Should a christian celebrate Christmas

[gttmj]

I was given a very good outline on this subject that was very convincing. I have also compared it to the Bible. it seem to me that we (christians) shouldn't be. Could you reflect some facts on this topic. Thanks Guy

[Jim]

As the secular hedonistic world and society does, so we should not. "Christmas" is simply a household name. Should we celebrate the birth of Christ? Absolutely, but not in the way the world would have us do it.

Love in Christ,

Jim

[Brother Tim]

Because it is a significant time of the year when even worldly people will be more open, it should be used as a part of our witness. We once had a neighborhood man just "wander up" to a Christmas program that our school kids were putting on. It was Christmas time and he just "felt" the need to go to church. He came to me after the program and asked to talk. By the end of the evening he was a new baby in Christ. In the years to follow, he married one of our school teachers, became a deacon in the church, and has been a faithful servant ever since.

[Jim]

Amen to that brother!

[Harold]

I SAY NO

The MAS is a bloodless killing of Jesus That came from PAGAN worship
The god that you eat.

CHRIST-mas

This MAS has been done sence nimrod and the tower
Here WE are told not to serve our GOD as others serve there gods
where are we ever told to celibrate birthdays (exp-GOD's)

What does the Bible have to say about celibrating birthdays?
Rember John's head.

Dut 12:28-32

28: Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God.
29: When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;
30: Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.31: Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
32: What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

FIRE SUIT NOW ON

just my $.02
Harold

[Davo]

Even the word is blasphemous. A mass for Christ.

[chineseconservative]

Okay did you know that December 25 was celebrated as pagan day long before Jesus was born? The Bible says that the angels of the Lord announced Jesus' birth to sheperds watching their flock at night. Guess what in Israeli winters it is too cold for sheperds to be out at night so his birth couldn't have been during the winter. Emperor Constantine was the one who emerged the Roman holiday with Christian traditions. This is also why during Easter we have the Easter Bunny with colored eggs these are Roman symbols of fertility.

[George]

Chineseconservative, I don't know where you got your information or who taught it to you but it does not come from Bible study. The things you have stated and the things stated in the beginning of this thread are far from Truth. Let me give you the text of a document done by Dr. R B Ouellette, Pastor of First Baptist Church in Bridgeport, Michigan. Dr. Ouellette is a highly respected man among fundamentalists and is one of the best preachers I have ever heard. I have had the pleasure of meeting him and hearing him preach a number of times. The following is his writing on the subject of Christmas as gleaned from the Bible and supported by Bible references as well as historical data. I must add that if anyone has a problem with this dissertation they should contact Dr. Ouellette and not me.

Was Jesus Born on December 25?
By Dr. R. B. Ouellette
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Bridgeport, Michigan
Sword Of The Lord Website

There are people to whom the celebration of Christmas, or not celebrating, is a major issue. I don’t believe this is the kind of issue over which people should break fellowship. It’s not a fundamental of the Faith. We ought to be able to get along with God’s people unless there are substantive scriptural issues on which we cannot agree.

However, this is also not an issue on which we have to be confused. Careful study and comparing Scripture with Scripture allows us to arrive at a conclusion based, not on someone’s opinions, but on the Word of God.

I. The Common Teaching (Three Erroneous Ideas)
The common but incorrect teaching is that we don’t really know when Jesus was born, and sometimes there is a corollary teaching that Christians should not celebrate Christmas. The people who promote this belief say that December 25 is just adopted from a pagan holiday with a veneer of Christianity covering it. This common teaching is not without some basis in historical fact.

In the fourth century, the Roman emperor Constantine was facing a large battle against rather significant odds. He claimed he had a vision and saw a cross. A voice said, “In the sign of this cross, conquer!” He went out and won the battle.
As a result, he made Christianity the official religion of the empire. But it was not for most people a genuine conversion. Since the pagan priests in their temples were looking at unemployment, they simply added a few rituals, changed a few names and called themselves Christians.

