Hence when I learnt that in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), the second specifically mentioned that "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness...not worship them..." I accepted this commandment completely.
But then, as I read the Bible, in Exodus 25, not many pages after Exodus 20, I was confused why God asked his people to make 2 golden cherubim and placed them inside the Ark. Now this is obvious against the 10 Commandments. (How do cherubim look like anyway?)
And in Numbers 21:8, God ordered Moses to make a bronze serpent, so that those who had been bitten by snakes could 'looked to the bronze serpent, and lived'.
But never mind the confusion. The Ten Commandants are very clear. There are always. things in the Bible that I do not understand. Let the inconsistencies be. After all, I am a Christian because of Jesus Christ, not because of the interpretations or some inconsistencies in the Bible.
Then I came across this explanation in http://www.catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/did-the-catholic-church-change-the-ten-commandments. I think it makes sense. I am no longer confused.
Apparently, someone sub-divided one commandment into two. Someone mistakenly used too many fullstops instead of commas. Read carefully now --- Exodus 20:3-6 is just 1 commandment - worship God, no others, no idolatry. Because you shall have no other gods before Me, hence you shall not make for yourself an idol of any likeness...
Hence we Christians do not have to worry too much about having physical images, as long as they do not become 'idols'.
Yet it is still good practice not to place 'any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth' in churches and other places of worship. They could be a source of distraction for some of us.
