Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 35, question 96. What does God require in the second commandment? That we in no wise make any image of God, nor worship him in any other way than he has commanded us in his word. And then question 97. May we not make any image at all? God may not and cannot be imaged in any way. As for creatures, though they may indeed be imaged, yet God forbids the making or keeping any likeness of them, either to worship them or to serve God by them. Question 98. But may not pictures be tolerated in churches as books for the people? No, for we should not be wiser than God, who will not have his people taught by dumb idols, but by the lively preaching of his word. As we continue to consider the catechism, you might remember I said last week that our scheme of looking at the questions, particularly, may run into a little bit of difficulty when the questions become a bit more repetitive as we work through the commandments, or also through the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. But in Lord's Day 35, it's still possible to derive some profit by analyzing the questions independently of the answers. You have, of course, what does God require. We're being reminded that this is an obligation that God has laid upon us. Then question 97 clarifies. It anticipates a potential misunderstanding that when God said, don't make graven images for worship, He meant don't make any images of any kind at all, ever, under any circumstances. Well, what's being ruled out here is not visual arts, painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, that sort of thing. What's being ruled out is thinking, on the one hand, that you can use that in order to represent God, in order to show what God is like, and then, on the other hand, using an image of anything else. as a help, as a means of worshiping God. And then question 98, which asks about pictures being tolerated in churches as books for the people. This is anticipating an objection. And the objection is this, if we don't have pictures, then people who can't read, which of course at the time the Catechism was written was a higher percentage of the population than it is today, people who can't read won't be able to learn anything. you know i think that kind of underestimates the intelligence of people because you haven't been taught to read doesn't mean that your not bright doesn't mean that you're not capable of processing information it means that one way of communicating information is closed off from you but you can still hear speech you can still understand words you can still grow in knowledge whether or not you're able to pick up a book and read it. And so the overall attitude that this commandment would inculcate in us is one of humility, is one of the very basic humility of saying, God knows what he's doing. If God told us not to use images, then it must be the case that we're able to learn what we need to learn even apart from them. And God has given means for our instruction, the lively, that is the in-person, live preaching, proclamation, as well as teaching of his word. How can we learn? We can learn by listening. And that is one of the primary means the Lord has ordained for us.