Is It Ok to Lie to Your Kids About Santa?

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The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject

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Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

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The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty

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Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, they're having...

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Alright Tim, the question for today's episode is, is it okay to lie to your kids about Santa?

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Well, you know the Bible says, thou shalt not bear false witness, so I'm not a big fan of lying. Okay, well,

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I guess probably the disconnect for a lot of people here is, they're not going to view

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Santa Claus, or telling your kids that Santa Claus is real as lying, so what's your response to that?

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Yeah, I mean if you're... Because it's easy to say, well, I don't believe lying honors

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God, because it doesn't, right? And they're going to agree, but then they're going to say that telling your kids

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Santa Claus is real is not a lie, so I'm not sinning. Yeah, well, they need to get a dictionary out, and look up the definition of words.

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What they'll call it is they'll say, hey, we're playing pretend, right? Just what's wrong with having imagination and all that?

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Yeah. And it's like, well, come on, Nick. When you're playing pretend, everyone knows it's not true, right?

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So that's the point. So, I mean, my daughter plays pretend all the time, so she gets in little characters, and she wants you to call her whatever character name she is, and then everyone's playing pretend there, because everyone knows it's not true.

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But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about Santa Claus. We're not talking about everyone knows that this isn't true, and just playing a little game here.

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What we're talking about is you're talking about lying. You're talking about deceiving your kid, because if someone comes along and says, hey,

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Santa isn't real, you're going to be so mad at them and hate them and everything else.

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And so that's what we're talking about, is you're deceiving them for no reason.

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Why do you want to teach them that some fat, obese man is sliding down their chimney and giving them presents?

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I mean, it's a pagan myth, man. And watching them when they sleep. Honestly, Santa's pretty creepy. He is.

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I mean, just imagine sitting on that obese man's lap every year and telling him all the things you want for Christmas.

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I mean, there's so much in this that's just absurd and insane. Knowing as a parent that it's just some random guy that they hired to be

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Santa for a few hours. Some creepy, overweight pedophile that you're sitting on. Yeah, so I mean, it's weird.

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I mean, I think there's weird yuck factor reasons, like the kind of things that we're saying.

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And then there's more substantial reasons, too. But I mean, just to keep on going with the theme of the weirdness.

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I mean, I work my 40, 50 hours a week in order to provide a house for my kids.

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And why do I want to give some overweight man the credit for all that? Like, come on. No, your mother and I, we bought you these presents.

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Some imaginary person didn't buy you these presents. So I mean, I think it's weird because it's creepy.

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I think it's weird because you shouldn't lie. I mean, that's a moral issue. I think it's weird because you're giving someone else credit for the presents you gave your kids.

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But then a lot of parents use this as some kind of ridiculous teaching tool, right?

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Like, yeah, you better be good, or Santa's not going to buy you your presents kind of thing. He's going to give you coal. I mean, then you're teaching some sort of works, righteousness kind of system there, too.

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Which, by the way, I've never heard of any of those parents actually getting coal for their kids, even if they behave really poorly.

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Well, I mean, that's where it's just like the Bible says that sin leads to more sin. You tell one lie, and it's going to end up turning into a bunch of lies.

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And once you get used to it, you end up just lying, lying, lying. So it's not just the original lie.

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It's all the lies you have to tell to cover it up, too. And you're just engaging in it.

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You're just training yourself in lies and training them in lies. I mean, there's been plenty of people who have come along, and not everyone thinks this, but I mean, there have been plenty of kids who have come along and essentially said, you've told me that Santa was real, and I learned that he wasn't real, and that really messed with my head.

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What are the other things that you've been lying to me about? And there's been plenty of kids who've compared that to Jesus. I thought

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Jesus was a big fairy tale just like Santa because we can't see him, too. Yeah, you become the whole

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Anakin meme, right? What other lies has the council told me?

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Basically, basically. I mean, not every kid. I mean, obviously not every. Like, the thing is, there are some people who do the

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Santa Claus lie thing, and for whatever reason, they're sentimental, sappy people, whatever, who get into that kind of thing.

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And yes, their kids come out unscathed, and they all, at some point, it was a nice holiday tradition, whatever.

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But that's not every story. Obviously, every kid who's been lied to about Santa is not going to come out an atheist, whatever, right?

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But still, it doesn't honor the Lord to lie to your kids, and it doesn't honor the Lord to lie to them about an obese fat man.

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Is there any comment to be made about the focus that it puts on material gifts and Christmastime?

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And probably, too, is there anything to the fact that it probably takes emphasis away from Christ himself?

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I think that's the most significant issue that there is. So I don't know that I have a huge reaction to having a time during the year that's devoted to gift -giving and presents.

