What Do I Do If My Family Is Conflicted Around Thanksgiving?

What do I do if my family is conflicted about celebrating Thanksgiving? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on one of our social media accounts, and you can watch Adriel right now live in the studio on YouTube, on our YouTube channel, and message him that way. Of course, you can always email us any questions at questionsatcorechristianity.com. Well, before we begin today's program, we want to take just a moment to pray for all of the families who have been impacted by that terrible Christmas parade tragedy in Wisconsin.

Yeah, Bill, an absolute, I mean, just horrible. I think there were five deaths, and I'm reading many, many people injured, including almost 20 children. And so why don't we pray for those who are injured for their recovery, but also just for those who are mourning that the Lord would be with them. Father, we grieve just this horrible situation. We pray for healing, God, for those who were injured. In this rampage that took place, we pray for the families of all those who have been directly affected, especially the families of those who died as a result of this action. Would you be with them, and would you, by the grace of your Holy Spirit, bring comfort, especially in this season, Lord?

Would you be with them? Would you raise them up, Lord? And we look to you in this time of moment. Amen. Thanks for that, Adriel. Well, we do receive voicemails here, and you can leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day, and we try to check our voicemails each day.

Here's one we received from a listener named Jordan. I wanted to ask about seminary. I just wanted your guys' opinion on campus versus online. What is the reason for a seminary student to move to campus rather than doing it online? What is the benefit of that discipleship to the past professors, and how can someone make the most of that? What should one choose if one has the ability to move to a campus seminary?

Thank you. Hey, thank you for that question. I went to seminary, and the seminary I went to did not offer online courses. It was all in-person learning, and I really, really appreciated that because it gave me an opportunity to sit down with the professors that I had, really godly men, many of them also ministers, ordained ministers, who had spent a lot of time studying the Scriptures, the original biblical languages, Greek and Hebrew, church history, philosophy, a lot of things that you just don't typically get even growing up in the church.

You wouldn't necessarily get those things, and so I recommend, if you're able to, do the in-person thing. There are a few other benefits. One is you do get to sort of build a community with other students there. It's kind of a special time, I think, in an individual who's training for ministry in your life because you're getting to connect with other people who feel called to the ministry, who are gifted. I'll tell you one thing. For me, it was actually a really humbling experience because I'm sitting with a lot of other students who also feel called to the ministry and who are godly and wise, smart, and it just sort of reminded me of the fact that the Lord is really at work, and it was great to see. So I encourage, if you're able to, man, dive in head first.

Give it everything you have. There's nothing more. If you feel like God is calling you to teach the Bible, well, it's really important for you to be trained in Scripture, to be a Bible expert, if you will. I think a lot of times people just view seminary as sort of a means to an end. The end is becoming a pastor or getting ordained, and I just got to get this diploma.

We really shouldn't view it that way. We should view it as a season of preparation, a season of training, and we want to get the best training that we can get in order to teach the Bible. That's the thing. You could do the online thing.

You can go and watch a bunch of YouTube videos on your own. I think too many people approach training for the ministry in that way. I know that there are some good online programs out there, and I know that there are also some online programs that are not so good, and so you have to be discerning, and you want to make sure that you're challenging yourself and you're getting the best theological education that you can if you intend to teach the Word of God.

Let me just say something. I heard this over and over again from even professors that I had in seminary. You never go to a doctor to have surgery and go to a doctor who said, Well, I got most of my training from just watching videos on YouTube, that kind of a thing.

No, we know if we're going to go under the knife. We want a surgeon who knows what they're doing, who's been trained, who has expertise, and the sad reality is a lot of times we don't think of pastors in that way. We don't think like, Hey, I'm entrusting my soul to the Lord and to this person, to this local church.

There's accountability there. We want to make sure that the people who are proclaiming the gospel to us are people who should be doing it and who know what they're talking about. I want to encourage you, if you can, man, find a good seminary. Go devote the time that you need to devote to it and prepare for what the Lord has called you to. You know, Adriel, in this day and age, I'm struck by the importance of every pastor being educated in Christian worldview and apologetics. My impression from you is that you got a lot of that training while you were in seminary. Yeah, absolutely. We took classes on apologetics, on defending the faith, classes on biblical language.

