Scripture Daily

Context No. 1845 of 4322 · Daniel (Greek)

Context · Reflection

Daniel (Greek) 3:1-6: in context

1Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits, and its width six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. 2Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the local governors, the deputies, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. 3Then the local governors, the deputies, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together to the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. 4Then the herald cried aloud, “To you it is commanded, peoples, nations, and languages, 5that whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up. 6Whoever doesn’t fall down and worship shall be cast into the middle of a burning fiery furnace the same hour.”

King Nebuchadnezzar sets up an enormous golden image and summons all the officials of the province to its dedication. Then the herald proclaims the command: when you hear the music, every people, nation, and language is to fall down and worship the golden image the king has set up. And whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown, that same hour, into a blazing fiery furnace. The pressure to conform is total: bow with everyone else, or be destroyed.

The scene sets up one of the sharpest tests of faithfulness in Scripture: the pressure to conform. Everyone is commanded to bow; the music plays, and a whole plain of officials falls down together before the golden image; and the cost of not bowing is the furnace. In such a moment, the pressure to go along is immense. Everyone else is doing it; the authority demands it; the penalty for standing out is severe. To bow is easy, safe, and universal; to refuse is to stand alone against the crowd and the king, at the risk of death. This is the pressure to conform, to bow to what everyone else is bowing to, to go along with what the culture or the powers around us demand, especially when the cost of not conforming is high. We do not usually face a literal furnace, but we know the pressure: to bow to the idols our culture sets up, to go along with what everyone is doing, to conform rather than stand out and pay the price of being different. The music plays, everyone bows, and it takes something rare to remain standing. The story of the three young men who would not bow, which follows, shows that faithfulness sometimes means refusing to bow with the crowd, standing alone against the pressure to conform, even at great cost. And their example, and the setup of this scene, presses the question on us: to what are we being pressured to bow? The pressure to conform is real, and it is strong; everyone bows, the cost of standing is high, and the temptation is to go along. But there are things to which the faithful will not bow, whatever the crowd does and whatever the cost. When the music plays and everyone falls down, will we bow with them, or will we, like the three, remain standing before the idol we cannot in conscience worship?

When the pressure to conform is strong, everyone bowing to what the culture or the powers around me demand and the cost of standing out high, am I tempted to go along and bow with the crowd, or can I recognize, as the three young men did, that there are idols to which the faithful will not bow, whatever everyone else does and whatever it costs?

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