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And I think sometimes parents can make way too much out of it, like in terms of just, there's this concern that they have.

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So two issues, one of them, the gift -giving, and one is the focus off Christ. I think sometimes parents can just maybe overthink the gift -giving problem and make it way more of a problem than it actually is.

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Under the Old Covenant law, there was a prescription that the

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Israelites were given to take a tenth of their income every year and use that to celebrate in Jerusalem, like a big feast or whatever.

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And so that's a tenth of your income. When you think about the Bible, you read through the

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Old Testament, there's all these feasts in the Bible. The New Testament tells us God's given us all things richly to enjoy.

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And God, He didn't spare blessing us. So when you think about the creation

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He gave us, He didn't just give us the bare minimum, some black -and -white world with no taste, no smell, no sights, no sounds, no nothing.

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A deprivation tank. He didn't do that. He gave us all this.

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He gave us all this that we see in this wonderful creation that He's given us to enjoy.

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And not only the earth itself and all the variety, like grass and trees and birds and all that, like sky, blue sky, green grass, but the planets and the stars and everything.

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He just lavished us with everything. And as Christians, He's given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

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He spared no expense, so to speak. The thing is, He's done so much for us.

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And then He instructs His people just to feast. We need a real doctrine of feasting to the glory of God and enjoyment.

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And so I think sometimes we can just kind of be miserly. I don't think you want to approach the

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Christian life as if every good thing that you give your kid is taking away from the starving orphans in Africa with their extended bellies and the flies flying around them with the

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Sarah McLachlan song in the background or something. God's given us something to enjoy.

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And it's good as parents, I think, to have those moments where you're not getting into a bunch of credit card debt and you're not breaking the bank and you're being responsible and you're being reasonable, but you planned well and you're just, hey, we love you, and this is our chance to show it.

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I don't think we have to overthink that too much. Unless it's just that's all year and that's what you're doing all year long, right?

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I don't think you have to overthink that too much. So I think that's just a good...

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If the Israelites can spend 10 % of their income on a yearly feast, I think we're all right.

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Provided you can afford it, I think we're fine. But I think the main thing is just,

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I don't understand why we're making Christmas about Santa. This is a time where we're celebrating

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Jesus and I don't understand why. It feels like,

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I'm sure there are probably people out there who say, hey, what's the big deal? I think you can have a place for Santa and you can have a place for Christ in Christmas.

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I think you can just look at the state of Christmas right now and say that that's probably just not true.

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Do you understand what I'm saying? Basically, there's pretty much just no

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Christ in Christmas. Christ's name is literally in the holiday and it's more about Santa.

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Yeah, there's so much about Santa that you have churches who don't even want to meet.

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Yeah, you're right. Because worshipping Jesus gets in the way of our celebration of his birthday, apparently.

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But I think the main thing is you're taking Jesus out of this thing.

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I just don't understand it personally. I don't understand the whole... I don't understand the appeal to it all.

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It just doesn't sound fun to me at all to turn a holiday into Jesus about some kind of secular pagan myth.

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But we've never lied to our kids about it.

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So we've kind of just instructed... We basically just... It's pretty funny.

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My wife told our kids about the real

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Santa Claus. She told them the story about St. Nick or whatever.

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But basically, the end of the story was he's dead. He died. He's not alive anymore.

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He used to be a guy who took care of kids and gave them presents and all that. That's where some of this stuff has come from.

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But then the main takeaway that they took from that would be that whenever anyone would ask them,

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Do you believe in Santa Claus? They would basically say, No, Santa's not real. Or their go -to for a little bit was,

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No, Santa's dead. That's hilarious.

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That's pretty good. But we never coached... I think some people are just overly concerned about offending everyone and their delusions around Christmas.

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We just told our kids, If anyone asks you about it, just say you don't believe in them or whatever. And leave it at that.

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Be honest or whatever. They didn't never go around trying to disabuse everyone of the lies that they've been told.

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We're just not the kind of people who are going to train our kids. We're not going to train our kids to be sensitive and protect people from the lies that they've been told.

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So there's been plenty of situations where other kids ask them, Are they excited about Santa coming and giving them presents?

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They're like, No, our parents didn't buy us presents. Santa's dead. And that was earth shattering to them.

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And the parents are so mad at us. I just looked at them and said, This is what happens when you lie to your kids.

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They're not going to trust you. Nothing that's hidden will not be revealed.

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You reap what you sow. You've sowed lies. And you're reaping distrust from your kids.

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Don't blame it on my kids. It's your fault. You're the liar, not me. We just told you the truth. I'm totally callous to it, man.

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I could kill this. There's no concern whatsoever. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.

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Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.