That's another thing. A lot of seminaries are sort of moving away from teaching biblical languages, and I think that's a shame. Again, we should be, we need to be experts on the Bible, on studying the scriptures. We're going to proclaim this to people. We want to make sure we know what we're talking about.

That's one of the benefits. Also, I mentioned church history, understanding the past and the things we can learn from the past and all of the good theology that was hashed out in the early stages of the history of the church that we are the recipients of, that we get to inherit and pass on to others. So much that you're going to get from a seminary experience if you feel like the Lord is calling you to ministry, and I just say, hey, make the sacrifices that you need to make in order to do that.

Great counsel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to a question we received from one of our listeners named Marie. My question is, I have an 18-year-old son who studies a whole lot, and he is adamant about not doing Thanksgiving this year and talks about how, you know, the pilgrims came over here and killed the Native American Indians and that the pilgrims were not good Christians. And how can you say that, you know, you're a Christian and, you know, that God is who God is and yet endorse Thanksgiving and being grateful for what, slaughtering a bunch of Native Americans.

And as a mother, you know, I know it's not a biblical thing, but how do you go about explaining the truth to your 18-year-old son in regards to what's going on in the world with pretty much trying to erase history and, you know, also as to what's true and not true and what's biblical and not biblical. So yeah, love to hear that. Thanks. Hey, Marie, thank you for that question and a very timely question.

So a couple of things. One, I mean, for the Christian, I mean, we're just thinking about the biblical perspective here. Every Sunday is Easter. We're celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, and every day is supposed to be a day of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is something we're just called to as the people of God, to give thanks in all circumstances, the Apostle Paul says, even in the difficulties. Now, that doesn't mean we give thanks for evil in the world. We're not thanking God for the slaughter of the innocent, those kinds of things.

No, not at all. We're crying out to the Lord. We're lamenting those things. And so I'm not sure, you know, if your son thinks, hey, what we're doing is we're giving thanks for something that was bad. Well, that's not what we're doing. And I think it is important actually to get the accurate history here.

There's a book published by InterVarsity Press Academic. It's called The First Thanksgiving, what the real story tells us about loving God and learning from history. And I like that last part there, learning from history. I think there are two big dangers here as we think about the past. One, we can have a romanticized view of the past, which is, man, everything was just good. We get back to the good old days.

The past was perfect. We've so fallen away from that era of godliness, whatever that era was or whenever that era was. And we oftentimes, we have these sort of rose-colored glasses on when we think about the past, this nostalgia that comes over us.

The reality is it's never as good as we remember it. And there were challenges. There was sin. There was evil. There were things that we don't want to brush under the rug that we can talk about. And this is true when we're thinking about any era of history or any individual.

You think about the different people that we look at in the past and we look up to them. And they were human beings. They were sinners. There were things that they did that we can critique, that we can say, hey, that was wrong.

That was dishonoring to God. So we want to have, I think, a clear perspective on those things. As I understand it, looking at the first Thanksgiving, if you will, there was a gathering of a number of people who were really giving thanks to the Lord. You had Christians who had fled looking for a home, essentially pilgrims who had fled looking for a home and looking to honor the Lord. But of course, as time goes by, it's never always perfect. There are challenges.

One of the interesting things about those early pilgrims is they were giving thanks to the Lord after a season of great difficulty and death, a winter that was just devastating for them. So there are things historically that we can learn from them. And I think it's important for us to look at the past and to know.

The challenges are, when thinking about history, one, don't romanticize it, but two, don't erase it. I think that's a bad idea. You see this a lot with the sort of cancel culture of today. Let's just erase the past that we don't like. Let's just blot it out.

Well, that I think is foolish as well. We're called to learn from the past, to give thanks for that which is good, to repent where we need to repent. And as far as Thanksgiving is concerned, we're always called to give thanks. And so we should do that every day. And the holiday that's coming up is an opportunity for us. It's a reminder for us.

Obviously, Thanksgiving is not this holiday that was instituted by the apostles or by Christ, but if it's an opportunity for us to gather with families and to say, God, thank you for sustaining us after the last two years of a global pandemic, or thank you, Lord, for the fact that I still have a job. Thank you that we're here around this table eating this meal together. We give you thanks. That's something we should do, friends.

