In today’s world, you can’t escape being confronted with Halloween. Whether you’re shopping with your family, or driving past your neighbor’s lawn, you’ll find its ghoulish images on display. Using Scripture alone, how should Christians think about it, when the word “Halloween” doesn't appear in the Bible? God’s Word declares we’re not to “learn to follow the abominations of [pagan] nations (Deut. 18:9) or “walk in their ordinances” (Lev. 18:3). Because Halloween is an explicitly demonic and pagan practice, how should we think about its dark culture and walk in the light? 

Scripture References: Psalm 106: 35-37; Deut. 18:9; Leviticus 18:3; Romans 12:2; 1 Peter 2:9

It's time for Halloween. How should Christians think about Halloween using the scripture alone? Because the word Halloween doesn't appear in the Bible. Here's the first principle, the cultures of the world will always present various forms of paganism to believers. Some of them are explicit doctrines of demons that believers must renounce.

And I just want to walk through various passages of scripture that touch on this. In Psalm 106 verse 35, you have this problem among the people of God of mingling with the Gentiles and their idolatry. But they mingled with the Gentiles and learned their works. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.

Here's another. In Deuteronomy 18 verse 7, Moses is talking about the common practices of the nations that the people of God will experience when they go into the promised land. And he says, when you come into the land, and by the way, they're gonna see things in that land they've never seen before. Child sacrifice, idolatry of things they never saw in the wilderness, he says, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. All of us are imported into particular nations, and they have various customs and abominations.

In Leviticus 18 verse 3 the Lord is telling Moses to speak to the children of Israel about another culture, the culture of Egypt and the culture of Canaan. He says, do not do according to the doings of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, You shall not do, and according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I'm bringing you, you shall not do, nor shall you walk in their ordinances." Every culture has ordinances. Every culture has customs and practices. And the people of God have to ask, are these the kind of practices that God would have me involved in? In the New Testament, many places to go in the Corinthian letter, in Paul's letter to the Romans, he says, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Peter says that the church is a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people. What does that mean? It means that God's people, when they live among the cultures of the nations, they have to be very discerning about what they participate, what customs, what statutes, what ordinances, what ways of the people, because the ways of the people are often demonic. And when you think about Halloween, it's very, very clear that it is a demonic, explicitly demonic, explicitly pagan practice, And the people of God have to ask themselves whether they're going to walk in those ways and call them innocent. It's really clear in our culture, Halloween is coming after you in the stores and everywhere else.

But what's critical is that we lead our families out of darkness, not into the darkness. And Halloween is the darkness. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Scripture applied as a production of Church and Family Life. Visit churchandfamilylife.com for more resources.