Is It Okay for Christians To Read Books Like Harry Potter?

Is it okay for Christians to read books like Harry Potter? 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. Here's our phone number. Call us for the next 25 minutes or so.

1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our social media sites. And of course, you can always email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, here's a voicemail from one of our listeners named Kristen. My question is, if I'm having a baby out of wedlock, do I need to be delivered, or is it appropriate to have a child when you're not married to their partner?

Hey, Kristen, thank you for giving us a call. Well, I guess the first thing that I would want to say to you is congratulations on getting ready to have a baby. Every child is truly a gift from God. You asked the question if it's appropriate to have the baby even though you're not married. I don't know if you're thinking of maybe not having the baby or giving the baby up for adoption or something like that. But I would say this child is a gift. Now, with regard to being delivered, you said, do I need to be delivered?

What I would say is, no, I don't really actually know what you're getting at there. But you should, if you're continuing to engage in sexual relations without being married, you should stop that. That's something that the Bible is clear about. Now, that doesn't mean that this baby is bad or that there's something wrong with the baby. No, I think you should receive this child as a gift from God and seek to honor the Lord and to raise your baby in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

This is an opportunity for you to draw near to Jesus and to grow in Christ and to raise this baby that God has given to you so kindly, so generously in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, letting this child know from a very young age the Holy Scriptures and seeking to walk with the Lord and to set a godly example for your child. And so I would say no longer engaging in sexual relations without being married. I don't know if this person that you are with or were with, if they're a believer. I'm not sure the nature of your relationship with them, but if this person is a believer and you guys are committed to each other, then I would encourage you if this person is faithful to Christ and in Christ to pursue marriage. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7, it's better to marry than to burn with passion.

Marriage also is a gift given to us by God. And so that's what I would say to you, Christian. May the Lord bless you. Let's just take a moment to pray for Christian right now and this pregnancy. Gracious Father in heaven, we do thank you for your mercy to us. We thank you for your mercy to your people. We thank you for the many gifts that you give to us, Lord, and we thank you for the gift of children.

What a blessing that is. And we pray for Christian, Lord, that you would grant her a good pregnancy, Lord, a healthy pregnancy, that the baby would come. And we pray for this baby that's growing in her womb that there would not be a day in this child's life that they don't sense your presence and know you, Lord, and call upon your name. As King David said in the Psalms, from my mother's breast, you have been my God. You've caused me to trust in you.

O Lord God in heaven, cause this child to trust in you and be with this family and cause them all together to grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen. Amen. Just a follow up question for you, Adriel. I just saw a new survey that was out showing that a large percentage of American young people now feel that marriage is an outdated institution. And although some of them say they do plan eventually to get married, they don't really see the value or the purpose in marriage. And unfortunately, I think that's also infected Christian young people as well.

And I'm wondering how you would respond to that. Yeah, I think that you're on to something that does seem to be just a lack of understanding. What's the purpose of marriage? Can't we just live together and engage in, you know, sexual relationships? Why get married? A lot of people don't understand that. And so I think that's part of the problem today is we've lost sight of the significance of marriage as this ordinance that was given to us by God for human flourishing. And so recovering that, I would say, and ultimately recovering a solid understanding of what the Bible teaches about these things. You know, marriage has been challenged in many ways. I mean, just with regard to, you know, how flippantly people think about divorce today. I mean, this was a problem in Jesus' day as well. He has to address this issue before the religious leaders in Matthew chapter five and in Matthew chapter 19 as well. But even in terms of the definition of marriage, is marriage between one man and one woman for life?

Or can it be constructed in other ways? You know, these are things that are really confusing for a lot of people. And so we need to recover what the Bible teaches about this, the clear teaching of scripture, and cherish marriage as a gift given to humanity by God.

So well said. By the way, we have a booklet at corechristianity.com. It's called Why Would Anyone Get Married? And it really answers this question. If you are a person who is dating and wondering about the whole purpose of marriage, or maybe you're a parent or grandparent with a young person who really is questioning the whole idea of marriage, this would be a great booklet to get.

Again, it's called Why Would Anyone Get Married? You can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash books. Well, we'd love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, doctrine, theology, you name it, we are open to your questions. Here's the phone number, 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to John in St. Louis, Missouri. John, what's your question for Adriel? Looks like we lost John.

