The Gospel of Jesus' Wife

Today, many academics and their disciples scoff at the efforts of Christian Apologists in the past who seemed desperate to prove the veracity of the Bible through archaelolgy, paleography, epigraphy, numismatics, or any piece of debris that the ancients threw into their trash piles.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was the source of great and enduring controversy for many reasons. One reason was that among those manuscripts were writings from the Hebrew Bible that basically demonstrated that the Hebrew Text we have received today had been faithfully copied from ancient times.

That simple fact demolished the generations of unbelieving scholarship that sought to undermine the text of the Bible by questioning the reliability of its transmission from generation to generation.

Irony plays into this, because there are many unbelieving scholars today who pin their hopes of undermining the Scriptures and the doctrine of God's Word on the discovery of some previously unknown manuscripts. These discovered manuscripts are held up as proof that the Bible is a dishonest representation of Christ and His teaching.

The latest attempt at this was just published at the International Congress of Coptic Studies by Karen L. King in Rome last week.

Her manuscript is a papyrus fragment about the size of a business card, acquired from an unnamed collector. It happened to be in a collection of manuscripts that this collector bought, and no one knows where the slip of papyrus came from.

The writing is in Coptic (Egyptian). King's translation of the fragment is as follows:

Well, according to newspapers like the New York Times: there you have it. A small scrap of paper which came from no-one knows-where and is a part of no-one-knows-what kind of document which unequivocally proves that Jesus was married and that he had a girl as one of his disciples!

The NY Times wrote: "Even with many questions unsettled, the discovery could reignite the debate over whether Jesus was married, whether Mary Magdalene was his wife and whether he had a female disciple. These debates date to the early centuries of Christianity, scholars say. But they are relevant today, when global Christianity is roiling over the place of women in ministry and the boundaries of marriage."

In that paragraph, the Times' author, Laura Goodstien,  has told us why she chose to publish an article about this scrap in their paper. The issue of Gay marriage is at the forefront in this election cycle. The Roman Catholic church is currently being attacked because of its Scriptural and traditional stance against women in the priesthood. Many mainstream protestant and reformed denominations are changing their theology away from the Biblical teaching to adapt their teaching and practice against the Sixth Commandment in accordance with popular society.

The discovery and publication of this scrap would appear to lend some academic credibility to these changes from the Bible's teaching.

But the scholars are never without their own bias and agenda. Consider the theological and political direction of Dr. Karen King's other publications: (from the Harvard website)

• The Secret Revelation of John
• The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle
• What Is Gnosticism?
• Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity (with Elaine Pagels)
• Revelation of the Unknowable God. 
• Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (ed.) 
• Women and Goddess Traditions in Antiquity and Today (ed.).

 "Her particular theoretical interests are in discourses of normativity (orthodoxy and heresy), gender studies, and religion and violence."

There is nothing in the scrap that calls the text a "Gospel." That was a term used by King to provoke interest and controversy.

Perhaps the controversy around the "Gospel of Judas" may be the best illustration of what happens when such texts are discovered and published in sensational ways. National Geographic did a big production about how that manuscript undermined key teachings of Scripture and the Church. Then later analysis showed that the hoopla was all incorrect--that the so called "Gospel" of Judas didn't say anything that it was made out to say.

So how should a Christian understand and react to discoveries like this? 

Consider the teaching in this prayer.

Lord Jesus Christ, with us abide,
For round us falls the eventide;
Nor let Thy Word, that heav'nly light,
For us be ever veiled in night.

In these last days of sore distress
Grant us, dear Lord, true steadfastness
That pure we keep, till life is spent,
Thy holy Word and Sacrament.

Lord Jesus, help, Thy Church uphold,
For we are sluggish, thoughtless, cold.
O prosper well Thy Word of grace
And spread its truth in ev'ry place!

O keep us in Thy Word, we pray;
The guile and rage of Satan stay!
O may Thy mercy never cease!
Give concord, patience, courage, peace.

O God, how sin's dread works abound!
Throughout the earth no rest is found,
And falsehood's spirit wide has spread,
And error boldly rears its head.

