Celebrate Halloween By Giving The Best Treat Ever
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.’ (1 Corinthians 10:21)
The context of this verse comes from Paul warning the Corinthians that they should avoid food sacrificed for false gods or idols. The people of Corinth, being a port city in modern-day Greece in Paul’s day run by the Roman Empire, had many temples of the gods that the Romans and other people worshipped, due to being an international trading center. It was not uncommon for the temples to sacrifice animals and then offer them as food for the people to eat.
It is likely the Christians of Corinth had not entirely went away from eating ‘idol food’. If a temple had a good fish fry, for example, well, who doesn’t like fried fish? Paul in 1 Corinthians 8 tells the Christians there that while the food itself is irrelevant in terms of belief or their Faithfulness (eating the food is OK), the connotation that they support the false idol by eating its food is something that they should avoid (the appearance of supporting the false god is not OK).
In 1 Corinthians 10:14-21, Paul describes the situation that some Corinthians were ‘double-dipping’ their faith; they had one foot in Christianity and one foot worshipping a false god, perhaps to appease their family, hedge their bets, or to hold onto tradition. Paul rightfully admonishes these people; they are those who are described as ‘lukewarm’ in Revelation 3:14-22, as the church of Laodicea. They were not committed fully to Jesus, and thus by not committing fully could not have received the gift of Salvation. In today’s world, people often hold onto things due to tradition or to ‘hedge their bets’. Being Halloween, some hold onto celebrating the demonic aspects of the holiday that it has become, most unwittingly.
Can Christians celebrate Halloween? We can, but we must celebrate it for its original intent; the life provided by the harvest of food and in Catholicism a remembrance of the saints of the Lord. It is also traditionally ‘Reformation Day’, or the day Martin Luther posted his ‘95 Points’ upon the church in Wittenburg, Germany. It is not to cherish death, the supernatural or the macabre, though this has become the modern meaning of the day. As with many things, God’s intent is often perverted by Satan to steer people away from the Truth, and Halloween is no exception.
Instead of honoring ghosts, goblins, witches and such, we as Christians can work to use Halloween as a ‘national day of outreach’. We have the opportunity to provide children and adults (particularly parents who accompany their kids trick-or-treating) an invitation to church, to engage and interact in conversations and provide (in addition to treats) tracts and other information for the cause of Christ. Put another way, we do not have to go out onto the mission field – tonight the mission field may come to us! We can celebrate Jesus by providing Him to families – the best treat we can give is Him and His Gospel message.
