Are Certain Passages of the Bible Inappropriate for Children?

The Bible says our children should be raised up in the faith, but are there some passages in the Bible that are inappropriate for younger kids? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with my friend Pastor Adriel Sanchez. And this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. If you're on social media, you can post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts.

And you can email us your question at questions at corechristianity.com. Well, she was in the right place at the right time. Holly Ann Milley is the wife of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley. Mrs. Milley came to the rescue during a Veterans Day ceremony last week, saving the life of a man who'd collapsed during the event and stopped breathing. Mrs. Milley heard a commotion behind her at the ceremony.

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We all need a Mrs. Milley around us, I think. Definitely. Well, let's get to our first question of the day.

This is a call that came in from David in Oklahoma. Good evening. I'm happy to hear your show. There's a passage of Hebrews saying that those who tasted the goodness of the Lord and walked, they are not saying, What does that mean? I was actually in the Lord found me again at the bottom of a barrel. The Holy Spirit moved in my heart.

I'm just curious what you say. Thank you. Appreciate your time and your show. God bless you. Hey, David, God bless you and thank you for that encouragement. And I know that Hebrews Chapter 6 can be a really troubling passage.

I've shared this before, but the first time I read it, I was in high school. It was the lunch hour and I was a newer believer just reading through the book of Hebrews. And I got to Chapter 6 and I was frankly terrified because, you know, there's some strong words in Hebrew 6 that makes it sound like if a person falls away, there's no hope for them anymore. And so I want to read Hebrews 6, just the first part of the chapter and unravel this for you. It says, Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits, for it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For the land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God.

But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed and its end is to be burned. Now just note the encouragement that he gives now in verse nine. Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, Beloved, we are sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. Now the really important thing here as we're approaching this passage is to understand what was happening there in the Hebrew church. This was a group of probably Jewish believers or people who are coming out of the Hebrew faith who are now, after having embraced the gospel, having turned to Jesus, now they're being tempted to go back to Judaism, essentially back to the Old Covenant. And so throughout this entire book, the author of the Hebrews is helping them to see that Jesus is better. He's better than the Old Covenant sacrifices.

He's better than the Old Covenant priesthood. He's trying to fix their eyes back on Jesus so that they would trust in him instead of trusting in the types and shadows of the Old Covenant, the sacrificial system. And you have to imagine what a temptation that would have been for these people because if they were brought up in this, you know, they had the smells and bells of the temple to all of a sudden leave that behind and focus on Jesus. I mean, there was probably something that they missed. And so some of them were now turning back and the author of the Hebrews is saying, he's warning them throughout this book, if you do that, you're lost.

You're lost. Now he does encourage them, as I said there in verse nine, even though we're speaking in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things. But the issue here is not that the Hebrew Christians were falling into some sin, you know, alcoholism or lust or something like that. The issue here was some of them weren't trusting in Jesus.

Some of them were going back to the Old Covenant sacrificial system and putting their confidence in those things. And the author says, look, if you do that, if you're not trusting in Jesus Christ, there is no hope for you. But brothers and sisters, I'm confident of better things for you, things that accompany salvation. And so it's really important for us to understand that context because if we don't, then, you know, if as a believer, you have a season of struggling with a particular sin or a time where you feel like I was backslidden for that period, you might feel hopeless thinking, oh, man, I fell away.

There's now no hope. There's no more room for me for repentance. But that's not what the author of the Hebrews is saying. You think about all of the people in the Bible who fell into grievous sin, and yet the Lord continued to minister to them and called them back to himself. I mean, you think of King David, you think of Peter, you think of everyone who God has ever used. I mean, there were times in their lives where they really struggled, and yet God's mercy was not exhausted for them. And David, it isn't exhausted for you.

And it wasn't. I mean, I love the way you put it there. You know, there was a period of difficulty, but then the Holy Spirit began to work in your heart. And so I think that you can be confident, brother, that the Lord is working in you and that he has forgiven you, and that when we turn to Jesus by faith, doesn't matter what we've done, when we're truly turning to him by faith, there's forgiveness. The problem with the people in the book of Hebrews, some of them were turning away from Jesus back to the sacrificial system of the old covenant. And if you're putting your trust in yourself and in your works or in something else to justify you before a holy God, well, then there is a lot of reason to be concerned. But if you're turning away from yourself to Jesus, trusting in him, and there's hope.

