Most Christians believe that Jesus is God.God said"...No graven images..."!So why there many pictures of him

Answer 1

I don't know, and sometimes I wonder, why people draw or paint the image to be white, black, hispanic, ect.
No one could possiably know what Jesus looked like when He was in the flesh. He was a Jew though.
Why the long curly hair? Why the blue eyes, why the
go-T ?

I don't like seeing pictures like that.

Act 17:29 "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.

Rom 1:23 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.

Answer 2

I think Apple Scruff had it down properly. Lance hit some great points on beliefs of living idols. I would add that 'graven' also carries an idea of being unclean or evil as well as an idea of being 'sculpted or 3 dimensional'. The Orthodox icon's style seems more a product of artistic development rather than some other purpose, as these icon images are held to be very special in and of themselves.

Answer 3

God meant not to worship a graven image in and of itself. During Biblical times it was not uncommon for people to worship a statue with no meaning behind it. The pictures that you see of Jesus are images that symbolize our Savior. We're not worshipping the picture. We're worshipping the God that it represents.

Answer 4

and also you're stressful about this for what reason? i have were given faith that you will be able to renowned the religious beliefs of yet another -- and also the cultural practices of yet another besides. Do what makes you delicate -- and for children ... properly, a three hundred and sixty 5 days is slightly youthful for santa -- regardless of the indisputable fact that the sensible photo of the youngster with Santa Claus on his 1st Christmas -- properly that is something that optimal father and mom do -- no matter if or no longer they're "Born-decrease back" or surely immediately ahead "Christian" or distinct faiths -- and children must be children. i do no longer see the problem with dressing up both for Halloween -- in truth, I stay rurally contained in the South (many church properties in my city), and how that is dealt with is to have a FALL competition downtown on the point of the Halloween day -- and each and each and every of the electorate can gown up, bypass downtown, take section in dress Contests and straightforward video games -- a strong time is had by potential of all, and in no way does this violate the tenants of any faith contained in the city.

Answer 5

Thats one of the several reasons that when protestants have a cross displayed, Jesus's body is not actually on it.

Also we do not worship the images. We may use them to tell a story, or depict a historic event, but we worship Jesus himself, not a representation of him.

Answer 6

nobody should have pictures of Jesus if they truely believe in the Bible

Only the nominal christian wanted to keep the pictures and statue of Jesue but it is wrong to have them and worship them

Answer 7

You can not worship "empy space".So we keep some pctures and idols of Jesus,Infant Jesus,Crucified Jesus,Mere Cross,Virgin Mary,Mary holding Jesus,Lourde Mary.

Answer 8

Think about this: God broke God's own rule by incarnating into Jesus because by doing that he created a material image of God's Self. Why did God do this? Because like Superman said in Superman returns "I hear people crying for a saviour". Humanity desires to know God in the physical and spiritual. Humanity desires an example of how to live. To many, both of these are fulfilled through Jesus (and others).
God doesn't really break his own rules, so that means we're misunderstanding the old testament rule of graven images, like people often do with the old testament. I think everything in the old testament should be taken spiritually first, and then literally second, and many scholars agree, since one always needs to consider the context in which something was written.
What was the context of this rule? Well, people at the time were denying God and creating their own gods by making images of pretend gods out of clay, metal, and wood. In essence, they were really worshiping themselves, since it was themselves who made these images- and which therefore take away from anything God creates. Consider Wikipedia's definition:

Graven is, simply put, something fashioned by man, or something man-made. Anything made by man's hands to a material state is graven. To 'engrave' something is to carve into it, and carving is done by the hands of man. Graven can also be an implication to something that is made, that is not alive, but made dead, from the grave.

So when you really listen to the meaning behind 'graven' you see that it means purposefully putting some kind of life into something from the grave- trying to make a false-life from death- selfishness. That's a very specific word for a specific people at a specific time- telling them not to do something that they were very specifically doing.

So God wasn't breaking his rule by entering Jesus, because it wasn't done out of selfishness to bring a false, fake life to death, but to bring a real, essence of Being to life. That's one reason why Jesus keeps refering to himself as "Son of Man"- because he is the Essence of humanity- the only true image- not graven.

Pictures of Jesus are cast around for the same reason Jesus was cast to Earth- to help inspire us to look up to God and see how God would have us live and inspire us to think of the one true God, not our selfish man-made ones. I know the Orthodox church especially encorporates "icons" of Jesus into their service because I've been to a couple. They have strict rules on how they paint the icons- they paint it to look very 2-D in order for people NOT to worship it as a graven image.

GRAVEN IMAGE IS A SPIRITUAL MINDSET.

The reason why many Protostant churches are against images of Jesus in church (and even on the cross) is because they are afraid people might get into the mindset you are talking about, the negative worship of material items as God. The puritans reacted very radically to some things they saw as radically wrong with the Catholic church at the time. However, in my opinion, and many others- though their reaction was just for that corrupt time... it did harm to the balance between the Trinity.

The Trinity is powerful in it's imagry of connection between Earth and Heaven. Earth represents Jesus- Heaven God, and Holyspirit connects the two basically. But by taking emphasis away from Jesus as a person and taking emphasis away from the physical realm, it actually distorts the truth that God is in the physical as well as the spiritual, and this has led to many Christians ignoring Christian calls to be stewards of the Earth. They often quote Revelations wrongly "the world will burn" so why protect it?

Sorry I wrote so much, but I consider myself a Christian Environmentalist, and for me images of Jesus help me remember that Jesus is not only God, but a historical figure- one whom I emulate. Pictures of Jesus help me remember that God loves this creation and is not seperate from it. So it's kinda important to me- not important enough to turn into a graven image! But an inspiration, like the very concept of Jesus is to many Christians AND non-Christians.