Shincheonji lesson 46: figurative idol

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This lesson defines an idol as a “false teacher,” and treats greed, which Paul calls idolatry, as anything that will “take time away” from God, including “greed for relationships.” It compares students to Israel at Sinai, “Waiting patiently for the One to come down the mountain,” and defines the cowardly of Revelation 21:8 as one who “hears the truth but steps away from it because of the fear of what others might think.” It reads “let the dead bury their own dead” to mean a disciple’s spirit “would die when they went to those who were spiritually dead,” and warns against “silly things like going out with friends, watching a movie, taking a break.” It closes: “Overcome and find the one given the white stone and flee to the mountains.” SCJ’s The Explanation of Parables (p. 83) says believers “must … come out to the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony.” Guarding against idols is a real command (1 John 5:21), and Scripture does warn about false teachers. But the lesson’s specific applications don’t come from the texts it uses.

1. 1. Exodus 32: “Waiting patiently for the One to come down the mountain”

   The lesson applies the golden calf to the class: “And while we too are also waiting. Waiting patiently for the One to come down the mountain.”

   • The golden calf was literal idolatry: “they said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt’” (Exodus 32:4).
   • The story’s turning point is Moses interceding for the people (32:11-14, 30-32). Scripture’s fulfillment of that role is Jesus, who “always lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:25).
   • Casting students as Israel waiting for “the One” to come down the mountain prepares them to see a coming human figure as Moses, and any impatience as golden-calf idolatry.

2. 2. The cowardly: Faithfulness to Jesus, not ignoring others’ concerns

   The notes define the cowardly of Revelation 21:8 as one who “hears the truth but steps away from it because of the fear of what others might think,” and say such a person “is not going to enter the kingdom.”

   • In Revelation, the contrast is with “the one who conquers” (21:7), believers who stay faithful to Jesus under pressure: “Remain faithful even to the point of death” (2:10). The cowards are those who deny Christ to save themselves.
   • Weighing a family member’s or pastor’s concerns about a course isn’t cowardice. “A naive person will believe anything, but the shrewd person discerns his steps” (Proverbs 14:15). “Plans fail when there is no counsel, but with abundant advisers they are established” (15:22).
   • This definition turns listening to loved ones into a sin that keeps you out of the kingdom.

3. 3. The idols in Habakkuk, Psalm 135 and Isaiah 41 are literal

   The lesson uses these passages to say, “A figurative idol is a false teacher.”

   • Habakkuk 2:18 calls an idol “a metal image that gives misleading oracles” because it deceives those who trust it. The next verse: “Woe to the one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’” (2:19). It’s about literal carved images.
   • Psalm 135:15-18 says, “The nations’ idols are made of silver and gold; they are man-made.”
   • Isaiah 41 challenges the gods of the nations to predict the future, and Isaiah 44 mocks a carpenter who cuts wood, cooks with half and carves a god from the rest (44:9-20).
   • Scripture treats false teachers as a real danger (2 Peter 2:1), but it doesn’t need to turn idols into them. Both warnings stand on their own.

4. 4. Tests for a teacher: Apply them consistently

   The lesson says one mark of a false teacher is being “Self-appointed” after study under “this person or that person,” and reads Isaiah 41’s challenge to tell the future as “the ultimate test for proving whether or not one is true.”

   • If studying under several groups and then starting your own is a mark of a false teacher, that applies first to SCJ’s founder, who was involved with earlier groups, including Park Tae-seon’s Olive Tree movement and the Tabernacle Temple, before founding SCJ. (See Lesson 4.)
   • If foretelling the future is the test, apply Deuteronomy 18:22 to SCJ’s own predictions and teachings about its founder. (See Lesson 5.)
   • James 3:1, which the lesson cites, says teachers “will be judged more strictly.” That includes this course’s teachers.

5. 5. Daniel 2: The statue is empires; the stone is God’s kingdom

   The lesson says the statue of Daniel 2 stands for idols like the Pharisees, and the stone that smashes it is Jesus at the first coming and a white-stone overcomer at the second.