Thanks, David. You know, Adriel, this is just another reminder why context is so important, that we need to be able to interpret the Bible correctly, because if we grab passages and don't really understand the context, we can get really confused, and sometimes we can get stuck with guilt and shame that God never intended. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And especially with some of these passages, you know, the text that people will go to, to try to make a case that you can lose your salvation or that kind of a thing.

You know, the context is really important. I mean, in a situation like this, if the author of the Hebrews was talking about, you know, if you, if you fall away in the sense that you start to struggle with sin again, or fall into some old pattern, Peter did that. I mean, the same Peter who denied Jesus while he was being crucified, also wasn't walking in step with the gospel when Paul confronted him in the book of Galatians, he describes that.

Why? Because of the fear of man. In one sense, he was denying his Lord, denying Jesus out of the fear of men, the same thing that happened when when our Lord was was being crucified, the same thing that he did when our Lord was being crucified. And so there are going to be times where we fail as Christians. I mean, John says this, you know, I write these things to you, John says in 1 John, so that you may not sin, but if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous. It's not an excuse for us to sin.

It's never okay to sin. But it's just knowing that when we fail, God doesn't abandon us. And I think sometimes people can read passages like this out of context, Hebrews 6, and think, I failed, God is through with me. Well, I just want to say to you who are struggling with that thought, he's not through with you.

He's not through with you. Look to Jesus, turn to Jesus, and receive the grace that he has for you. By the way, we have an excellent resource here at Core Christianity that will help you with questions like this. It's called Nine Ways to Know You're Really a Christian. You can find that by going to corechristianity.com slash offers. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. And here's a question that came in from Amber.

She posted this on our Facebook page. How do we obey God if we don't know the whole Bible? Wouldn't we have to memorize every command to truly be obedient? Yeah, and you think about all the commands in the Old Testament, you know, hundreds and hundreds of commands. Of course, you have the Ten Commandments, the moral law, but then you also have all these other laws throughout the Old Testament, which in many cases are applying those commandments. You also have, under the Old Covenant, these commands related to the worship of Israel in the temple. Now, of course, those commandments specifically, they don't apply to us anymore, Amber, because those types, and we were just talking about the book of Hebrews, but those Old Covenant worship commands, they don't apply because Jesus has fulfilled them. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

That's why we don't have sacrifices in the temple anymore, because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice that the sacrifices in the Old Testament pointed forward to. But one of the things that I love about Jesus is he made it so simple for his disciples. You know, on one occasion, somebody came to him and said, Teacher, what is the greatest commandment?

And do you remember what Jesus responded? The greatest commandment is that we love God with all of our hearts. There he's echoing back in Deuteronomy Chapter 6, you know, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. Jesus says that's the greatest commandment. And then he says the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these commandments hang all the law and the prophets. In other words, these two commands, these summary commandments, if you will, the greatest commandment and the second greatest commandment, you do these two things, and you'll have fulfilled the whole law.

Pretty amazing. And so I think in a real simple way, we can say, look, you don't have to know every single commandment of the Bible. Ultimately, the question is, do you love God?

Do you love your neighbor? If we are doing those things, if we do that, well, we're obeying God's law. We're fulfilling the law of God. Now, the reality is, and we talk about this all the time on the program, nobody perfectly keeps God's law. I mean, you think about that, you know, here's the summary of the law, love God perfectly and love your neighbor as yourself. And then you think about what Jesus says elsewhere about who our neighbor is, that isn't just the person we like, it's the person who's hurt us.

It's our enemy. It's the person who we might not get along with. Well, loving that person like myself, don't we fall short of that? And don't we certainly fall short of loving God perfectly?