That's something we should do. And so I want to encourage you to do that. And check out that book again. It's called The First Thanksgiving, What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History. It's by Robert McKenzie. God bless. I'm so glad you mentioned that book.

I had a chance to interview Robert McKenzie a couple years ago, and it is just fantastic. And he has done so much research on that first Thanksgiving, so highly recommend that as you did. And by the way, we have a wonderful resource available just in time for Thanksgiving.

It's absolutely free, and you can find it on our website. Yeah, it's called Five Biblical Reminders for Thanksgiving. I've already said it, right? We're called as Christians to give thanks to the Lord. I mean, I think this is what it looks like to be filled with the Holy Spirit. As Paul in the book of Ephesians says, be filled with the Spirit. He talks about Thanksgiving, singing, praying with one another. This is a part of what God calls us to.

It's the will of God for us to give thanks in all circumstances, he says in 1 Thessalonians. And so we want to help you to do that, and we want to give you these five biblical reminders for Thanksgiving. It's a free download for you over at corechristianity.com. Easiest way to find it is to go to the website corechristianity.com and forward slash offers. Again, corechristianity.com forward slash offers.

Look for Five Biblical Reminders for Thanksgiving. By the way, you can call us for that resource or any one of our resources, and you can call us if you have a question for Adriel about the Bible or the Christian life. Our phone lines will be open for the next 10 minutes or so. Here's the phone number. It's 833-843-2673.

That's 833 the core. Let's go to Brandon in St. Louis, Missouri. Brandon, what's your question for Adriel? Hi Pastor Adriel, thank you for taking my question.

My question is actually for a friend. She's not an atheistic friend. She's not necessarily a believer. But she does, I know she doesn't know who Jesus is because if she did, she wouldn't be stuck in, she's not in a dark phase of her life. It's more of a limbo phase where she doesn't really know what she wants and doesn't have the faith to change things. And I know just from listening to Core Christianity that you would be such an encouragement as far as facing your fears, as far as giving your fears to God, as far as being able to uplift yourself without having to feel like you're the only one stuck. And like I said, she's not a non-believer or an atheist, but I know she doesn't really know God and she's kind of in this limbo phase of being happy and being sad. And I've honestly ran out of everything to say regarding just being positive. I don't want to bring up the Bible too much because I know that's not what she's thinking about. But I just thought I could pray and give my question to you.

Yeah. Hey Brandon, thank you for that question. Why don't we just first pray for your friend right now who's in this limbo stage. Father, I lift up Brandon's friend to you, and God, as she is searching for peace, for something, or maybe she doesn't even know what that thing is, I pray, God, that you would reveal yourself to her through your son Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray that you would fill Brandon with your spirit so that he would know how to encourage her, what scriptures to be able to share with her, and Lord, ultimately, that you would do the work for her that you did in Lydia's heart in Acts chapter 16, opening her heart to receive the truth of your word. So would you be with this woman?

Would you draw her to yourself? We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Yeah. Brandon, your friend is not alone, and especially coming out of a very difficult season for many people in the last two years, I think a lot of people are searching, and in this sort of state of limbo, asking questions, questions about life, questions about death, about, I mean, really, the important questions, fear. There's a lot of fear around us, and that's where Jesus speaks so clearly. And he says, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.

A lot of people right now are burdened, weighed down by so many different things, by loss of work, by sickness, by just feeling fed up with this world. And we have to direct our eyes upward to the Lord, to Jesus, and he calls us to himself. And my encouragement to you is just to continue to be a good friend and to bring the truth of God's word to bear. When there are questions, when your friend has these questions, whether they're questions about fear, questions about who God is, I mean, be clear about the Lord.

May the Lord give you boldness also. I love how Jesus pursued people in the Gospels. I think of the woman of the well in John chapter 4, and he begins to ask her questions.

He's sort of probing and getting to the deepest parts of her heart and showing her that he is ultimately what she needs more than anything else. And that's true for your friend as well. We long for things in this life, and we don't really know how to find those things. We're trying to fill ourselves with all these temporal goods to find happiness, to sort of grasp onto happiness, and we're continually let down again and again and again, and that's why I quoted that passage from Matthew 11 where Jesus says, Come to me. And so may the Lord bless you, and may he cause you to be a light in your friend's life, directing her to Jesus and to his goodness. And remember what the Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 1 verse 16. I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. It's that Gospel that is the power of God for salvation to everyone, including your friend.

