The Souvenir on Your Shelf
"You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing." — Deuteronomy 7:26
The Pastor's Office
Walk into a great many pastors' offices and the first thing you see is a shelf of souvenirs from travels and mission trips. It is meant as a testimony — evidence of a life spent going places for the gospel.
And all too often, sitting among the photographs and the plaques, are carved figures of gods.
Nobody set out to honor them. The pastor bought them because they were beautiful, or interesting, or because a national believer gave them to him and refusing seemed rude. He displays them because they remind him of people he loves.
But the object does not change its nature because the owner's motives are pure.
What Is Actually on Your Shelf
Consider the ordinary contents of an ordinary Christian home.
A Buddha figure, bought because it looked serene. A pharaoh's head from Egypt. African carvings, which very frequently depict tribal deities. Masks from anywhere — masks are almost always ceremonial objects, not decorative ones. Local jewelry, which commonly bears images of the gods of the people who made it. A dreamcatcher. A hamsa. A carved fertility figure. A totem.
Then there is the whole category of things that look harmless: a fan, a scroll, a print, a textile, a set of tiles, a musical instrument. Each of these can be entirely innocent — and each can carry an image or inscription whose meaning the buyer never asked about.
If you have brought such things into your home, Scripture is direct about the consequence: "you shall not bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it" (Deuteronomy 7:26).
The Reasonable Objections
"It's just a piece of art." Sometimes, yes. The question is not whether you worship it. The question is what it was made to represent and who it was made for.
"It was a gift from someone I love." That is genuinely painful, and it is the reason most of these objects stay. But affection for the giver is not a reason to keep an anchor in your home. You can honor the person without keeping the object.
"It was expensive." Deuteronomy anticipated exactly this objection: do not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it. The value is the hook.
"I've had it for twenty years and nothing has happened." Perhaps. Or perhaps you have been attributing something to other causes for twenty years.
Point to Ponder
The object does not change its nature because your motives were innocent.
Verse to Remember
"You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing." — Deuteronomy 7:26
Question to Consider
What is on my shelf that I have never once asked a question about?
Today's Practice
Take everything you brought back from your travels and put it on a table where you can see it all at once.
For each item, answer three questions in writing:
What is it a representation of? If it is a figure, who is the figure? If it bears symbols, what do the symbols mean?
What was it made for? Decoration, ceremony, protection, worship, divination?
Why do I keep it? Beauty, memory, obligation, value, or genuine usefulness?
Then pray over the table and ask the Holy Spirit to show you which items must go. Listen for what settles rather than what you feel emotionally.
Prayer
Father, I brought these things home without a thought. I was a tourist, not a discerner.
Show me plainly what is here. Where something in my home represents a god, a spirit, or a ceremony belonging to another master, make it clear to me, and give me the resolve to part with it — even where it was a gift, even where it cost a great deal, even where I will have to explain myself to someone who will not understand.
I do not want anything in my house that You call an abomination. My home is Yours. Let there be nothing here that grieves You.
In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
"I never worshiped it" is not the same as "it was not made to be worshiped."