Should Believers Be Skeptical of ‘Christian Celebrities'?

Should believers be skeptical of Christian celebrities? 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. We'd love to hear from you. Our phone lines are open right now. Here's the number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

833-843-2673. We're also open to your questions about doctrine, theology, maybe something going on at your church that you're questioning. We would love to hear from you. And of course, you can always email us at questions at corechristianity.com. By the way, I want to mention we are live on both Instagram and YouTube today, and you can go on either of those sites and send your question to Adriel that way.

So check it out. Also want to say hi to some of our international listeners. We have somebody listening in Dubai right now.

Isn't that cool? And you know there aren't a lot of evangelical Christians in Dubai. I'm glad they're listening. We are more than happy to support you in your faith and encourage you.

We know it's probably not an easy place to be a believer. Well, let's go to the phones. Kristi is on the line from Huntington Beach. Kristi, what's your question for Adriel?

Hi, Adriel. Thanks for taking my call. Our family has never had any problem trick-or-treating or dressing up for Halloween or anything like that, but now that I have teenagers, I'm not exactly sure how to gauge what's appropriate and what's not as far as dress-up goes. Are there any types of classrooms that you would consider as off-limits for Christians? Hey, Kristi, thank you for that question. And boy, I know that this is going to be something we're working through as a family in a few years as our children get older.

And Bill, I know your children are at that stage and beyond that, so I'm curious to get your input as well. But I would just say, anything that would objectify or be immodest, that kind of a thing, it's sort of unfortunate, right? But I see a lot of Halloween costumes, even the area where I live, where it's pretty clear, I mean, it's not much of a costume. And so I think situations like that, right, we have to ask ourselves as Christians, are we honoring to the Lord? Are we walking in a manner that's pleasing to Him? Are we objectifying ourselves or others? You know, those kinds of things.

I think all of that is off-limits for us. And so this is not just for Halloween, I would say, but I think in our everyday lives as well, this is something for us to consider. And so it's sort of unfortunate that what just could be good fun and going out and getting candy has sort of turned into something else. And I think especially as kids get older. And so this is an opportunity for us as Christians to be distinct, wouldn't you say, Bill?

I would. And, you know, my daughter actually was commenting about this yesterday. One of our friends, family friends, their Christian family, their daughter, who is, I think, a junior in high school, maybe a sophomore in high school, her and her friends have been dressing up very provocatively and posting those images.

She had this, you know, very sexy cop outfit on. And my daughter basically said, look, she's barely wearing this. And whether her mom and dad are aware, I don't know. But if they are, it really concerns me, really grieves me.

Yeah. And so those are the kinds of things that I think we would just say as parents, yeah, you're not allowed to wear that. And I mean, we want to teach our kids about modesty, about purity, and just, again, being respectful in all your conduct. And so I appreciate your question, Christine. I hope that that's helpful for you and that you guys have a wonderful time celebrating in a way that's honoring to the Lord. And of course, you know, when we say celebrating, oftentimes we get this question with regard to Christmas and other holidays as well. This is something that Christians should or shouldn't do. This is one of those areas of Christian liberty. There's no Bible verse that says, you know, you should do this when we're thinking about something like Halloween. This is just a fun cultural thing.

And so if that's what it is for you, great, you know, have a good time, get to know your neighbors maybe. But, you know, with our sinful hearts, there's always that tendency for us to twist things like Halloween or even Christmas and to turn it into something that's not honoring to the Lord. And so I think that's where we need to be cautious.

So well said. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Oh, no, I was afraid that might happen. That is our producer who loves those Halloween sound effects.

He just... Oh, no. Okay, so moving right along, we have a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners. This is from Carolee. My question is, is there a beginning and an end to the existence of God? Is there a beginning and an end to the presence of God? Thank you. Thank you for that question. Is there a beginning and an end to the presence or existence of God?

Well, no. With regard to God's existence, God is uncreated. That is, he didn't have a beginning. This is one of the big debates, you know, about Jesus early on in the history of the church. There were some people that were saying, no, he had a beginning.

