To Exchange the Golden Calf of AI For the Living Word of God

May I then not make any image at all?

God can not and may not 

• be visibly portrayed in any way.
• Although creatures may be portrayed, 
• yet God forbids making or having such images 
• if one’s intention is to worship them 
• or to serve God through them.

But may not images be permitted in churches in place of books for the unlearned?

• No, I should not try to be wiser than God.
• God wants the Christian community instructed
• by the living preaching of his Word -
• not by idols that cannot even talk.

Deuteronomy 4:15-16 — 

• Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 
• beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure 

Isaiah 40:18, 25 — 

• O whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? 
• To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. 

Acts 17:29 — Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 

Matthew 15:9 — in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. 

2 Timothy 3:16-17 — 

• All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,  
• that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

The Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 35