WWUTT 2275 Q&A What to do for Halloween, Teaching Kids the Bible, How Christians Vote

Proverbs 6: Wisdom, Integrity, and Keeping Your Commitments

Can Christians participate in Halloween? What are some effective ways that we can teach the Bible or church history to our children? And how should Christians think about voting this election season? The answers to these questions when we Understand the Text.

This is When we Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word, that we may be conformed to the image of Christ. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

Where have you been?

Becky?

Everywhere. Just about everywhere. At least I feel like I've been everywhere.

Yeah.

Except for one place for too long.

Here.

You haven't been here.

Yes.

If we had the chance to record this earlier, which, by the way, everybody, sorry we're late on dropping this episode. But if we had recorded it when we usually do, I wanted to take the opportunity on the broadcast to say, I have not seen my wife in a long time.

Not only have y 'all not heard from her, I don't really hear from her all that often. So I was going to ask you out on a date. But then we did get a date.

Well, kind of. We added on to some of our...

Parental duties.

Oh, activities. And ended up with a date out of it.

Yeah. Yeah.

That was a good end.

But we were already out, so we went and got some ice cream.

Yeah.

It was awesome.

Yeah.

If you take a picture of us at the end, it was officially a date.

Yes.

Because she takes a picture on... Is it every one of our dates?

I try.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think there's been a couple that I've missed and kicked myself for because it's few and far between.

We didn't have that memory. Oh, I remember that night.

Yes.

Proverbs 6:1-5 and the Danger of Rash Commitments

Well, before we get into some questions here, we got to come back to our study of Proverbs. We're in Proverbs chapter six. I finished chapter five without you. So this one's rather quick. I'll just go through the first five verses here.

Proverbs 6 .1. My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger, if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, then do this my son and save yourself for you have come into the hand of your neighbor.

Go hasten and plead urgently with your neighbor. Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber. Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

Now, all of that sounds kind of confusing. What in the world are we talking about here? But remember that all of this is in the context of the father previously warning the son to stay away from the forbidden woman.

And he's going to come back into those warnings in the latter half of chapter six and then also in chapter seven. So these are warnings not to be too hasty. And if you commit yourself to a neighbor, if you pledge yourself with a neighbor, well, now you're bound to that neighbor.

And you may have acted out of your flesh, may have been that your neighbor gave you a good deal, some sort of arrangement, an agreement, you're like, hey, sounds great to me, shake hands on it, and then you find out what you're actually bound for.

And you're stuck in this agreement now. And so the father is saying, do what you need to do to get out of the arrangement. So that you will, whatever happens with your neighbor in this arrangement does not then reflect poorly upon you.

It doesn't hurt your reputation. So then where the father goes next, which we'll read next week, go to the aunt, oh sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief officer or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in the harvest.

And so the direction from the father to the son then at that point is, be wise, be self-sufficient, do not be lazy, get your work done. And so that's kind of the nature of the warning with regard to the bond or pledge to your neighbor.

Yeah.

Jesus kind of gave a similar warning in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five, where he said, don't pledge an oath, but simply let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Yeah.

Same sort of concept.

Yeah.

So that's our look at Proverbs chapter six. Just be careful with what you commit yourself to. And if you do commit yourself to something, either get out of it if it's not good for you, or let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Jesus said anything beyond this is evil. So be people of integrity as we represent Christ in this world. On the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners and you can submit those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com, or you can send us a voicemail, go to www .tt .com and click on that voicemail tab right there on the top of the page.

And babe, I've held on to one of these for a few weeks.

Oh no, I'm so sorry.

Because I figured this would be a good one for me and you.

Okay.

Instead of just answering it on my own.

Awesome.

I've received so many great comments over the last couple of weeks. Just at church on Sunday, in fact, someone had said to me how much I love and enjoy having Becky on the broadcast.

Aww.

I was kind of wondering if there was a subtext in there of like, Gabe, we love you, but get her back on.

Well, it's different when you're having a conversation versus trying to have a conversation by yourself.

Yeah.

Like, that only goes so far, you know, I don't know if any of you guys out there talk to yourselves, but, you know, the conversation's a little dull and a lot lacking, so.

Well with the radio experience I have, I'm used to it.

Yes.

But it's still so much easier to do this.

As a conversation.

Right.

Exactly.

When I'm talking to you. And I know to other people, it sounds more conversational as well. Well, this voicemail, you're going to enjoy this. I can't remember if I played this one for you or not.

Okay.

But this is from Louie, and he's got some experience you might be able to relate to.

Awesome.

Some work experience.

Oh.

Here we go. Hey there, Gabe and Becky. This is Louie from Chesterton, Indiana. I've been a longtime listener. I love to pass the time at work by listening to your podcasts while I'm operating heavy equipment at the steel mill.