So share that with her and continue to encourage her in your friendship. God bless. Well, I thank the Lord for people like Brandon who really care about others and want them to know the truth of having a relationship with Jesus Christ. So, Brandon, thank you so much for your call.

This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Jack who's calling in from Indiana. Jack, what's your question?

Hi. First of all, I love your guys' show. I've been watching it for a couple years, but my question is, how do I overcome the fallen nature of man? Because I'm really kind of empathizing with Paul in Romans 7 when he was talking about, you know, I do as I don't want to do. And there's just kind of this war that's raging on inside of me and I'm sure many others. What advice would you give to win that spiritual battle? Yeah. Thank you for that question, brethren. You're not alone. And also thank you for the encouragement.

I'm grateful to have you as a frequent listener. So, I mean, I think we can identify with Paul in Romans 7 where he talks about this battle. You also hear about it, I think, in places like Galatians 5 where he brings up this conflict between the flesh, that is our flesh, and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit who calls us to walk in a manner that's pleasing to the Lord. And this is a battle that we're going to experience until we're in the presence of the Lord, until we're perfected in holiness when we die or, you know, when the Lord comes back. But how do we fight that battle?

It's not by pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. It really is fought by the Holy Spirit in and through you. And that's what the Apostle Paul is going to make clear in the very next chapter. And he says in Romans 8, verse 12, Brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. One of the things I love about this section of the book of Romans, Romans 6 through 8, is Paul begins by reminding the Romans of their new identity. And I think this is key in terms of the fight against sin. It's not that you have to fight and succeed so that you can become a child of God. He says, look, you're already a child of God. We're debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

Why? Because we've died to it. This is the point he makes in Romans chapter 6. We've died to the flesh. We've been crucified with Christ, and so you have to see yourself, Jack, with all of our struggles, with all of your struggles, you have to see yourself as one who is alive from the dead, justified by the free grace of God, the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, the blood that he shed that cleanses you. That's your new identity.

That's who you are. You are the baptized one, the one who belongs to Jesus, a son of God by faith in Jesus. And from that place, from that position of new identity, new standing, we are called every day to fight against the lusts of the flesh, to put to death those sinful deeds of the body. And so we pray, we pursue the Lord. If there are things that you know are leading you away from the Lord, we take a serious stance against those things. You think about what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.

We cut those things off. So there are practical steps that you can take, but I think the main thing is, one, recognizing, Romans 6, your new identity in Christ, who you are, your justification, the fact that you belong to the Lord. Two, understanding, as you said, Romans 7, that there is this battle that rages and is going to continue to rage, but again, there's no condemnation for you if you're in Christ, Romans 8 verse 1. And now, day by day, we're called to live a life in the Spirit, and it's by the Spirit that we put to death the sinful deeds of the body. And that's something, let me just encourage you with this, that's something that God wants to do in you. God's will for you, for us, is our sanctification. And so as you go to the Lord humbly saying, God, forgive me for my failure here, whatever it is, have mercy upon me, sanctify me. Know that the Lord hears that prayer, and that's a prayer he's going to answer as you continue to pursue him. God bless. This is Core Christianity.

We have time for one more quick question before we go. From Robert in Florida. Robert, what's your question for Adriel? Yeah, in the Gospel of John, they talk about raising Lazarus from the dead. Why is it it's only in the Gospel of John and none of the other Gospels, you know, if that's his biggest miracle?

Yeah, thank you for that question. It's sort of interesting. I mean, John as a Gospel is unique. There are some things that are distinct about John's Gospel in terms of his focus. And one of the things that John focuses on is a number of miracles, including the raising of Lazarus. But these miracles reveal to us the identity of Jesus. And he says at the end of his Gospel, I've written these things to you so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. So that's the purpose statement of the book. So everything that he does, he's trying to convince you, the reader, that Jesus really is who he says he is, that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

That's why he included that miracle. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar. Or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.