There was a time when he was not. And the Christians, the Orthodox, responded by saying, no, Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Word, always was, never had a beginning, is uncreated. And so this is really important for us to understand. Now, sometimes, and this might be why you're asking the question, in places like the book of Revelation, God says, I am the beginning and the end, the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega. There, drawing from the language in the Old Testament, places like the book of Isaiah, where God is identifying himself in this way, but there the focus in particular is not that God began to be at some point, or that there was a period where he wasn't. It's God's power and providence over all of history. The fact that he's sovereign, the fact that he never did have a beginning, that he always has been, and that he is the great King of all.

And so it's important for us to understand that. Now, you also said, and I don't know if these two things are the same in your mind, but what about God's presence? Does God's presence have a beginning and an end? And sometimes in Scripture, the Bible does talk about God removing his presence from people. You think of Saul, for example, towards the end of his life, or the experience of God's presence. And so for us as Christians, there are times where we really feel God's presence or experience the presence of God, and there are other times where we don't have that same sense of the presence of God.

That doesn't always necessarily mean that something bad is happening or that we're in sin. But we have different experiences, if you will, of God's presence, and so while we might experience that differently, that doesn't mean that God ceases to be, or that his presence ceases to be a reality. We have to recognize the presence of God as this reality that's rooted in his promises towards his people. God is faithful to us and to meet with us through his word, through the ordinances of grace that he's given to us, baptism and the Lord's Supper. God is really and truly present there by faith for us, whether we feel it or not. And so a lot of times I think we attach the presence of God to our feelings. We really need to focus on the presence of God being something that's there for us in and through his word, which is objective and is real and is there for us to lay hold of. Thank you for your questions.

Well said. Thanks so much and carefully thank you for listening to CORE Christianity. By the way, our phone lines are open right now. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, here's the number. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. You can call us for the next 15 minutes or so.

So now's the time to jump on the phone. We also get emails here at the CORE and here's one that came in from one of our listeners named Matthew. Matthew says, I attend a very good, solid church that teaches the word of God and there are no red flags to report. However, I received the following email from one of the pastors and it took me by surprise and felt kind of intrusive.

They said this. Hi, Matthew. I trust you're experiencing a wonderful beginning to the autumn season here at CSC. Every member of our congregation is paired with a dedicated pastor for their spiritual well-being. Please don't hesitate to inform me of ways that I can include you in my prayers and offer spiritual assistance during this time. I'll be reaching out in the near future to discuss the possibility of arranging a one on one check in, whether it be over the phone or an in-person meeting. However, if there's an urgent matter on your heart or if you'd prefer to touch base more promptly, kindly inform me and we can arrange a suitable time for us to connect.

And then Matthew asks this. Can you give me your perspective on this email and offer a suggestion on how I might reply? I would say get together with that pastor or elder for coffee. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I think that was a wonderful email. I want to be in a church where there is that kind of relationship between the elders or the pastors and the members of the church where there's really care that's taking place. It sounds like that's what they're doing. They're reaching out to you, wanting to get to know you, because scripture is very clear. The role of elders in the church is to shepherd the flock of God, to care for the flock of God, and part of that is getting to know the members of the church to see how they can be praying for you and the things that you're wrestling with in your life, how they can encourage you according to the word of God. I realize that in our day and age where everything is so individualistic and private, there's nothing wrong with that, but I think here you have an opportunity to really grow together with that congregation.

I think it's wonderful that they're reaching out to you like that and they're being proactive. It sounds like this is a good church to be at, so I would follow up by saying I'd love to get together and maybe think about that conversation and where you are in your Christian life and how you can help your pastors or elders shepherd you and encourage you. I want to say to everyone, if you're a member in a local church and you're looking for pastoral care, help the elders there by being open, by reaching out, by opening up and sharing. That's a wonderful thing that you can do, so I want to encourage you, Matthew, to get more plugged in and to follow up and have that meeting.

Let me just present a contrast to you, Adriel, which I think you'll find interesting. One of my friends just visited a large megachurch that has eight, ten satellite locations, and she went to the mothership, the big church, for the first time on a Saturday night service. She met one person that was the greeter.

No one else spoke to her, and she said it was amazing to her. As soon as the pastor finished his sermon and prayed, everybody got up and bolted out the door. This is a big church.