I guess we got John's not there. Alright, let's go to an email that came in from one of our listeners. This is an interesting one from Ashley. She said, I just listened to your episode about baptism and I was confused. I was baptized as an infant, but I haven't felt like it counts because everyone in the Bible was an adult when they were baptized, except possibly children in a couple of households, which seemed to be exceptions. Even so, there was no mention of infants in those households, and it sounds like the word was shared in those homes first. They weren't automatically baptized. I haven't read the whole Bible yet, so I'm wondering if there are passages that reveal very young children being baptized without having accepted Jesus. Okay, great question, Ashley.

I love this. Oftentimes when we talk about baptism on the broadcast, we'll get a lot of responses because I do believe that there's a solid biblical basis for the baptism of infants. I know that there's disagreement on this question. This isn't one of those issues that strikes at the vitals of the Christian faith, meaning that I think that a person can be Baptist or believe in infant baptism. We can say, no, we're believers in Jesus Christ. We affirm the gospel, but it is a significant issue.

It is an important question. So you ask, okay, well, where do we see evidence of children being baptized? Well, a couple of places. One, in the Old Testament when the children of Israel, the people of God, crossed through the Red Sea, that's referred to as a baptism, as all of these families came out of Egypt, delivered from Egypt, through the water of the Red Sea, baptized into Moses, we might say, as the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians. But there you had families, and families going through this water was this picture of baptism. That's something the Bible makes very clear. You also brought up the occasions in the New Testament where you have the example of household baptisms. You think of Acts 16, the conversion of Lydia and the baptism of her household. The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 talks about baptizing households. The sort of response to that is, well, we don't know if there were infants in them. It doesn't specify how old the children in the household were, and so how can we be certain?

I hear that objection, but here's how I would respond or push back a little bit to that objection. We're thinking about the question of baptism and infant baptism in particular. We're asking, is there continuity between the practice that we saw in the Old Testament of including infants among the covenant people, the visible community of faith, and the practice in the New Testament? In the Old Testament, Abraham was commanded in Genesis 17 to circumcise his household, those who were the proper recipients of the sign of circumcision.

Paul in Romans 4 calls circumcision the seal of the righteousness that is by faith. Abraham received that seal of the righteousness that is by faith, and then he was commanded to apply that sign and seal to his infant children, to his whole household. It's interesting that Luke, who wrote the book of Acts and is describing the baptisms in the early church, the covenant sign of inclusion, uses that same language, that language that was charged with meaning, that language that people understood, the language of household to describe the practice of the early church with regard to baptism.

You see lines of continuity there. Even though we don't know how many children were in that household, how old were the children, were they making a profession of faith or were they infants, I think we can say the fact that Luke is using that language is instructive. I think it reveals to us that you have continuity with regard to the fact that God is still including the children of believers in the visible church. Now that doesn't mean that baptism in and of itself, by itself, apart from faith, saves you.

Salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, but baptism is a sign and seal of that work of the Holy Spirit should be applied to those who believe and to their children, I would say. So I appreciate so much your question, Ashley, and feel free to write us again or even to give us a call if you want to follow up. May the Lord bless you. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you've got something going on in your Christian life, you could really use some counsel on or use some prayer.

Hey, we'd love to hear from you. Our phone lines will be open for the next 10 minutes or so. 833-THE-CORE is the number.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Clay calling in from Missouri. Clay, what's your question for Adriel? I do a lot of things that, you know, I do for free. I'm disabled. And the other day I was helping my neighbors out and the gentleman wanted to offer me money. And like I told my friend, that's not who I am. I was raised, you know, to do unto others, you have to do unto you. But what I would like to know, where biblically it states that, you know, when you do what you do, you do what you do. When you do good like that to my friend that God provides, it doesn't mean that I have to go out and expect anything that God's going to provide no matter what it is that I might need. And that he's provided me the well-being in order to help somebody.

How can I show him scripturally wise that it's okay to do things and don't expect things like that? Well, God bless you. I think that that's, I mean, wonderful that you are helping your neighbors out and serving. I mean, this is a part of what we're called to as Christians, as the people of God. So, Clay, God bless you in that. And Jesus makes it very clear in the Sermon on the Mount that when we do a good deed, we don't need to go out and trumpet, you know, the, you know, hey, look at me, look at what I'm doing, everybody. Isn't this great? Can't you see that I'm really faithful to God?

