Halloween, the porch light, and 1 Corinthians 10

In about two weeks your street will split.

Some porches will have the light on and a bowl of fun-size bars by the door. Some won't. And a fair number of the dark ones belong to Christians who've thought about it hard, prayed about it, and decided no.

Plenty of the lit ones are Christian too.

The Bible never mentions October 31st, but it says plenty about what matters here, and it gives a clear answer. Have nothing to do with the dark side of the night. Use the rest of it to shine. "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God." 1 Corinthians 10:31 (BSB)

What to stay away from

The strongest version isn't about candy. It's about what a family celebrates. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 is blunt about divination and consulting the dead, and Ephesians 5:11 tells Christians, "Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." (BSB) A night built around ghouls, witches and the dead is, they argue, a strange thing to dress a six-year-old up for.

There's a quieter point underneath. Children learn what's normal from what their parents laugh at, and if the occult is a joke at seven, it's hard to see why it would suddenly feel dangerous at seventeen.

That isn't paranoia. It's attention.

Where you're free

The other side goes to Corinth. Much of the meat in that city's market had been sacrificed in a pagan temple before it was sold, and the young church was tearing itself apart over whether a believer could eat it. Paul's answer is startling:

"Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof." 1 Corinthians 10:25-26 (BSB)

The idol was nothing. The meat was meat. Many Christians read Halloween the same way: a costume is a costume, and the one night a year your neighbors actually knock on your door is a gift you'd be mad to waste. Some add that the name is Christian anyway. It's the eve of All Saints' Day.

How Paul puts it together

Here's the part people skip. Read on to verses 28 and 29. If someone at the table tells you the meat was offered to an idol, Paul says, don't eat it. Not for your sake. For theirs.

So the freedom is real. It just isn't the point.

The family with the dark porch isn't automatically weak. The family handing out Snickers isn't automatically compromised. Romans 14:5 asks each person to be "fully convinced in his own mind" (BSB), which is harder than it sounds, because it means you have to actually think rather than inherit an answer from your parents or your pastor.

So here's the plain version:

• No occult, no celebrating death, no dabbling. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 settles that.
• Within that line, a costume is a costume and candy is candy. A porch light can be a way to "let your light shine before men." Matthew 5:16 (BSB)
• Either way, honor the conscience of the believer next door.

Which is why the candy was never really the question.

The question is whether your eight-year-old watches you treat the house across the road, the one with the dark porch or the one with the twelve-foot inflatable skeleton, as people you'll still love on the first of November.