Is it wrong to bow to a crucifix?
Question:
I attend a Catholic school, and because of that, I was posted to a Catholic hospital. It's mandatory to attend mass on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The priest asked me to take their reading on Friday. I tried to avoid it but all efforts proved abortive though I stood on one ground; that I am not going to bow down to their crucifix on their altar as others do and the priest agreed, but the members are telling me that I should bow because "When in Rome you behave as the Romans do."
I need to know whether I'm wrong to assume and stand on the ground that I'm not bowing, and I need to know where it's written in the Bible, preferably in the New Testament, that Christians are not to bow to graven images.
Answer:
"You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments" (Exodus 20:4-6).
"To whom would you liken Me and make Me equal and compare Me, that we would be alike? Those who lavish gold from the purse and weigh silver on the scale hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; they bow down, indeed they worship it. They lift it upon the shoulder and carry it; they set it in its place and it stands there. It does not move from its place. Though one may cry to it, it cannot answer; it cannot deliver him from his distress. Remember this, and be assured; Recall it to mind, you transgressors" (Isaiah 46:5-8).
"Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures" (Romans 1:22-23).
"Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man" (Acts 17:29).
You are not a Roman Catholic, though you attend one of their schools. Bowing before one of their images gives the impression that you support their beliefs that physical things, made by the hands of men, somehow represent divinity. Stick with what the Bible says. As Paul stated while discussing various sins in a corrupt world, "and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them" (Romans 1:32). Christians accomondate local customs, but only so far as those customs don't violate God's laws. "To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law" (I Corinthians 9:20-21).
Response:
Thank you so much, sir, for clarifying this for me.