And no, he says, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. We are unprofitable servants, Jesus. And we've done everything that we can. We can say, you know what?

I don't need anything. I'm an unprofitable servant because I'm serving the Lord. And God is the one who sees and provides for us.

And so I think in getting straight to your question, Clay, I think you look at Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters five through seven, I think you see this again and again and again, where Jesus is highlighting the importance of not doing the good works that we do in order to be seen by men. He says, if you do that, then you have your reward. There you go. He gave you the 20 bucks or whatever, or, you know, everyone around you is praising you. There's your reward.

You can have that. But when you do good, Jesus says to his people, it's not so that others can see. It's not so that you can make yourself great in the eyes of other people. I mean, this was the problem with the religious leaders in that day, the scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus said, do good for your heavenly Father.

Now that doesn't mean that if other people see, that's a bad thing. The question is who are they praising? Are they praising you or are they praising God?

Because at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes it very clear. He says, look, you're the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world. Let your light so shine before men so that they may see your good works and glorify who?

Your Father who is in heaven. So when stuff like this happens, I think what you can encourage people to do, Clay, say, man, give glory to God. God has been so good to me. And even in this position that I'm in where I'm disabled, I'm still able to help out and I'm grateful to God for the fact that he's given me that ability.

He's enabled me to do that. Give glory to the Lord. And in doing that, Clay, you're blessed. Thank you for reaching out to us. May God continue to bless you as you seek to honor and serve him. Clay, thanks so much for listening to CORE Christianity and for your good works.

We do appreciate you. By the way, if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us at 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673.

If you get our voicemail system, feel free to leave a voicemail there. I also want to mention we have some great resources available at corechristianity.com, and one of those is our Bible studies. We have some great studies on both the Old and the New Testament. Yeah, Bill, one of the things I appreciate about the studies that we offer here at CORE Christianity is there's really something for everyone. So if you're newer to the Christian faith, something like CORE 101 or our study through the Gospel of John is a really great resource.

If you're looking to dig deeper, maybe learn about a book that you've not spent a lot of time studying. We have studies on books like the book of Revelation, the book of Hebrews, and just really wonderful resources written by some top-notch biblical scholars. Some of them, the book of Revelation, that Bible study in particular was written by a professor I had named Dennis Johnson, who is just a brilliant man but also so pastoral and just loves the Lord. So consider getting a hold of one of these resources for yourself or for a Bible study group at your church, and you can access them or receive them for a donation of $15 or more over at corechristianity.com.

We also have leader's guides on each of our studies. If you are going to be leading a small group or a Sunday school class, what a great resource that would be for you. You can find them at corechristianity.com forward slash radio. Again, corechristianity.com forward slash radio and browse through our selection of Bible studies. Well, let's go to a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners. This is Dorothy. I have a question that's troubling me. Harry Potter, let me know.

I heard yes, I heard no, I heard so many in-betweens. I view it as sorcery and witchcraft, which the Old Testament refers to. But someone wants to have a Harry Potter-themed wedding in my family, and I'm having trouble with this. Thank you so much, and I appreciate all you do. Well, Dorothy, thank you for reaching out.

I can tell that this weighs on you heavily and probably more than anything else because of this wedding. Just generally, I would say, I think this is a matter of Christian liberty. If it's something that, you know, as a believer, you pick up Harry Potter and you just feel like, oh man, my conscience just won't allow me to read this because it talks about spells and wizardry and whatnot. Well, then I would say, yeah, if your conscience is really bothered, if you can't just read it, you know, freely and enjoy it as a piece of entertainment, then don't. Now, of course, there are kinds of entertainment out there that we should just avoid as Christians, I would say. The kinds of things that stir up the lusts of the flesh and take our eyes away from the truth of God's word.

There is stuff like that out there, but I think, Harry Potter, I think it's a matter of Christian liberty. I would, you know, go to a text like 1 Corinthians 8. Of course, Paul is talking about something different there, but he is talking about the principle of Christian liberty, and there he's thinking in particular of food that was offered to idols, and he says, you know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence. Harry Potter is just a, you know, a fantasy story. There's nothing real behind, you know, the things that are going on in the book.