Becky, I know you've mentioned that you operated a large dump truck before, and that's the kinds of things that I do. I run ginormous equipment like that.

That's awesome.

Anyway, I so very much appreciate your ministry. It's been instrumental in bringing me out of a big name it, claim it, ooby-dooby, should have run a Honda, gibberish, tongue-speaking prosperity church cult.

In between you and Paul Washer, Justin Peters, John MacArthur, I've been able to pull out of it and stay clear of it. So I really appreciate you. I'd like to get your opinion on celebrating Halloween.

Do you feel it's appropriate for a Christian to celebrate in any way, like just handing out candy? And I'd like to get your thoughts on what you think of a church hosting a trunk-or-treat event on Halloween night, where they give candy away outside.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Again, I thank you for your ministry. I'm praying for you guys. May God bless you. Hey, I appreciate that, Louie.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks so much. Remember the big old dump truck days?

Yes.

It was the best job ever. So fun.

Christian Liberty and Halloween

Now, all of what Louie mentions there about Halloween, we've done all of that.

We have.

So we've done trick-or-treating with the kids. I think we've done that pretty traditionally almost every year. Have gone out. Now, when we were in Texas, we always went trick-or-treating. Every October 31st.

Yes, but in Kansas, there was a time that we didn't do anything.

I guess not.

And then we've also had a Reformation party instead, and we had trunk-or-treats.

The church that we're at now did a Reformation day party last year. We've got nothing planned this year. I don't guess we're doing anything. It's just gonna be a 31st that comes and goes.

And then, I mean, we've done just about everything that you could possibly, like a fall festival. We've done the trunk-or-treat.

We have an absolutely adorable trunk-or-treat picture. It might have been the first ever Halloween we had as a family.

I think so.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So with me and you and Annie, and I was dressed in Ninja Turtle wear. I wasn't actually dressed as a Ninja Turtle, but I had a Ninja Turtle hoodie on.

And then I was a Kansas City fan.

Yeah, Kansas City Chiefs fan. Yeah, because you had the jersey.

And then Annie was the strawberry shortcake.

Strawberry shortcake, yep.

Yes.

So cute.

That picture's a classic.

It is.

In our collection. But yeah, so we've done trick-or-treating and everything else. Obviously, you can probably tell by the way we're answering the question what we think.

Yeah.

Now, this is another one of those things. It seems like a lot of these questions that we answer on the broadcast tend to fall into that Christian liberty category. And this would be another one.

Yeah.

So if it's something that, for you, it's like, oh, there's so much of the occult wrapped up in it. And you're right, there is.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, we've got just an army of skeletons in our neighborhood right now.

Oh, it's interesting.

And not just normal-sized.

So many that the children are not afraid of them anymore.

Yeah, they used to be creeped out by them every Halloween.

They used to scream.

Let's not go that way.

Yeah, we would totally avoid that route. But now that there's just so many to get any direction out of our neighborhood that they're just used to it, which is sad.

And they're huge. They're gigantic. They got enormous. They're like 10 to 12 feet tall. It's over a story tall. Where in the world do you store those things?

I don't know.

And you only have them out, I mean, I don't know that we've even seen them all month. So they've only come out in the last three weeks or something like that?

Yeah, I think that everybody just has storage units around here because there is no room in these homes to have anything like that stored up.

One of these

You can't store it in your attic because it'll just melt.

Oh yeah, in Arizona, that's true. One of these houses over on the corner, they've got like this whole, it's almost like a big skeleton party in their front yard. They've got a table and skeletons dancing, there's a Grim Reaper hanging out over there.

Where do you put all those things?

I think they're part of the tour, the Halloween yard tour.

There's that going on, right? Kind of like you have the Christmas lights tour.

Yep, now it's the Halloween tour.

Halloween decoration tour.

Yeah.

We're going to go take a look at all this. I mean, I thought it was baffling enough, the Christmas decorations that I'd see out every year. Where do you store those

I know, they're amazing.

For 11 months out of the year? But with Halloween, and do you do both? Does a family have both? We have a room that's dedicated to all of our Halloween decorations, and a room dedicated to all of our Christmas decorations.

Who knows? I'd like to see how they pack that in there, though. Are they pack rat style, or are they nice and neat and pristine?

Yeah.

You know?

No idea. But is there anything wrong with dressing up as your favorite character or something like that, and going door to door and asking for candy? Not really.

No.

I mean, somebody's conscience is probably going to feel convicted over that, just because of all of the occult that's wrapped up in Halloween. So any sort of participation in it whatsoever is going to feel like I'm participating in something witchcraft or satanic.

Right. Well, I mean, I can sympathize, I suppose, but I don't take that approach. But you also have to be very aware of your neighborhood or culture around you, because some places, I can imagine, it's not a good thing at all.

