The Israelites are camped in Shittim, and Moabite women invite them to worship Baal. It starts with desire, with physical attraction and relationship. It ends with idolatry. The two become inseparable.
Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, is zealous for God's glory. He sees an Israelite man and a Midianite woman entering a tent together, and he acts - killing both of them with a spear. It stops the plague, stops the judgment. God is pleased with his zeal.
I find myself uncomfortable with both the unfaithfulness and the violence here. Both are real. Both are addressed. But what captures me is how the boundary between desire and idolatry can blur. We don't set out to worship something false. We set out to pursue something we want. And before we know it, we've organized our whole lives around it.
I've seen this with a close friend and social media. It started as connection. It became something that competed with his allegiance to his wife, his marriage, his faith. The line between healthy desire and idolatry got crossed. I don't think he woke up one day and chose idolatry. It crept.
Maybe the lesson is being honest about what we're actually organizing our lives around, what we're really committed to. Are we aware? Are we still choosing? Or have we been slowly married off to something we didn't intend?
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