“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3). This is the very first of the Ten Commandments. I’m not sure I’ve ever given much thought to the adverb “before” that is contained in this commandment. The First Commandment just always seemed so cut and dry to me. There’s only one God and that’s that. Not much else to consider. But if we are commanded to have no other gods before God, does that imply that we may have gods after or behind or subordinate to God? And if so, is there any way that we could have such gods below the one true God and still be in keeping with the spirit of the first commandment? This seems like a pretty blasphemous line of inquiry, but if you’ll stick with me for just a moment, I think we might learn something about the true intent of this and all of the subordinate commandments. Our ability and inclination to worship and feel deep love and reverence for our Heavenly Father is so deeply ingrained that even if we are ignorant of or forget or turn our backs on the one true God, we can’t help but make gods of our own. This inclination for worship is not in and of itself a bad thing. In fact, it is not even intrinsically bad to become devoted to people or places or things that aren’t our Heavenly Father. It is bad to place such small “g” gods before the one true God, but when we feel a deep reverence and respect and even worship for, say, our Country or a football player or a particular tree in a park where we grew up and have a lot of memories around, these small g gods that we have after and below God can help us to practice and understand and internalize and deepen the love and reverence and respect that we feel for the big G God. We start kids off on Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny so they can practice feeling that sense of awe and wonder that they need to develop to have the appropriate relationship with their Savior Jesus Christ. Our family and friends, our neighborhoods and communities, our hobbies and our professions, all of the things that bring us joy and fill our hearts and our lives with meaning and purpose and passion - these are the starter gods that help us get ready to worship and to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength. As long as we put the Lord first in all things, He will help us to find many great and wonderful things after and below and subordinate to Him that can remind us of Him and that can help us to understand and appreciate and to revel in His goodness and glory and His tender mercies. But if we do find ourselves putting something, anything, before the Lord our God, then even if it is not a golden idol or some official sounding deity, it is nevertheless a god that we have placed before The God. In today’s world where the kinds of gods against which the Lord warned the people of Moses are more likely to show up in Superhero movies than to be actually worshiped in sacred groves or at blood-soaked altars, I believe that if we really want to follow the spirit of the first commandment, we should focus on that word before, and make sure that we are not prioritizing anything before our Heavenly Father or His work among His children. I know that if we always put the Lord first, we will find that we will slowly but surely begin to rely less and less on all of the small g gods in our lives and find fewer and fewer reasons to ever put anything before the Lord our God.