To just go to any house.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So maybe do a treasure hunt, and hide candy in your house, and be like, hey, kids, go find candy. So, you know, you have something in lieu of, but it's not putting yourselves in danger.

Well, the neighborhood that we went and trick-or-treated in when we were living in Texas, the same neighborhood every year.

Yeah, it was.

Everybody was sitting outside.

Yep.

So you just walk right up to the house.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Grab candy or whatever.

So the kids actually asked me, they were like, how do we know if they're handing out candy this year? And I said, well...

They'll be sitting in their driveway?

The porch light thing.

Yeah, that's right.

And they're like, yeah, but, I mean, in Texas, it was everybody was just outside, so you.

Knew.

And I was like, yeah, if you have a porch light on, that's the sign that you go at least...

Pretty good indicator.

At least go ring the bell, you know?

Yeah.

It's okay if they say no.

But...

I mean, I've used, I've handed out tracks.

Yeah.

There was the one year where we, I don't think we went out, but we stayed in. And then as we were handing out candy, we'd put tracks in with the candy.

I remember that.

I try... One year when we did the Trunk or Treat, I got all these tracks as the church. We had it set up where in order to get into the parking lot to go around and get candy from everybody, you had to get through me first.

Right.

I had my car parked right there.

Right.

You have to pass me and then go to everybody else and get to the cars. So I was planning this whole thing of like, I'm going to stop people and share the gospel. No, there's... They stop right there, they grab what you're handing, they're gone.

They are.

There's no time for a conversation. It was like, okay, fine. That's how this is going to go.

It's quick.

So that didn't work. But I still used the opportunity in later years to hand out tracks. One year I got one, it was a little book that I did, a little booklet. And we put those in, we ordered like 50 of them or something like that.

Yeah.

Gave those away to all the kids that came up and knocked on the door. So you can use that opportunity to be more evangelistic.

Sure.

You can do a Reformation Day party on that day as a lot of reform-leaning churches are.

Doing.

You can hand your church card in there too.

Yeah, that's right.

Hey, come join us on Sunday.

Throw that in the bag.

Yeah.

Or you can abstain altogether and you can decide. That's something I don't want to do at all.

That's acceptable too.

That would be something that would be a matter of opinion. So remember passages like Romans 14, 1, as for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. Verse 5, one person esteems one day is better than another, while another esteems all days alike.

Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. Can you go trick or treating and do that in honor of God? Certainly you can. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, including Halloween candy.

There's nothing about that candy that's inherently bad. This was the argument that Paul laid out in 1 Corinthians 8 -10.

Bad for you, but not necessarily bad.

I know, I've got some parents out there going, oh really now? Candy's not bad for you. So Paul had talked about food that was offered to idols. If you go and eat that food, have you somehow defiled yourself with it?

No. Just as Jesus said in Mark 7, the food goes into your stomach, it's expelled, it doesn't do anything to you. So there's nothing about an idol, an idol being an empty thing as Paul says, but eating that food, that sacrifice to an idol, if your brother sees you doing that and his conscience is defiled, oh well I can eat food that's sacrificed to idols.

So then he goes and eats that food and now he feels like that he's participated in something pagan. Now I've done something idolatrous and his conscience is defiled. Well Paul says you've sinned against your brother.

And so for the sake of my brother it would be better for me to not eat at all. So you have to think about that even with regards to would a Christian observe Halloween or not? Is it okay for us? What kind of message are we communicating to somebody else?

This is another one of those things like I had talked about last week that I probably just would not broadcast that we're doing this if we do it. Now we've talked about it here of course. But you asked.

We broadcasted it.

So that's how it came up here. But whatever it is that you do, whichever way you go, do it in honor of the Lord. Be convinced in your own mind. Don't cause somebody else to stumble. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord since he gives thanks to God while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and also give thanks to God.

For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

So even though there's a lot of celebration of the dead that's going on around Halloween. So just because a person has a bunch of skeletons in their yard as a kind of a different take on a bunch of skeletons in their closet, which is where they go when they're done with them.

If you think about it, throw all my skeletons out here during Halloween and then hide them in my closet when all this is over. But if you go to that person's house and you knock on the door, are you participating in the occult somehow?

No, nobody's going to stand before God in judgment and hear God say, you went trick or treating that one Halloween in 2021 and you're going to be judged for that. I just don't think that's going to be the case at all.

So let a person be convinced in their own mind. Don't quarrel over opinions. Whatever you do, do it in honor of the Lord.

Amen.

And respect one another.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Our kids play dress up all the time.

They do.

So why not get some candy out of it?

And meet your neighbors.

That's right. You get to meet your neighbors as well. Definitely good if you're new to the neighborhood. All right. This next question comes from Rachel. You ready for this one?

Okay.

Here we go.

