{"id":9538,"date":"2023-10-24T01:48:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T01:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9538"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","slug":"here-comes-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9538","title":{"rendered":"HERE COMES HALLOWEEN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

8<\/a>Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable\u2014if anything is excellent or praiseworthy\u2014think about such things.\u00a0<\/span>9<\/a><\/span><\/i>Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me\u2014put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/i>(Phil 4:8-9)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

I have been preaching through Paul’s letter to the Philippians for several weeks now and we are nearing the end. How appropriate that this passage falls on Halloween weekend!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

I have never been a huge fan of Halloween in general, but if I had to narrow my criticism to one point it would be this: I just plain find it plain bizarre to spend so much time and money to glorify all that is morbid, ugly, gross, and fearsome. And to drag children into that morass, lured by high fructose corn syrup and food coloring, is almost unforgivable. \ud83d\ude09<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Truly, Halloween focuses on all that is the very opposite of Philippians 4:8-9!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

And then there is the whiplash on November 1st as the merchants launch us all directly into the Christmas season.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

But as much as I dislike dragging the celebration of Christmas out for two solid months, I have to admit that it does at least highlight what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

So let’s get this over with.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

8Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable\u2014if anything is excellent or praiseworthy\u2014think about such things.\u00a09Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me\u2014put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9539,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538\/revisions\/9539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}