And ever is there something new
Devised to change Thy doctrine true;
Lord Jesus! as Thou still dost reign,
Those vain presumptuous minds restrain;

And as the cause and glory, Lord,
Are Thine, not ours, to us afford
Thy help and strength and constancy.
And keep us ever true to Thee.

Thy Word shall fortify us hence,
It is Thy Church's sure defense;
O let in its pow'r confide,
That we may seek no other guide.

O grant that in Thy holy Word
We here may live and die, dear Lord;
And when our journey endeth here,
Receive us into glory there.

False Messiah Sun Myung Moon Dies

Sun Myung Moon passed away today. He was the founder of the Unification Church in 1954. The full name of his cult is "The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity".

Rev. Joshua Cotter, vice president of the Unification Church USA, said Sunday that “the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, revered by millions as the Messiah and True Parent, who was born in Korea but who lived more than 40 years in America … has ascended.”  (WT article)

The Unification Church, commonly called "Moonism" in the United States, claims about 3 million members world-wide.

Moon claimed that Jesus came to him in 1935 and told him to finish the work of establishing the kingdom of God on earth. Moon wrote his book The Divine Principle (published 1945) about his theology and plan to unite Christianity and the world into a one-world/one-religion peace movement.

Moon claims to be the messiah of the Second Coming and his wife is the Holy Spirit. He and his wife, called The True Parents where he is the True Father and his wife the True Mother, are the first couple to be able to bring forth children with no original sin. "The cross is the symbol of the defeat of Christianity." The Bible is considered scripture along with Moon’s work "Divine Principles." Sin is genetically based. It is not a moral issue. The thieves on the cross represent political movements. The thief on the right side of Jesus represents democracy. The thief on the left of Jesus is communism. Adam and Eve fell because of sexual sin. Eve had sexual relations with Satan. Jesus is a ‘true person’ though not God in flesh. The Holy Spirit is ‘the True Mother,’ or ‘the Second Eve." The church denies the doctrine of the Trinity.

Nature is dualistic: male and female, positive and negative, external and internal. God has an external and internal aspect called the Universal Prime Energy.  It creates, develops, and sustains the cosmos. God's internal aspect of has to do with personhood - motivation, purpose and identity.

People determine their own future place in the spirit world after death through what they do here on earth. (CARM Unification Church)

Moon and his Unification Church have invested very heavily in quite diverse areas over the years. Just a few examples of media investments: Moon founded News World Communications in 1976 which purchased United Press International in 2000. In 1982 they founded the Washington Times.

What this means is that the non-Christian cult of Moonism has great power and influence in the world through many investments. It remains to be seen how the organization will shake down now that the founder/messiah has died.

Moon had instituted a political party in S. Korea called "The Party for God, Peace, Unification, and Home." This political group is now reported to be in charge of every polling station in S. Korea. It was Moon's intent to have this political group spread to Japan and the U.S.

Another Dooms-Day Prediction

I was reading the news this morning, watching a video of Garrett McNamera's new record setting surf on the face of a 78 foot wave off of Nazare, Portugal last November. Ads sometimes pop up to obscure the videos. One that popped up was "The End-Time Is Here: 2008 Was God's Last Warning. Economic Collapse, WWIII".

Of course I clicked on it. What with the McNamera story I had visions of Gil the Surfer in Niven and Pournel's apocalyptic sci-fi novel Lucifer's Hammer. Gil is a character in that novel who fills out the Sci-fi trope known as "Dying Moment of Awesome" when he surfs out a tsunami created by a cometary impact, only to be swatted out of the sea by a skyscraper.

Turns out the ad was for Ronald Weinland who believes:

May 27, 2012, is the time that I have stated as being the date Jesus Christ will return as King of kings over all government on this earth. For such an event to come to pass, the Trumpets of Revelation must all sound, the United States and dollar collapse, the ten nations of Europe arise to fulfill the final revival of the Holy Roman Empire, and Russia with China must unite against Europe in WWIII.

 His apocalypse page is found at the-end.com.

Weinland is associated with a group called The Church of God. The Church of God is a Millenialistic group following H.W.Armstrong and his Millerite views (not just the end of the world, but requiring the observance of Old Testament holy days) , and the views of Alexander Hislop (Read the section from TCoG page on Pagan Origins).

