The first of the Ten commandments makes it clear that worship is due to God alone  In Deuteronomy, the Lord tells people through Moses ; “You shall not have not have other gods besides e….You shall not bow down before them”[5:7,9].

At the same time ,however , we obey the Biblical instruction  to “pay to all their dues,…honor is due “[Rom13:7].Though we don’t worship the saint and angels in heavens ,we do in fact honor[or venerate]them ,because they are worthy of great honor .This is a biblical distinction

In Deuteronomy, God warns the Israelites against “fashioning idol to represent any figure, whether it be the form of a man or of a woman ”or of other creatures [see 4:15-8].joining biblical passages such as these with the divine commandment against idols [ see ex 20;4;’graven images’ in the king James version], many Christians insist that all statues of religious subjects are forbidden

We must note ,however, that as the rest of the commandment makes clear ,God have forbidden only the making of such images with the intension of worshiping them, as the pagans did .He has by no means banned the creation of all religious images.

At the end of Moses’ life, God gave final instructions through him to the people of Israel. He said in part:”learn then that I, I alone, am God,/and there is no god beside me ./it is I who bring both death and life”[Dt.32:39].

To take life and death into our own hands ,then, through suicide or assisting someone in suicide [euthanasia],is to “play God.”But the role is not ours to play. For this reason, the church opposes the active , direct killing even of those who desire to end their lives .

To indicate that he was consecrated to God for special work, Samson never cut his hair[jgs13:2-5;16:17]. In similar ways, other men and woman in scripture set themselves apart for God by taking vows, wearing distinctive clothing, eating a distinctive diet or living alone in the wilderness. The ancient nazirites ,for example ,took vows and promised not to cut their hair ,come near a human corpse ,or consume alcohol [nm6:1-21]

In the early centuries of the church , many men and women who sought to give themselves completely to God similarly practiced strict spiritual disciplines such as fasting ,prayer, and vigils while remaining part of their local assemblies. Their concentrated lives in some ways resembled that of Anna, the prophetess present when Jesus was presented in the temple [lk2:36-38].