Absolutely. And yet God calls us to that. And through Christ, one, we experience the forgiveness of sins, but two, he fills us with his Holy Spirit so that we begin to love God imperfectly in this life, but so that we begin to love God and we begin to love each other as we should. And God calls us to that. That's why Paul says, you know, in Romans chapter eight, you know, that we've been filled with the Spirit and that by the Spirit we are fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law, ultimately love God and love neighbor. Now, we're not going to do it perfectly this side of heaven, but God is at work in us, transforming us, making us more and more into the image of his son, Jesus. And so it really is simplified for us by Jesus. There's no contradiction there, but Jesus says, look, here's the law, love God, love your neighbor.

And ultimately, Jesus was the one who perfectly exemplified that in his life and in his sacrificial death for us. God bless you. I'm so glad you have shortened that list for us, Adriel. Yeah, Bill, I know you were spending a lot of time trying to memorize those commandments. Not only that, you go through Leviticus, man, you have some real issues.

So thank you. And, you know, we see sometimes Leviticus really is my favorite book of the Old Testament. It's so overlooked, but it's a wonderful book, man. You got to get into it. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

I'm Bill Meyer. And, you know, the holidays are filled with a lot of fun activities, but sometimes the hustle and bustle of this season drowns out the most important aspect of Christmas. The fact that in Jesus, God has come to be with us. That's why we're so excited to share a new resource we have here at CoreChristianity.com, our Christmas devotional. It's called Jesus Christ, the Promised Messiah. This is a daily devotional that shows you what Christmas is all about. Each day of December, it highlights prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament, and then it shows you where these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus in the New Testament. So take some time every day by yourself or with your family to read the scriptures and meditate on their meaning. Our hope is that you come to Jesus through the pages of the Bible. You and your loved ones will experience his life-giving presence this Christmas. This devotional is free when you sign up for our weekly newsletter. So head over to CoreChristianity.com forward slash Christmas to download. That's CoreChristianity.com forward slash Christmas. You can also call us for that offer or any one of our offers at 833-843-2673. That's 833, the Core. Let's get to another call that came in, Adriel.

This is Sandy from Pennsylvania. I have a question about Matthew 7 verses 21. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. I wonder what that means. It's a scary kind of question to me.

If you could explain that to me. Thank you. Bye.

Hi, Sandy. Yeah, this is another one of those passages in the New Testament that does strike fear into the hearts of many believers. I mean, we already talked about Hebrews chapter six, but this warning from our Lord Jesus here.

Now, I'm going to even begin a little bit earlier because, again, context is key. Jesus said back in verse 15, beware of false prophets. They will come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but a diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? Then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Now, I think Jesus' primary target here is the false teachers, the false prophets, those who dress themselves up in religion and yet practice lawlessness. In particular, in the immediate context, and you see this throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is really laying into the Pharisees and the religious leaders of his day who looked holy externally. They went through the motions of religion, if you will, but inside they were dead. They had a hatred for God and for their neighbor. They didn't love God and they didn't love the people around them. Actually, they just stood in judgment over everyone and they thought that they were righteous.

Why? Because of what they did and how they lived, when in reality they were completely lost. And when Jesus showed up, they rejected him.

They didn't believe in him. You see, it's not enough just to be religious, just to say, Lord, Lord, to call upon God with our lips. No, not if we're rejecting God and his word, not if we're rejecting what Jesus has said himself.

That's what he's getting at here. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord is going to go to heaven. Sometimes people say, are you saved? Well, how can I know I'm saved? Well, did you say that prayer, the sinner's prayer? Did you say, Lord, Lord, forgive me of my sins? It isn't a prayer that saves us. It's truly knowing Christ. And Jesus says here, it's not that these people lost their salvation or something like that. He says of the false prophets here, depart from me.

I never knew you. Now, it's interesting because, you know, we think about, you know, the word to know. And oftentimes I think we don't understand that word in the same way that the Bible often uses that word to know someone. It carries a sense of a lot more intimacy in scripture. I mean, you think back to the book of Genesis where it talks about how Adam knew his wife, Eve, or when God speaks to his people and he says to them, you only of all the nations of the world have I known. It's not that God was saying like, you know, I didn't have the knowledge of the fact that I had created all these other nations.

No, not at all. It's this personal relationship, this intimacy, this love. And Jesus says of these false teachers, we never had that kind of relationship. The question is, do you know the Lord? And does the Lord know you? And how do we know God?