The Church of God runs the website titled biblical-truth.com where their doctrine is presented in a more organized way.

Weinland and The Church of God are the descendants of Herbert W. Armstrong's "Worldwide Church of God" which published the magazine "The Plain Truth" and had been non-Christian (non-Trinitarian) up until after H.W. Armstrong's death in 1986.

They believe that water baptism by immersion is a required condition for salvation but do not believe that Baptism is a means of grace through which God gives forgiveness. For them, Baptism is merely a law which requires them to show everyone else their faith by the symbolic act of baptism, just another law they are required to obey:

Water baptism is the ordinance ordained of Christ by which we express our FAITH in Christ as Saviour -- our ACCEPTANCE of His death, burial, and resurrection for us, and our repentance of the old life and burial of it, rising to new and higher life henceforth. It is a beautiful ordinance, full of meaning! 

So, we have a denomination that is nominally Christian in that it appears to acknowledge the Trinity. This denomination denies Scripture's teaching on Baptism and the Lord's Supper as means of God's grace and turns them into works of men. The denomination emphasizes the Mosaic Covenant to the obscuring of Salvation by Grace through Faith in Christ alone. They follow the Millerite doctrine and the delusion of Hilsop's anti-Catholic and anti-Christian attacks on the origins of Christian holidays and liturgical practices. They do not have the Word taught in truth and purity and they have no sacraments. They are not the Church of God as taught by God in the Scripture.

May 27th is just a few days away. Too bad they don't remember "The Great Disappointment" very well.

Sure, God could choose to end the world on that day. But the time is up to God, and He has made it clear that no sinful human knows when He will come again:

³⁶ “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. ³⁷ But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. ³⁸ For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. ⁴⁰ Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. ⁴² Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. ⁴³ But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. ⁴⁴ Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Matthew 24)

But there is a passage in this same chapter of Matthew that speaks of Wienland, Hilsop, Miller, Armstrong, The Church of God and others like them:

²³ “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. ²⁴ For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵ See, I have told you beforehand. (Matthew 24)

Weinland is a false teacher based on his teaching about Scripture. His dooms-day prediction is just one facet of that teaching. But this dooms-day teaching is a very clear example of how willing to part from God's written Word.


Just when we appear to be through with Camping, another one crops up.


If Weinland and his group insist on doing according to the Old Testament requirements, let him consider the following from Deuteronomy 18:

²⁰ But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ ²¹ And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’— ²² when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

Under the New Covenant we no longer stone the false prophet, but he is still clearly labeled a false prophet and avoided. So also should Weinland be considered a false prophet and not heeded.

Walk Through the Bible Seminar: To Go or Not?

For those who don't want to take the time to read the full discussion:

Don't bother going to the seminar, open your Bible instead and read it regularly instead of going to seminars that refuse to tell you what is in them.

Their logo

For the rest:

I'm sorry I got to this so late. A few members asked me about a seminar that is being promoted for this weekend at an area church. The seminar is called Walk Through the Bible. And the promoters promise that it will open up your understanding like nothing else ever has.

Of course, the founder and author, Bruce Wilkinson, says this about everything he sells to popular Christian groups and individuals.

Some readers may remember his book The Prayer of Jabez (useful review) where he wrote

"I want to teach you how to pray a daring prayer that God always answers. It is brief—only one sentence with four parts—and tucked away in the Bible, but I believe it contains they key to a life of extraordinary favor with God. This petition has radically changed what I expect from God and what I experience every day by His power. In fact, thousands of believers who are applying its truths are seeing miracles happen on a regular basis."

 Yes, it was all works righteousness. Wilkinson went to Africa and a widely self-promoted mission. That mission was specifically designed not to preach Christ (his own description) but to reform society. Wilkinson's mission failed, in spite of fervently praying The Prayer of Jabez the way Wilkinson taught.

Wilkinson's own website is a very slick and powerful self-promotion. The website for Walk Through the Bible seminars is also very slick, extremely low on teaching content, high on promises and accolades, and offers a large variety of products for sale on the basis of this minimal information.