   Daniel explains the dream himself:

   • The gold head is Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom, followed by “another kingdom,” then “a third kingdom” and “a fourth kingdom, one strong like iron” (2:37-40).
   • “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will raise up an everlasting kingdom that will not be destroyed … It will break in pieces and bring about the demise of all these kingdoms” (2:44).
   • The statue is a succession of world empires. The stone is God’s everlasting kingdom, which the New Testament sees arriving in Jesus. It isn’t about the Pharisees or a modern figure.

6. 6. Greed is not whatever takes time away from God

   The notes say greed includes “greed for relationships,” and “Those things that take time away from one who can commit that time to God, God considers as greed.” Going out with friends, watching a movie and taking a break are called “silly things.”

   • Colossians 3:5 lists greed with “sexual immorality, impurity, shameful passion, evil desire.” Greed is grasping for more, not having friends or resting.
   • God “richly provides us with all things for our enjoyment” (1 Timothy 6:17).
   • Jesus went to a wedding (John 2:1-11), ate with friends so often that critics called him “a glutton and a drunk” (Luke 7:34), and loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus as friends (John 11:5).
   • Jesus told his tired disciples, “Come with me privately to an isolated place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31).
   • “A friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17). “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Marriage is to be honored (Hebrews 13:4).

   Calling relationships “a really big stumbling block” and rest “silly” isn’t biblical. It isolates students and fills their time with the course.

7. 7. “Let the dead bury their own dead”

   The notes say Jesus kept the man from his father’s burial because the disciple’s spirit “would die when they went to those who were spiritually dead.”

   • Luke’s account gives Jesus’ reason: “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60). It was an urgent call to preach, not a warning that family would kill his spirit.
   • When Jesus healed a man possessed by demons, he sent him back to his family: “Go to your home and to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you” (Mark 5:19).
   • On the cross, Jesus arranged care for his mother (John 19:26-27).
   • Paul says a believing spouse should stay with an unbelieving one, because “the unbelieving husband is sanctified because of the wife” (1 Corinthians 7:12-14). Believers are to win family by their conduct (1 Peter 3:1).
   • “if someone does not provide for his own, especially his own family, he has denied the faith” (1 Timothy 5:8).

   Teaching that family members are “spiritually dead” people whose company will kill your spirit is the opposite of what Jesus and the apostles did.

8. 8. “Food sacrificed to idols” was actual food

   The Explanation of Parables (p. 82) says “Food sacrificed to idols refers to the false doctrines (Satan’s knowledge, doctrines, instructions) that come out of the false shepherds’ mouths.”

   • Paul discusses it as literal food sold after temple sacrifices: “With regard then to eating food sacrificed to idols, we know that ‘an idol in this world is nothing’” (1 Corinthians 8:4; see also 10:25-28).
   • Revelation 2:14 pairs it with sexual immorality, the concrete sins of compromise with pagan culture in Pergamum. (See Lesson 19.)

9. 9. The call to “come out to the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony”

   SCJ’s book says the second-coming idols “were the false shepherds who came to the tabernacle of the chosen people,” and believers “must … come out to the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony.”

   • The book uses SCJ’s own name as the destination.
   • Jesus warned against following claims that he is in a particular place (Matthew 24:26). True worship isn’t tied to a location (John 4:21-23). (See Lesson 33 and Lesson 44; their new sections aren’t live yet, so the links go to the lesson pages.)

10. 10. Hebrews 10:25

    The lesson lists Hebrews 10:25 among its verses. In context, it says: “not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other.” It’s a command to keep gathering with the church, not a reason to leave it for a course.

11. 11. What John says about idols

    John ends his letter: “Little children, guard yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). The verse before says what to hold onto instead:

    “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us insight to know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This one is the true God and eternal life.” (5:20)

    An idol is anything put in the place of the true God revealed in Jesus. That includes any person whose word must be believed for salvation, or any place that must be found to be saved.