I want to say maybe 10,000 people with all the different locations, and there was very little interaction, there was very little personal attention, and she just felt empty. You hear that story over and over again, and that's not to say that large churches can't provide pastoral care, but when you get really big and you become a megachurch, that does become difficult. You have to be really creative about how are we going to encourage people to really get folded into Christian community so that you're not just somebody who shows up and then is gone, and when you're gone, nobody notices that you're gone. We want to be a part of the congregation using the gifts that God has given to us, and so that's why I just think that email that Matthew got is so cool.

I mean, that's what you want to see. You want to see the church being proactive and reaching out, and you also, as a member of the church, want to be engaged and open to receiving that pastoral care. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Love to hear from you if you've got something going on at your church that you have a question about. Here's the number. It's 833-THE-CORE, 1-833-843-2673. Of course, you can always leave a voicemail at that number as well. Let's go to Angel calling in from New York.

Angel, what's your question for Adriel? Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you.

Yes. Well, praise the Lord, Pastor Angel. I cannot believe that this is the first time I ever called you guys live rather than hear my pre-recorded messages, and you were just about to play my voicemail, but I cannot believe that I got through today. I listened to you guys on the Amazon Alexa, and this is the first time I ever listened to you live, so I just want to thank you guys. And also, I listened to you guys as well on family radio from time to time, because sometimes you were on a Sunday morning air course, and I hear you preaching. I was like, hey, that's Pastor Adriel Sanchez on family radio, and I can go on and on and on. Well, Angel, thank you so much.

Super encouraging, brother, and glad to have you on the air live, and may the Lord bless you. So what question do you have for us today? All right. Well, I have a question, and then if you'd like to have a follow-up to my question, I don't mind, okay?

Okay. Now, I love music. I'm a musician. I'm a blind and visually impaired musician. So what type of music do you think should be played at a church, because I heard a radio station not related to you, and they were talking about a church in Canada that was talking about drag queens, and the music that they played was not praise and worship music.

Instead, it was drag queens, and they had the children and the adults dancing up and down their seats. So I was thinking about what type of music do you think should be played in a church service as long as it is for God's glory. Hang up and listen. God bless you.

Okay. Well, Angel, I mean, I can definitely say drag queen music or whatever that was, that's definitely not something that should be happening in church or libraries or any number of other places. With regard to what we do on a Sunday morning in worship, I think the goal is to focus our attention on the Lord. I think the music should be done well. You know, I think there are two ways in which things can go wrong with regard to church music, two ways in which it can be distracting. It can be distracting because it's just poorly done.

This is somebody playing piano, let's say, but they don't know how to play piano, right? I mean, it's hard to sing along to that. Or it can be distracting because it's such a performance, it's so over-the-top, kind of like a rock concert or something like that, that really, you know, the congregation, they're not engaged in singing, they're more spectators. And so I think the kind of music that we should play on a Sunday morning for church, one, has to be rooted in God's word. I think there's plenty of examples in scripture of the kinds of things we should be singing to the Lord.

I mean, you have an entire book, the Book of Psalms. And so rooted in scripture, but also it should be conducive to congregational singing, to corporate worship, so as to incorporate the voices of all the people. That doesn't mean you have to be a great singer, and I certainly am not a great singer. I know Bill happens to be a pretty good singer, and maybe he'll give us an example of that.

Okay, maybe someday. But that's the thing. You don't have to be a great singer, but the goal is to incorporate the voices of all of God's people to make a joyful noise to the Lord. Paul in Ephesians 5, verse 19, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another.

Out of reverence for Christ. And so is that what's happening in the context of our corporate worship? Are we singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, songs that are full of thanksgiving and fixing our attention on God and what He's done for us, His redemptive work? It's not about me primarily. I'm not singing about myself. I'm singing to the Lord to praise Him, to worship Him. And again, Scripture gives us so many of those words in places like the Psalter.

Is that happening? And then you said, well, what about the genre? There are some things that are off limits. You mentioned, again, the drag queen. I don't even know what that was, but let's just say drag queens, no.

The answer is no. But what about different styles? And I think here there's some flexibility, but again, what we don't want it to be is a distraction.

We don't want it to be so identified with one group or subgroup that it doesn't include everybody. This is just the music for young people, but if you're older, you're not going to be able to sing, or if you're younger, you're not going to be able to sing it because just for this one kind of a group, I think the goal with Christian worship is to fold everyone in and to direct our focus onto the Lord through Scripture. And so, God bless you. It's so good to hear from you on the live broadcast. Thank you for reaching out to us, and I hope that our work here at CORE Christianity continues to be a blessing and an encouragement in your life, and may the Lord bless you today. God bless. Angel, thanks so much for listening to CORE Christianity.