They do offer a pdf sample of a Walk Through the Bible study Bible. It contains the opening chapters of Genesis and their notes for study. There are a lot of motivational notes, very little about sin and redemption. There are no notes on the sins in Sodom and Gomorrah. This is probably to avoid controversial topics. The main focus is how to do better by conforming one's self to God's plan, and that plan is kind of tricky to see, but they find slogans for the things they like.

Another Lutheran pastor suggested to me that the content was likely based in the false doctrines of Dispensationalism because of the local radio promotions. I didn't find Dispensationalism on the product's website. So that view may be due to the nature of the promoters in our area.

What I did find in the website, besides all kinds of slick products on which to spend money, was this:

The Walk Through the Bible product is aimed at people who feel they don't know the Bible like they should and are looking for a quick and easy way to feel like they have a good sound understanding.

My sense about it is that those who don't really know Scripture will be amazed about what they learn and disappointed that their own pastors have failed them so much in teaching them the "real" truth about God's plan for them in this world. I think that the program will focus on false doctrines that the health and prosperity of the Christian is a sign of God's blessing and promote the false doctrine of social justice as "acts of Christian brotherly love."

I also think that if you know your Bible well you will be sadly disappointed with the seminar, even if some of the teaching gimmicks are cool.

Wilkinson has a track record. We know him by his fruits already. He is a false prophet. Maybe he's good at packaging, just like Rick Warren's 40 Days materials. But in the past it's all been packaging without real sound Biblical content.

Don't waste your money or time. Just open up your own Bible and start reading.

Word of the Week for June 1, 2011

Who is Lying about Christian Holidays? Halloween.

Image via Wikipedia There are three really big secular holidays in the US. The first is Black Thursday—when Christmas Shopping begins, the second is Christmas, the third is Halloween.

Mardi Gras and Carnival come close as big secular events in certain parts of the United States, especially when they coincide with Spring Break.

But there is a lot of new mythology about Halloween that has been invented to claim that Halloween is a pagan holiday. It is not, and it never was.

In the first three centuries after Christ's resurrection, the lives of the martyrs of the Church were commemorated on the day and in the place where they were killed.

There were so many who were killed because of their faith in Christ during those centuries. Throughout the Christian Church different days were set aside not only for each martyr, but a special day for all Saints.

The earliest reference to a day being dedicated to the commemoration of All the Martyrs and All Saints of the Christian Church comes from the 2nd century. The document is titled "The Martyrdom of Polycarp." Polycarp was a Christian killed because he would not deny Christ. The document says: 

Accordingly, we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps. (Chapter 18) [Emphasis added]

Later, a Christian Bishop named Ephraim the Syrian mentions a common All Saints' Day in 373. In 397 St. Basil of Caesarea chose a day when the churches of his bishopric would honor the memories of all Saints known, and unknown, alive or in heaven. Later, John Chrysostom mentions a common day of memorial for the Saints in 407 AD.

In the year 609 or 610 Pope Boniface IV established a date for All Saints' Day on May 13^th. And later, in the early 700s AD, Pope Gregory III changed the date to November 1^st. Decrees like this took some time to propagate from Rome to the more remote areas where the Church was found. But the change in date had nothing to do with any pagan practices. Pope Gregory IV extended the celebration on this day to the entire Western Church in the early 800s. And again, the change took time as it spread from Rome.

The point is this, a common day for commemorating the Saints has been around throughout the Christian Church from very early times. And the fact that it falls on November 1^st today has nothing to do with paganism.

OK, so what does this have to do with Halloween? In the Bible the day begins at sundown or evening. This is why we have Christmas Eve. Halloween is All Hallows' Eve', that is All Saints' Evening. Halloween is the beginning of All Saints' Day starting at sundown on October 31^st.

These days we have “Trick or Treat,” costumes sometimes too gruesome to describe: witches, goblins, werewolves, vampires, zombies, Lady Gaga; Jack-O-Lanterns, skeletons, spooky sounds, grave stones, candy and a celebration of gore and all that is un-Holy.

Many of the Christian Churches in the Reformed traditions claim that Halloween is a pagan celebration. And there are many in the Neopagan and Wiccan communities who have tried hard to make it look like the truth.