Through faith in Jesus Christ. I find it interesting there too, Sandy, that some of the language that Jesus uses, you know, he says you don't bear fruit, you're going to get cut off. It reminds me of what Jesus also said in John chapter 15, where he talked about how he's the vine and we're the branches. And when we're united to him by faith, his life begins to flow in us. And he says the one who's united to me does bear fruit.

I mean, there's this change in our lives. It's not just Lord, Lord, this sort of empty faith, if you will, where we call upon God, but don't truly know him. This passage, as you said, can be scary, but I think that there's also a comfort here in knowing that God does want to know us through his son, Jesus. That he sent Jesus into the world so that we would have that personal relationship with him, trusting in him by faith. And so the question is not, how much do you do?

Because, you know, these false teachers, they're pointing to their works. Didn't we prophesy and do many mighty works in your name? And God says, that's not what it's about.

The question, Sandy, is not what you do, it's who do you know? Do you know Jesus by faith? Have you received his grace? Have you confessed your sins to him and experienced his mercy?

That's the main thing. That's what each of us have to ask ourselves. Do I believe in Jesus? And have I received his grace?

If you have, then rejoice. But if you're trusting in yourself, in your own works, and you've got this religious thing going on, and you pray, Lord, Lord, but the reality is your confidence isn't in Christ and in his work, but in what you do. Well, again, just like I said with that question related to Hebrews chapter six, there's a lot of reason to be concerned there, because none of us can work our way into God's good graces.

No, we only come to the Father through the Son, Jesus, and that's what these false teachers didn't do. You know, again, that's why we call this program Core Christianity. It's the core of the gospel that Adriel just shared. And we have that wonderful resource called Nine Ways to Know You Are Really a Christian.

You can find out more about that at our website, corechristianity.com slash offers. Here's a question we received through our email at questions at corechristianity.com. Are all passages of the Bible appropriate for children? If there are some inappropriate passages, how can parents know which passages they should read to their kids and which passages they should avoid?

That's a great question. It reminds me, you know, a while back when we were reading through 1 and 2 Samuel with our kids, you know, we got to that scene where David committed adultery with Bathsheba, and it's pretty graphic. You know, I started to read the passage and then I stopped and both my wife and I, we looked at each other and kind of smiled and said, okay, maybe we should give the PG version. And I sort of just explained that David sinned in this very, very terrible way that had these horrible consequences.

And I mean, our kids are pretty young and at that time they were even younger. And so I think you just have to use wisdom and ask yourself the question, you know, some of the stories in the Bible are going to introduce topics to your children that you might think, I don't know that I want to have the sex talk, for example, with my four year old or my five year old right now, that kind of a thing. I think the important thing, one, is that you are reading the Bible to your children.

And boy, let's do it consistently. I think that's the key is being able to consistently read through Scripture. And then as you come across passages of Scripture that you think, okay, this is going to be a little bit too much, maybe this scene is a little too violent, or this is going to require a lot more explanation, I don't think my child is ready for that. Well, I think there are different ways that you can approach it, but certainly there's so much in the Word of God that we ought to be exposing our children to ultimately and primarily who Jesus is and what he's done for them. Now, you even think about that story, the story of the crucifixion and how graphic it is. Personally, we've never shied away from talking about that with our kids because we think it displays so clearly how much God was willing to give because of his love for us.

And so I think that there are certain things that you don't want to shy away from. I think that you want to highlight them and talk about God's great love for his people. But again, this is going to require wisdom. You know your children better than me, certainly, so it would be wrong for me, I think, to tell you, oh, here's how you should approach it. But what I will say is we need to be teaching our children the Word of God. What a blessing it is for us to be able to pass the faith on to our children. He uses faithful moms and dads who are reading the Bible to their children, who are praying for their children, who are teaching their children the songs of the faith. And isn't that what we're called to do, to saturate our children with God's Word? And that's what we want to do on this program. And so may the Lord help each of us to grow in the knowledge of scripture so that we might know the God of the Bible better and better. That's 833-843-2673. That's 833, the core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this podcast. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.