At the end of October many shops sell pumpkins. People carve lanterns from them for Hallowe’en. Apparently this is a tradition that started with an old Irish myth combined with ancient Celtic customs.

According to folklore, ‘Stingy Jack’ fooled the devil several times. When Jack died, God refused him entry to heaven, the devil refused him entry into hell, and he had to roam the earth carrying a carved turnip with a single burning coal inside. People in Ireland and Scotland started carving scary faces into vegetables, and put them near windows and doors to ward off Stingy Jack.

This myth was merged with the ancient Celtic festival, Samhain. It was believed that the souls of the dead returned to their homes, so people dressed up and lit bonfires to frighten evil spirits away.

A bit of harmless fun, maybe.

Unfortunately, the folklore uses biblical words: God, heaven, devil, hell; but completely non-biblical ideas. Even more seriously, a lot of established church doctrine has, in a similar way, combined biblical ideas with pagan ideas and so corrupted the message of the Bible. The Bible clearly tells us that:

• God is in heaven, and so is the risen Jesus, but no other human being has gone there;
• God is in control, not a creature called the devil;
• Hell is the grave, and is the destiny of all dead people, including (temporarily in his case) Jesus himself;
• Dead people know nothing and certainly cannot roam the earth.

Too many people believe false things that are not at all biblical.

The dead can come back. The fundamental teaching of Christianity is that Jesus died, but came alive again. And he was changed so that now he lives for ever.

But Jesus was not like a ghost. After his resurrection he said:

See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have (Luke 24:39).

Moreover, faithful believers will also be raised to everlasting life when Jesus comes back (but not before).

…in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
(1 Corinthians 15:22-23)

We can have that wonderful hope if we follow Jesus now: if we ‘belong’ to him. But to do this we need to find out what the Bible really says and follow its instruction.