Don't ever expect truth from Neopagans and Wiccans. They already live in a fantasy world created by their own fakelore.

The claim is that the old folklore demonstrates where we got Halloween. But folklore does not support the Neopagan or the Wiccan claims about Halloween. Instead they depend on fakelore: invented, and fake, pretend folklore, like Pecos Bill and the song “Follow the Drinking Gourd.”

The typical claims in current sources are that Halloween come from “ancient Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European folk traditions.” With respect to the origins of All Saints' Day these claim are false. With respect to the modern re-paganizing of Halloween, the Neopagan version of Halloween doesn't really come from ancient pagan sources. It comes from modern sources that pretend to be old.

Neopagans and Wiccans like to claim that the source of Halloween is the Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced Sow-in). There are three basic problems with their claim.

1) The celebration of All Saints' Day didn't originate in Ireland or any other area populated by Celts or their descendants. 2) None of the days on which All Saints' Day was celebrated had anything to do with any Celtic holiday. 3) The celebration of All Saints' Day in Celtic regions is documented to be older than the documented celebration of Samhain.

So let us look at each of these three claims:

1) In order for the Neopagan and Wiccan claim that Samhain is the origin of Halloween to be true, then Halloween and All Saints' Day should have started in Celtic areas. But we've already seen that All Saints' Day was celebrated in Syria as early as 373 A.D, in Caesarea in 397 A.D., and in Constatntinople (under Chrysostome—modern Istanbul) by 407 A.D.

All Saints' Day, and Halloween didn't start in the Celtic countries. But it did take some time for the declarations of Rome to reach distant Celtic areas like Ireland.

2) In order for the Neopagan and Wiccan claim that Samhain is the origin of Halloween to be true the particular day chosen should have some significance to the Celts and Samhain. But here we run into some serious problems. According to the best sources, Samhain was a Lunar festival of harvest. That means that the day of Samhain can vary up to a month in difference from any Solar year day. Compare, for example, the wide variety of days upon which Easter can take place. When sources claim that Samhain was October 31 to November 1 osf the modern Solar Calendar they are being dishonest and disingenuious. They are intending to decieve the reader. Only once in about every 30 years would Samhain take place exactly on those dates.

When the reader adds into this the fact that the Western Calendar changed over from the Julian to the Gregorian at different times in different places, the reader can better understand how artificial the Neopagan and Wiccan claims are about Samhain. The Christian Church didn't get things from the pagans, the pagans are trying to claim that Christians stole from them. But the Neopagans and Wiccans cannot even get their calendars straight. And they are hoping that the reader doesn't notice how weak and embarassing their claim is.

3) In order for the Neopagan and Wiccan claim that Samhain is the origin of Halloween to be true Samhain they should be able to prove that Samhain is older than All Saints' Day.

But, in fact, the opposite is true.

We have a manuscript from 843 A.D. Where the Irish Christian Bishop Óengus of Tallaght wrote about the celebration of All Saints' Day. It was celebrated in the Spring of the year at that time and in that place. The Decree of Pope Gregory IV had still not reached Ireland so that All Saints' Day should be celebrated November 1^st.

But the earliest-ever-mention of Samhain in Irish folklore doesn't come until the 10^th Century (Ronald Hutton's 1996 book Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain). There is no mention of Samhain outside of Ireland until centuries later.

These, then, are the facts.

Samhain comes from the 10^th Century A.D. and is a newer invention. All Saints' day is older than Samhain. All Saints' Day came from the practice of honoring the Christian Martyrs in Israel, Turkey, and Syria as early as the 2^nd Century and later.

All Saints' Day and therefore Halloween originated outside the Celtic sphere of influence and had nothing to do with what the Neopagan and Wiccan claims are about its origin.

In fact, the newer holiday, called Samhain, was a Lunar holiday. This means that it could be celebrated on any of 30 or so days in Autumn of a given year depending on when the harvest moon was recognized in Ireland. And very, very rarely did this moon happen on October 31^st. This simple truth cannot be emphasized enough.

