Scripture… As We Live It #128
This is the 128th passage in “Scripture… As We Live It.”
(This is in honor of Halloween…)
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you each other in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath… and especially pass judgment in regards to Halloween, unless it’s a Fall Festival instead of a Halloween Carnival. (Colossians 2:16 re-mix)
(Please read the first post for an explanation of this series.)
Love it!
How does standing scripturally on the premise to be ye separate, or, friendship with the world being enmity, or admonishing ‘brethren’ to heed Christ’s commands assume ‘condemnation?’
Understandably, it is never safe to just condemn broadly due to a ‘guilt by association’ perspective of Halloween practice, but to follow the logic, there would never be any doctrinal, yea, Biblical grounds for reproof, rebuke, or correction of any ungodly practice in the Church.
If the church continues to look like the world, when will it end?
Romans 14
Honestly? That simple?
I didn’t say it was simple, just the answer.
Would you make your same statements above about the internet? It’s full of vile material and sinful activity (all 365 days a year!)- yet here we are, professing Christians right in the middle of it. What concord do we have with it? Is your liberty of using the internet causing another to stumble in pornography or commit adultery via Facebook? If you thought it was, would you give it up? Would you then judge the rest of the internet users as pornography addicts or maybe as those who are uncharitable, abusing their liberty? I don’t think you would, but you see we are aware/convicted of certain things while others are not even on our radar.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
I think you are really reaching when you are applying a treatise concerning feast celebrations and dietary regulations, which are addressed by the Apostle, and the elders at Jerusalem concerning the Gentiles. A very clear dilemma in the New Testament, to Halloween.
The dilemma isn’t the issue that celebrating Halloween or using the internet is causing Christians to stumble…It is a celebration of evil, something that the NT never condones, in any point, or to any letter, or even in spirit. It is a cultural practice that has personified the obsession of death in our society and of any place a Christian has in it, it is to proclaim the Gospel openly and purposely.
And just to be fair. I feel just as equally reserved and opposed to ‘faux’ fall festivals, and ‘reformation day’ celebrations…per se…
I disagree.
“It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.”
You make the generalization that all people who dress in costume and give/receive candy on or about Oct. 31 are “celebrating evil” (perhaps even at fall festivals which intentionally “distance” themselves from “Halloween”?).
“Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.
I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.”
I don’t participate in Halloween or other costume festivals at this time of year because of the close connotation and the offense to brethren such as yourself. If it is unclean to me, I cannot participate in it. I don’t judge those who can’t see this (yet?) as celebrating evil (though I am sure there are some who are, but they are without and not to be judged by the brethren) or being a stumbling block.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.