We really do appreciate you so much. By the way, we have a great resource here at the CORE we want to tell you about. We often get calls from Catholic listeners. We have a lot of Protestants and Catholics who listen to this program. Sometimes there's some confusion about Catholic doctrine versus Protestant doctrine, and sometimes even in families there can be differences of opinion, and we've created this resource to really spell out what some of those significant differences are between those two faith traditions. Yeah, the resource is called What Still Divides Us? The Differences Between Protestants and Roman Catholics. And if this is a conversation you're having with friends or family members, or if this is just something you're interested in learning more about, I want to encourage you to pick up this booklet over at corechristianity.com forward slash radio.

Again, it's called What Still Divides Us. And when you're on our website, feel free to browse around for some of the other great resources we have. A lot of them are absolutely free. Our CORE questions, our CORE guides. We also have some awesome Bible studies. If you're a small group leader or maybe leading a Sunday school class at your church, I encourage you to check out some of those studies. They are really, really helpful, help you grow in your faith either individually or in a group setting. You can find them all at corechristianity.com. Let's go to Robert calling in from Missouri. Robert, what's your question for Adriel?

I enjoy your program. I just had one question about 1 Corinthians 15, verse 50. I believe Paul teaches the Corinthians about the kingdom of God. It says, The flesh and the blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption. I just wondered, does that mean we have to die and go to heaven before we can be included in the kingdom?

Excellent question. Here, in particular, Robert, the context is the resurrection of the dead, the new creation. Paul is looking forward to the consummation of human history, the final act, if you will, in God's redemptive plan, that is the resurrection of the body. What he's saying is, when we're thinking about that new creation, the everlasting kingdom, the glorification of the whole world, flesh and blood can't inherit that.

There needs to be a transformation. The resurrection is what prepares us, gives us that glorified body to inherit that. When we die prior to the resurrection, the final judgment hasn't happened yet, we are immediately brought into the presence of the Lord and dwell with Him in perfection, waiting for the time of resurrection. Again, it's that time that Paul is looking at and looking forward to in 1 Corinthians 15. It's what we all look forward to as believers in Christ.

Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. You can always leave us a voicemail with your question. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to a voicemail that came in from Justin. Just curious, Pastor Adriel, on your take with the recent news of a celebrity TV star, Kat Von D, who was previously, I think, engaged in some witchcraft and some dark things and then was recently baptized. Just wondering if we as Christians should ever be skeptical about that or how we should maybe approach that and really just wanted to get your take on that.

Thanks so much. Well, I mean, my take is praise God if this person has turned to the Lord. I've heard about this, and I know that apparently she had quite a big following, and God can save whoever He wants. I mean, the Gospel is for sinners, and my hope would be that this is legit, that this is someone who's truly embraced the Gospel. I think a lot of times we as Christians, one of the problems is we do sort of have this issue with celebrity culture and celebrity pastors and putting people on pedestals. In terms of our response, I think one thing we don't want to do is to look to this person as some sort of Christian hero all of a sudden.

No, when somebody turns to the Lord, they enter into a time of really growing. And so I would say pray for them. Pray for her.

Pray for Kat Von D that the Lord would bless her, and I'm sure that there's a lot of spiritual warfare and attack going on right now. And so pray that the Lord would sustain this person, that the Lord would keep her, that her faith would indeed be true and genuine, that she would grow in a love for Jesus. And I think as brothers and sisters in Christ, we want to be supportive of this more than anything.

And so that's what I would say. And then again, not focusing on the celebrity aspect, but recognizing that when it comes to the Gospel and before the Lord, we're all on equal playing field. We're all sinners, desperately in need of God's grace. And so this is just another sinner who's been washed by the blood of Jesus. And so, as Jesus said, there's a celebration in heaven whenever that happens.

I think we should celebrate. We should say praise the Lord and we should encourage one another and pray for one another that we would indeed be preserved by the grace of God until the final day when we stand before him and rejoice with all the saints. God bless. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, go to corechristianity.com forward slash radio, or you can call us at 1-833-843-2673.

That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, let us know how we can be praying for you and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.