. I never thought of the molten calf this way - I just considered it an idol but if you read the text, they were not wanting to worship the calf - they were wanting to use the calf as a way to worship God - and God didn't want that.