Fall is in the air which means that Halloween is right around the corner.
Whether you love the fun aspects of Halloween or hate the evil aspects of Halloween (or maybe both?), whether you are confident in how your family celebrates Halloween or wish the holiday didn’t exist, you really can’t avoid Halloween.
How are you going to talk to your kids about Halloween this year? When your little girl is horrified by a scary decoration hanging in your neighbor’s yard, what are you going to say? When your son mentions that vampires are cool, how will you respond? When your daughter wants to know why people are so obsessed with death, what will you say?
Here’s some really good news: When you focus on the Bible’s response to Halloween, Halloween becomes a sweet opportunity to share the Gospel with your kids and those around you.
Here are six conversation starters to help you talk to your kids about Halloween.
Trick or Treat!
We often spend our whole lives “trick or treating” – Always going from door to door and hoping to get something bigger or better that will make us happy and truly satisfied. But, like the candy that brings momentary happiness but then is gone, nothing on this earth will ever truly satisfy us.
There is only one thing that can give us true joy and satisfaction forever – and that one thing is a relationship with God. God created us to love Him and worship Him. Only God can fill all of our wants and all of the empty, sad, lonely, and crying parts of our hearts.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
Psalm 107:8-9
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
For he satisfies the longing soul,
and the hungry soul he fills with good things.
As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;
Psalm 17:15
when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.
Costumes
People enjoy dressing up in costumes because they want to change how they look. They have fun pretending to be something or somebody that they are not, instead of the person they truly are.
As humans, we often spend our whole lives hiding behind “spiritual”
costumes. We don’t want people or God to know all of our thoughts
and actions because we know that our hearts are evil. We are
ashamed of who we truly are.
We tell lies. We try to hide our sins. We blame the bad things that we do on other people instead of admitting that we were wrong.
We can even try to hide from ourselves by lying to ourselves that we
are not really very bad.
Worst of all, we try to put on these costumes of self-righteousness and hide from God.
The Bible tells us that we can only find true peace and relief when we take off our spiritual masks and confess and repent of our sins before God.
Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.
Luke 12:2
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!For I know my transgressions,
Psalm 51:1-4
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
Darkness
The world is filled with spiritual darkness, the result of people rejecting the God of light and giving themselves over to sin and the prince of darkness.
But God has sent Jesus, the Light of the World, to overcome the darkness.
In him [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:4-5
For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
Ephesians 5:8-10
Fear
Many of the symbols of Halloween – spiders, bats, rats, and evil creatures -are things that many people are afraid of. Sometimes it is fun to feel “scared” when we know that it is just pretend, but nobody likes to be filled with real fear.
The Bible tells us that there are some things that we should be afraid of, but they’re not Halloween decorations!
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:28
We should be afraid of God if we have not come to Him and asked Him to forgive us of our sins. God is a holy God. He cannot allow sin into His presence – and we are all sinful. If we die in our sins, never having been made right with God through confessing our sins and trusting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the Bible says that we will spend all of eternity in hell, separated from God and all that is good. We should fear God if we have not trusted Jesus as our Savior.
But here’s some very good news, the best news in the world: We don’t have to be afraid of God’s just judgment or hell if we have trusted Jesus as our Savior. Jesus already took the punishment for our sin so that we don’t have to be afraid anymore.
Halloween is a time of fear for many people, but if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, there is nothing in this world that you need to be afraid of. God is stronger than anything that you fear, and He will watch over you.
Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.
Deuteronomy 31:6
Witches, Vampires, and Ghouls – The Evil Side of Halloween
When God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden, they knew only God’s goodness. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, evil became very much a part of their world and our world.
While some parts of Halloween can be innocent and fun, other parts are evil. Even though people might think it is in fun, some people use Halloween as an excuse for exposing or showing the evil parts of their hearts. They might dress up in gross, bloody costumes, try to look like a devil or a false god, or wear indecent outfits. Whether they think about it or not, they are trying to look like evil things which God hates.
Halloween is a time for Christians to remember that evil is in the world and in each of our hearts (because all of us have sinned). When we see the evil things of Halloween, we should turn away from them and ask God to forgive us for the evil in our own hearts. We can ask God to change our hearts to seek His goodness instead of evil.
The good news is that our God has already overcome evil!
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37-39
A Celebration of Death
Skeletons, ghosts, tombstones and graves – Halloween is, for many people, a celebration of death.
When God created man and woman, you and me, He gave us a forever-living soul. He made us to spend this forever life in a good, loving, joyful relationship with Him, our Heavenly Father. Just as physical death causes separation and loss of a relationship with other people, so spiritual death causes separation between us and God.
Because of our sins, we are dead to God. God is holy and cannot look upon any sin without righteously judging it. You and I and every person in this world have rejected God and broken His law. We all deserve to die and be judged in hell forever. But God, in His great love and mercy, did not make this the end of the story. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life in our place. Then, Jesus died in our place. He took the punishment for our sins. After Jesus died, He was buried. But, on the third day, He rose again from the dead. Jesus is full of life right now.
Jesus broke the power of death. We do not have to be afraid of death if we have put our trust in Jesus as our Savior and if we have repented of our sins before God. When we have become children of God, our souls are made alive to God. He hears our prayers and we can have a relationship with Him. Our bodies will still die, but our souls will never be separated from God. We do not have to be afraid of the second death, or eternal separation from God.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25-26
A Sweet Opportunity: Seeing the Gospel in Halloween
Would you like a simple way to share these truths with your kids? You can!
A Sweet Opportunity: Seeing the Gospel in Halloween is a Bible study that will help you confidently talk to your kids about Halloween. Using the Bible as your foundation, this study will help you show your kids how the gospel relates to six different aspects of Halloween – Trick or Treating, Costumes, Darkness, Fear, Evil, and Death.
Open-ended discussion questions will challenge your kids to think a little deeper about what Halloween really means and will enable you to talk to your kids about how your own family has chosen to approach Halloween. Encouraging Bible verses will remind your children that God is still in control and that Jesus has conquered darkness, fear, evil, and death. Beautiful graphics and relevant topics make this Bible studying engaging and enjoyable to complete.
You can get your copy here from Narrow Gate Prints or from Path Through the Narrow Gate at Teachers Pay Teachers.
May God bless you!
