Jumbie Leggo! Don’t Scare the Kids!

Editor: Earlier in the month of November, children asked about jumbie – spirits of dead people who came out of their graves and roamed the streets. The look of great fear was in their eyes. It is very important that children be taught the TRUTH about the dead. Neither parents nor others should mislead them, making them scared. Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10 states in part: “The dead know not any thing…their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished …there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” According to these verses, dead persons know nothing; they cannot love or hate us; they cannot do anything. The dead are unconscious, not existing anywhere. Hence, a dead person DOES NOT have a spirit that comes out of his or her grave in early November or at any time. When Lazarus died, he knew nothing during the four days he was in the tomb. (John 11:14, 17, 39)  Only after Jesus resurrected Lazarus back to life did he know things again. (John 11: 43, 44) Therefore, the only time a dead person will live again is when Jesus Christ performs the future resurrection that Acts 24:15 mentions. God hates lying as Ephesians 4:25 proves. So wise parents and others will not mislead children and scare them about the condition of the dead. They will tell them the Truth, thus setting their minds free from fear. John 8:32.

Simeon James