Is it Wrong for Christians to Bow Down?

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[Belief_Before_Glory]

"For the time will come when they will not listen to the sound doctrine..." —2 Timothy 4:3
👉"...shouldn't a people consult with their God?..." —Isaiah 8:19

“You shall have no other gods before me." —Exodus 20:3

👉"Pray like this: 'Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.'" —Matthew 6:9

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord, ’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 👉Many will tell me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?’ Then I will tell them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work iniquity.’" —Matthew 7:21 23

"You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 👉you shall not bow yourself down to them..." —Exodus 20:4-5

👉"There you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you will find him when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul." —Deuteronomy 4-28:29

👉"Let no one rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind" —Colossians 2:18

'I fell down before his feet to worship him [the angel]. He said to me, 👉"Look! Don't do it! I am a fellow bondservant with you and with your brothers who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy."' —Revelation 19:10

'Now I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. When I heard and saw, 👉 I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who had shown me these things. He said to me, "See you don't do it! I am a fellow bondservant with you and with your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."' —Revelation 22:8-9

'When it happened that Peter entered, Cornelius met him, fell down at his feet, and worshiped him. 👉But Peter raised him up, saying, "Stand up! I myself am also a man."' —Acts 25:26

... And in Acts 14:8-18, St. Paul rejects worship

⚠️"And Jesus answering him said, 'Get thee behind me, Adversary, for it hath been written, 👉Thou shalt bow before the Lord thy God, and Him only thou shalt serve.'" —Luke 4:8 (Young's Literal Translation)
I wish you all, the very best! 💜

[ucheodozor]

Thanks a lot for what you do out here on YouTube. God bless you for blessing us.

[Georgy.J.M.Sassine]

Is Bowing to the Virgin Mary and the Saints idolatry?

The idolatry would not be due to the act of bowing;
It would be due to the intentional offering of worship.

Solomon didn't worship his mother when he bowed before her in 1 king 2:19

Jesus himself said in Revelation 3:9 that he will make those of the synagogue of satan bow down before the feet of the Christians in Philadelphia

Genesis 33:3
Jacob bowed down until his face touch the ground 7 times in front of his brother Esau

Jacob did it as sign of humility!

This is the same Jacob that Jesus mentioned in Luke 13:28,
"There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out."

Therefore of course Jacob was not an idolater!

Genesis 23:12
Again Abraham bowed down before the people of the land

Genesis 19:1
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.

Then David went out of the cave and called out to Saul, "My lord the king!" When Saul looked behind him, David bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.
(1Samual 24:8)

All this shows that the intention was not to worship but to show humility and respect.

[WhiteLight]

For coutures purposes… bow down to a person as of respect or thanks them is that a sin.

[John_Fisher]

Reminds me of a joke from Patrick Madrid. He saw statues of Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta kneeling in prayer in front of Our Lady of Fatima, so he commented to a friend: "What a great religion Catholicism is! Not only can we worship statues, but our statues can worship statues."

[MrMercuryW]

This is like looking at those pictures of those who call themselves "Bible only Christians" or similar names, of people bowing down in prayer with the bible, or in a field kneeling before the sun or a statue of a cross.

And then concluding that they are "worshipping" the bible, the sun or the cross. I've never seen a Catholic claiming that outside of jokes or examples.

While the external act of kneeling may appear to evoke adoration (latria) they do not necessarily have to be that.

Instead what Catholics do is more similar to what the people of Israel did in the Old Testament temple. Bowing inside the temple without care if they were in front of statues of animals or angels or not, but they were there. And Jesus worshipped in the Temple likewise, surely if he had had a problem with devotional statues and places He would've told the Apostles.

When an statue is put by itself on a public place, that is outside of a Church or Oratory or even a Family Home it is assumed to have been blessed by the authority of the Church through the blessing of a Priest or Bishop, who have the authority to consecrate an object or place for the adoration of God and the honor of the saint or angel.

So you are not looking at merely an object but the object has a blessing which God intends for the ministers of His Church to deploy on objects which are pleasing to Him, images of Himself, his mother or his friends. For our education and as a means to give us Actual Grace through the Sacramental (The devotional object or image).

And the gesture of kneeling is appropriate for asking the intercession of the saint and the grace of God. Many people request our Lady kneeling in front of the statue to pray for them to help them pray to God better than they are able on their own.

Nobody can judge the intentions of the other just by seeing external acts like these. This is the reason Our Lord said, do not judge. As we cannot come to conclusions on whether another is sinning or not by praying just by looking at what is external.

[DubleSaints]

Thank you so much! I’ve heard that people shouldn’t bow at all if not for God. This makes so much more sense

[jennernolast]

But you do bend the rules. The verses is very clear. Don’t make statues.

Exodus 20: 4. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.
5. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:
—- ANYTHING that ibis in heaven….. and don’t how to them or serve them. This is exactly what Catholics do.

Mat 2: 11. And entering into the house, they found the child with Mary his mother, and falling down they adored him: and opening their treasures, they offered him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
—— did they bow to worship or to honor as king???

Genesis 33: 3. And he went forward and bowed down with his face to the ground seven times, until his brother came near.
—- not the same as bowing as you Catholic bow to a statue.

1 kings 1: 16. Bethsabee bowed herself, and worshipped the king. And the king said to her: What is thy will
—— bowing to a king is different from bowing to a statue or God.