I occasionally do the Saturday Crossword in the Daily Telegraph. A few weeks ago, the answer to one of the clues was Pygmalion. I knew this name as the title of a musical and of a book by George Bernard Shaw, but I found myself curious to know more about who was Pygmalion?
It turned out to be a spiritual journey of much greater significance than completing my crossword! I discovered that in Greek mythology, Pygmalion was the name of a Cypriot sculptor who fell in love with his own creation – an ivory alabaster image of the woman of his dreams.
That was all I needed to know, for God then took me on a journey of discovery, showing me how deception enters the hearts of men when they create in their own minds an image of what they would like God to be. Instead of worshipping the living God, as revealed to us in the face of Jesus Christ, they distort the reality and worship (fall in love with) a god of their own making.
It’s easy to look critically at the idols of paganism, and feel self-righteous and even judgmental about the things that other people do in the name of religion. But God had me on a different journey of understanding which went beyond the alabaster, stone, silver or gold images which pagan mankind worships. It was as if God placed me in front of a spiritual mirror and had me take a hard look at myself and the wider family of God of which I am a part.
It was as if some scales dropped from my eyes when I realized how easy it is follow in Pygmalion’s footsteps, and create a version of Christianity modelled on either our own incomplete perception of the nature and character of God or the way we think God’s church ought to be run! It was quite salutary to realise how easy it is to fall into the trap of loving our own imaginations, what we want to believe or what we have made, instead of the God who made us and who He really is!
Ultimately, this is the false foundation of competitive denominationalism, controlling cults and the many heretical, but Christian-sounding ‘churches’ that have departed significantly from the core truths of Christian orthodoxy – the truths which lie at the heart of the ancient creeds that were central to the beliefs of the early church and were a plumbline of truth for church leaders and followers to adhere to.
I then realised that all this is nothing new – a Pygmalion spirit was at work, almost from Day One of the Church! Spend a few minutes reading Jesus’s words to the seven churches in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation. Every one of them had absorbed something of the Pygmalion spirit and had built elements of the church in a man-made image – beginning with the Church at Ephesus which had forsaken its first love and culminating in the message to the very successful Laodicean Church, which was so proud of the church they had made that Jesus is pictured as knocking on the door trying to get in (Rev 3:20)!
I taught on the dangers of a Pygmalion spirit invading a ministry at the recent GOHI leaders conference, which led to us focusing our attention on the intrinsic DNA of Christian living. We looked at the need to avoid creating and loving our own ‘alabaster’ version of Christian unreality!
For once this happens, and people invest their our own time, money and beliefs in a distorted version of truth, pride comes up to defend it, which at times can prove to be very ugly, and people are led astray, often in an extreme sort of way. It is singularly appropriate that the massive move in our own generation, to overturn centuries of Christian orthodoxy in respect of sexuality and relationships, is called ‘Pride’. Sadly, the history of the church is littered with many different ‘Pygmalion versions’ of the truth.
As I meditated on my Pygmalion revelation, I was deeply challenged to look in that spiritual mirror and ask the Lord to show me any areas in my own life and ministry where I had fallen into the trap of worshipping something of my own making.
Jesus began His ministry by saying “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Matt 4:17). In Scripture the church is described as the Ekklesia – meaning those that are called out from being in Satan’s Kingdom of darkness to be a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven! Kingdom principles are the foundation for both healing and Christian living. He calls us to be citizens of His Kingdom – not to build our own!
Copyright © Peter Horrobin 2025.
Peter Horrobin is the author of many books and the life-changing daily teaching in Journey to Freedom. To try it for free go to www.journeytofreedom365.com
“Journey to Freedom has changed my life forever. These past twelve months have been the most fulfilling and exciting experience I have had in my walk with the Lord.” “It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done – it’s reality!”
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