Hello.

My name is Rachel from Ohio. I love listening to your podcast and thank you guys for all you do in your ministry. I have an eight-year-old son who I've been working through a Bible devotional book with him that kind of takes you through the Bible in a year.

It's not very in-depth, it just kind of touches on the highlights, but he seems to be losing interest in it. And I don't know if I should just force him to do it with me or how to necessarily keep his interest in it without forcing him.

I don't know.

I just want to make it something that he looks forward to doing and enjoyable. But all this is kind of new territory to me. So I guess what do you do with your kids to keep them interested in Bible time together?

Teaching Children the Bible and Church History

So you're the homeschooler.

Yes.

How do you keep it interesting? Well, I mean, we're both homeschoolers, but

We are.

You kind of lead the education side of that, so yeah.

I try.

So the thing about my personality, anyway, is that if it's not working, I dump it and I try something else. Now as far as the subject, I keep that going, but

Well with homeschool, I mean, you have to stick with your subjects.

Yes. Yes.

But what I'm saying is that for the Bible, I don't switch it for something like art. I don't do that, but if I combine art with Bible and they do some sort of crafty thing while we're reading the

Or draw the story or something like that.

Draw the story.

Yeah.

Something like that. It depends on the child as well because the child could be easily distracted and it's just easier to focus on the one thing than it is to try to keep them involved while they're doing something else or listening to music in the background or whatever.

Could be hundreds of different distractions depending upon the child. So and then there's also where they try to find their own boundaries and if you see that it was working in the beginning, then I'd say keep it up, but do talk with your child about how some parts of the Bible are not interesting to us at the moment, but they will be interesting later on in life.

So it's good to know the entire Bible because that is all God's word and how important God's word is to us.

Even the boring parts.

You still have to learn it.

Even the boring parts.

Yeah.

And so it's good that they understand that it's good for them to even be bored through.

It.

And at this moment, you know, I don't know.

I think we've kind of lost. We've lost the, I don't know, I won't say joy or importance, but the value, I guess, in being bored.

Yeah, that's true.

We have so much entertainment and so many different doodads to keep our attention that sometimes it's good to just be bored. You think about other things than what's in front of you. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Right.

And then when you keep at it, he'll come back around. Like most of the time they're like, oh, okay, that's not going to work. So we can't give that up. So then they'll come back around to enjoying it.

And it's like, it's a cycle. You know, they'll find some places not so entertaining, but that's okay because life's not always entertaining and the important stuff is important.

You got to do stuff that's not the most fun stuff to do sometimes.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I would say if he was entertained in the beginning, just keep at it.

Right.

Keep trucking.

With the kids, like at family devotion times, we'll read sections of scripture that may not be as interesting as the week before.

Yeah.

I'll go over.

Or big words.

Yeah.

That's hard.

Especially with the younger ones.

Yeah.

Because we're all doing devotions together. It's not a certain devotion for the 16-year-old and a different one for the 7-year-old.

Right.

We're all doing the same devotions. So working through with one another on what those big words mean, what is being communicated here. I ask questions. So everything with the kids is engaging, like reading the passage, what are we talking about.

Here?

Right.

What's the subject? What's the theme? What's the aim?

Yeah.

Is there a lesson that we're supposed to be learning here? Is this just information that we're being given or is there something that is being said to us to do? Is there a promise being made that we can realize that God is promising us something through this?

Yeah.

All these different kinds of questions that you can ask regarding the passage. And when we go through the church history stuff, again, sometimes not the most interesting section of church history that we might be covering.

Right.

But nonetheless, you go through it, you ask the kids questions and...

Yeah.

Like, what did this just say? Even if that's your question, and they repeat back to you, like, it was a bunch of names, like that's fine. Good job. You were paying attention.

Yeah, that's right.

You know?

And give them like that encouragement of, yes, that's exactly what it said, you know?

Well, it was a bunch of names, Dad. Can we do something other than First Chronicles next week? That would be great. It's all relevant. I have to study all the names.

Yes.

Regardless.

And even if you, like, push the play button, so you don't have to...

Oh, that's right. I don't have to...

Struggle through all of that.

Mutter through all of those names. You probably have an app on your phone that's got an audio version on it.

Yes.

And you just hit play, and that'll take care of that for you, too.

And then that also shows your child that even though you struggle through reading the Bible out loud, you still use resources.

Yeah, to help you.

To help you.

Yeah.

And that's great. That's a great example.

There doesn't have to be a magic formula. It doesn't have to be, you know, the most engaging Bible study that you're using. When I do devotions with the kids, it's just opening up the Bible and reading it.

Right.

And then asking questions about it. It doesn't have to be complicated, but I understand wanting to do a lesson that's keeping the child engaged. Sometimes it might just be messing with your own methodology more than whatever the material.