What does First B Jackson teach about idolatry?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on idolatry begins with a definition that is harder to slip past than the carved-stone version. Pastor Bryan and others have noted that a plain dictionary meaning of idolatry is extreme admiration, love, or reverence for something or someone other than God, and theologically it is anything that takes the place of God in a person's life. That includes wealth, political alliances, relationships, even gifts God himself has given. The Hosea series made this concrete: Israel maintained religious practices, used God's name, kept up their worship calendar, and still stood guilty of spiritual adultery because none of it came from actually knowing God. Ray pressed the congregation repeatedly on the gap between knowing about God and knowing Him in an experienced, personal way, the Hebrew word yada, the kind of knowing that comes from living with someone.
The 1 Corinthians 10 teaching Pastor Ray brought from the Old Testament examples reinforced the same point from a different angle. The Exodus generation had every provision God could give, and still most of them turned away. The golden calf episode showed how quickly idolatry assembles itself out of recycled pieces, how it borrows God's name while displacing Him entirely, and how a people fully covered by grace can still turn from it. The warning Paul builds from those stories is the same one running through Hosea: do not think familiarity with God's blessings is the same thing as faithfulness to God himself.
The 1 Timothy 6 teaching added the practical shape of what fleeing idolatry actually requires. When Paul says flee, the point made from the pulpit was that God does not give that command arbitrarily. We were not designed to withstand certain temptations by standing our ground. The direction of a person's appetite, what they are always reaching for, determines where they end up. And because fleeing only gets you so far, the teaching pressed on what to pursue instead: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness. The mercy thread running through Hosea 6:6, which Jesus quoted twice in Matthew, ties it together. If a person's religion is making them less merciful, the teaching at First B has said plainly, it is not true religion.
Taught from Hosea 6:4-6 · Hosea 4:1 · 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 · 1 Corinthians 10:14 · 1 Timothy 6:11
The passage taught · 1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- February 15, 2026 We Are All Gomer Hosea 4-14 traced in one sermon: Israel's unfaithfulness, God's relentless mercy, and what it means to truly know God rather than just know about him.
- February 15, 2026 All of Us Are Gomer Ray walks through all 14 chapters of Hosea in one sermon, showing how God pursues a spiritually unfaithful people with mercy rather than religion, and what it means to truly know Him.
- February 8, 2026 Me She Forgot, Says the Lord Hosea's marriage to Gomer becomes a picture of God's relentless pursuit of people who keep turning away, and an invitation to return to the One who never stops coming after us.
- June 24, 2018 What Are You Desiring, Craving, Fleeing, Pursuing? A Wyoming pastor walks through 1 Timothy 6, asking what we truly desire, crave, flee, and pursue as followers of Christ in a prosperous world.
- June 24, 2018 Flee, Pursue, and Take Hold A Wyoming pastor walks through 1 Timothy 6, calling his church to flee materialism, sexual immorality, and idolatry, and to pursue righteousness, faith, love, and gentleness.
- October 19, 2014 God Really Does Love You Ray walks through 1 Corinthians 10:1-22, using Old Testament examples to address ignorance, sexual immorality, and idolatry, with a close look at verse 13.
Mentioned along the way
- October 26, 2025 Seek Me So That You May Live Ray preaches through Amos, showing how God's call for justice and sincere worship speaks as clearly to us today as it did to ancient Israel.
- June 15, 2025 His Spirit Was Provoked Paul walks into Athens full of idols, finds an altar to an unknown god, and uses it to introduce the one who made everything and raised a man from the dead.
- June 15, 2025 His Spirit Was Provoked The pastor walks through Acts 17 as Paul reasons with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens, showing how to present the gospel to people who worship everything but God.
- March 19, 2023 Put Off, Put On Pastor Carl preaches from Colossians 3 on putting off anger, pride and immorality, and putting on compassion, humility and love as followers of Christ.