And that there is only one God, he says, Paul, verse 5, for although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father from whom are all things, and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge, but some, through former association with idols, eat food as really being offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. And so if I was talking to somebody who's maybe coming out of the New Age movement or a life of witchcraft, and that was something that they really wrestled with, they'd come to Christ, been saved, been delivered from their sins, and for them, you know, just going and reading that book was just, I just can't do it because of my prior association with this stuff. I would say, yeah, don't.

Don't do it. If you can't do it, you know, in faith, quote unquote, then don't do it. But I think that there are many other believers who just pick it up and say, man, you know, that was a fun story to read, and I enjoyed it as a piece of entertainment. It didn't, you know, hurt my conscience at all. I felt free to do it, and I would say for many believers, that's the case as well, Dorothy. And so may God bless you, and I would say, you know, prayerfully, you know, consider this question for yourself.

Is this something, you know, that is hurting my conscience? Okay, well then I probably won't read it, but you also have to think about the situation with this family member. I don't think that it would be wrong for you necessarily to go to that wedding. I think that that's sort of an interesting theme for a wedding. We were talking earlier about how a lot of times marriage in our culture is not really valued.

It's just sometimes, you know, viewed as a joke, and that's unfortunate. So that's a real issue, but I don't think that you would be sinning in going to the wedding and supporting, you know, these family members. And so God bless you, Dorothy, and thank you for reaching out to us. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Just to let you know, we're going to be recording a second episode of The Core after this live program ends here in just a few minutes. So if you weren't able to get through, you can feel free to call us for the next 30 minutes or so. Here's the number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Love to hear from you. If you've got a question about the Bible or the Christian life, doctrine, theology, you name it, give us a call. Let's go to Wallace calling in from Tennessee. Wallace, what's your question for Adriel? Hey, how are you doing, Pastor? I'm doing well, Wallace.

Good to hear from you. What's your question? I have a backup question from the gentleman about where you asked a question about infants being baptized.

Yes, sir. And this is what I have a problem with. In order for someone to be baptized, I think it's symbolic of showing who you are following after you have accepted Christ. If an infant is not able to come into the knowledge of the truth, the knowledge of the truth of who Christ is or who God is, why shouldn't an infant be baptized if they don't really know what the Christian life is about or you would know who Christ is?

Wallace, thank you so much for your thoughtful follow-up on a previous question. Why should an infant be baptized? So I think part of it is just thinking about what baptism is. First and foremost, I think many of us have heard over and over again, baptism is an outward sign of an inward faith. It's sort of repeated in churches.

It's primarily about me telling the world something. And so it's less about what God does and it's more about what I am doing to testify to the fact that I want to follow Jesus. Now that is a part of what baptism is, but I would say in scripture, over and over and over again in the Old Testament and the New Testament, baptism as this sign, as this thing, is primarily about what God is doing. And so you think about the Old Testament pictures of baptism that we get. The flood, for example, the crossing through the Red Sea, these are types of baptism in the Old Testament.

Those are both things that God did for his people. The flood was this sign of judgment, salvation through judgment, right? The crossing through the Red Sea, same thing, salvation through judgment. It was God delivering his people through the waters and judging the Egyptians who rejected the truth. Well, similarly, baptism in the New Covenant is this picture of salvation through judgment.

Who's judgment? The judgment of Jesus Christ. It's being united to Jesus in his death and resurrection. That's what Paul says in places like 1 Corinthians 6. And so baptism is all about God and Jesus, what Christ has done to redeem us. And so first and foremost, when we realize that baptism is that, it's gospel, it's God's action towards his people, well then it begins to make sense why it's not just for me as an adult declaring my faith, but even for the children of believers, just like circumcision was under the Old Testament. Because Paul says in places like 1 Corinthians 7 that the children of even one believing parent are considered holy, otherwise they would be unclean. Again, that doesn't mean that they're saved by the fact that they're born into your family or that baptism by itself apart from faith saves them. It just means that they're treated as a part of this visible covenant community and just like the children of believers under the Old Testament, the Israelites were included in that community through this sign, this covenant sign, so God welcomes our children to himself. Jesus says, let the children come to me, for to such as these belongs the kingdom of God.

And we are called as Christians and especially as parents to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord to say, hey, that covenant sign of baptism, we're called to embrace the reality of that sign, Jesus, the washing away of our sins through faith in his name. Again, Wallace, thanks for reaching out to us. May God bless you and have a great day. 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.