Any book or website or article that claims that the ancient Celts celebrated Samhain on October 31 is perpetrating a lie. Modern Neopagans and Wiccans invented their own calendar through the 1970s and 1980s and they chose Oct. 31 to be the day for Samhain. It was a move on their part to put forward the false claim that Halloween started in paganism. 

All Saints' Eve (Halloween) and All Saints' Day have a special place in the commemoration of the Christian Church because of the Reformation. It was on October 31^st, Halloween, that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, Germany. It was on that date he chose to challenge the corruption in the official church about the notion that salvation in Christ could be bought with money or works. All Saints are saved by Grace, through Faith, revealed by God's Word in Christ.

Halloween, October 31^st is Reformation Day. On October 31, 1517 the Church of Christ began to return to the authority of Scripture alone over the traditions and will of man. It was the day that the Church began to return to salvation by Faith in Christ alone over the works of human will and deeds prescribed by humans. The day that the Church began to return to salvation by grace alone, rather than the effort of the individual or that individual's reliance upon the efforts of the saints who had gone before him. It was the day that the Church returned to reliance upon Christ alone and not upon self.

It should not be suprising that Satan and the World have gone to such extremes to defiile Halloween with anything that would distract Christians and the unbelivers from Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia and Solus Christus (Only Scripture, Only Faith, Only Grace, and Only Christ).

And in this world some traditions have beome the mainstay of Halloween. Though these traditions are not necessarily a problem by themselves, they have been claimed by the Neopagans and Wiccans as evidence that Christianity is a fraud and newcomer that has replaced the “Older” so-called “Truth”. But they lie.

Halloween Traditions:

The Haunted House started in the early 1970s. The first records of Haunted Houses were from Cincinati, Ohio where the Jaycees (Junior Chambers of Commerce) introduced the first Haunted Houses as a way to keep kids entertained on Halloween.

So which is older, All Saints Day starting in the 2^nd Century or Haunted Houses starting in the 1970s?

Jack o'Lanterns are an American invention from the mid 1800s. Ireland and Britain had older traditions of carving vegetables into lanterns. But those traditions are not ancient. Historian David J. Skal writes:

Although every modern chronicle of the holiday[ of Halloween] repeats the claim that vegetable lanterns were a time-honored component of Halloween celebrations in the British Isles, none gives any primary documentation. In fact, none of the major nineteenth-century chronicles of British holidays and folk customs make any mention whatsoever of carved lanterns in connection with Halloween. Neither do any of the standard works of the early twentieth century.

It was in 1837 that the term “Jack o' Lantern” first appeared as a term for a carved vegetable lantern. Previously the term referred to the man or boy a town hired to keep the street lamps lit through the night. The pumpkin was used with the cornocopia as a fruit that was displayed throughout fall harvest time in America as a sign of God's providential blessing.

There is a lot of folklore about the Jack O'Lantern, but it is fakelore invented to create a fictional scary history for the Jack O'Lantern. But which is older? All Saints' Day or the Jack O'Lantern?

Trick or Treating is very popular in America and several other countries. In the Middle Ages (1300s to 1500s or so) there was a practice where children or the poor would go from door to door to beg. In some places these beggars would sing or perform in order to get gifts of money or food from householders. While this happened every day of the year, because these beggars had to eat every day, they were particular active on holidays. Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and All Saints' Day were special days when children and adults would go from home to home singing hymns and carols and begging. A good source for what these people would sing is the Oxford Book of Carols.

In Shakespears 1593 play The Two Gentlemen of Verona the character Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas." That's our All Saints' Day, November 1^st.

Wearing costumes on Halloween is first known in Scotland in 1895 and in the United States in 1911. The earliest use ot the words “trick or treat” is from 1927 in the United States. In the early 20^th Century there were thousands of postcards made with Halloween themes, but none of them showed “trick or treating” until the 1930s.

So what is older? All Saints' Day or Trick or Treating?

Halloween, Reformation Day, All Saints' Day is a very special day of the year for the Christian Church. We commemorate all saints past, present, and future with the confession that we cannot save ourselves with our own works, no price we could ever pay would be good enough. But Christ has paid for the whole world. And all belivers in Christ, and these are the Saints, will be raised on the last day to eternal life.