They gave Christian names to pagan practices. That is the true beginning of the Roman Catholic Church. It wans't’t started by Peter. And that’s also the source of many of the errors of the Catholics. They worship Mary because pagan priests changed the name of their goddesses and people followed right along.
Those who object to celebrating Christmas and declare that we do not know when Jesus was born typically teach the following.

Error Number One: December 25 Was Celebrated as the Mithraic Feast Day
Mithra was the Persian version of the Hindu sun god Mitra. According to the Zoroastrian religion, Mithra was the god of light, and his feast was celebrated each year on December 25. At the time when Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of Rome, worship of Mithra was very widespread among the empire, particularly among the soldiers of the Roman army.

Error Number Two: Christmas Trees and Decorations Forbidden by Scripture
People who object to Christmas trees most often refer to Jeremiah 10 as their proof text:
“For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
“They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.” Jeremiah 10:3,4
They say that this passage is referring to our custom of putting up and decorating Christmas trees. However, if you look at the surrounding verses rather than taking those verses in isolation, the context clearly is talking about idols made from trees. The prophet says that since they cannot speak or move and have no power, there is no need to be afraid of false idols (verse 5).

Error Number Three: Roman Catholic Church Took Pagan Zoroastrian Holiday and Renamed It “Christ’s Mass”
The first recorded celebration of Christmas on December 25 in the Roman Empire took place in a.d. 336, twenty-two years after “Christianity” became the official religion. There is no question that much of the timing and some of the elements of early Christmas celebrations came from pagan religions.
This association led many Christians to frown on the celebration of Christmas. In fact, in the early days of Massachusetts Bay Colony, a fine of five shillings was imposed on anyone found following the “popish tradition” of celebrating Christmas.

II. The Contradictory Truth
In contrast to what some teach regarding the celebration of Christmas and timing of Christ’s birth, I believe there is much to be gained by studying history and Scripture to arrive at an honest conclusion.

A. The Christmas Tree Has Christian Origin
In Dr. John R. Rice’s sermon “Should a Christian Observe Christmas?” which is in the book Great Preaching on Christmas, he recounts the story of the origin of the Christmas tree.
In the eighth century, a missionary named Boniface went to Germany to preach Christ. The Germanic tribes worshiped the oak tree. They thought of it as a symbol of deity. Boniface told them the oak tree was a poor symbol for God. It sheds its leaves and appears to die each winter. The tree that should remind them of God, he said, was the evergreen. It is always green and thriving.

Christmas trees became popular in England primarily through the influence of the German-born Prince Albert, husband of England’s Queen Victoria. In America they were introduced by the Dutch (German) immigrants to Pennsylvania.

Because the Christmas tree has a Christian origin and is not forbidden in Scripture, there is no reason to preach against it and cut people off from what can be a very enjoyable and memorable part of celebrating the birth of Christ.

B. The Bible Tells With Great Precision When Christ Was Born
It is true that Scripture does not give us an exact date for the birth of Christ. However, through careful study, we can demonstrate that Jesus was indeed born very close to the traditional date of December 25.

1. The Hebrew religious year begins with the month Nisan. The Hebrew calendar has 354 days instead of 365 days. So their calendar does not exactly line up with the one we use. The Hebrew month Nisan roughly corresponds with mid-March to mid-April on our calendar. In this month they celebrate the Passover and Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. The first month of the Hebrew religious year is the month Nisan.

2. The priests who served in the temple served after a pattern established by King David. According to 1 Chronicles 24, the descendants of Aaron were divided by David into twenty-four groups to serve two roles—“governors of the sanctuary and governors of the house of God” (1 Chronicles 24:5). Each group of priests served according to a schedule drawn up by the casting of lots (verses 7–18).

The system David set in place correlated the courses (groups) of priests to the months. The same pattern was followed for the military and the priesthood (1 Chronicles 27). This meant that each group knew when they were due to leave their homes and go to Jerusalem for their time of service.

According to 1 Chronicles 24:10 the family of Abijah was assigned the eighth course. That meant that Abijah and his descendants after him would fulfill their duty to serve in the eighth month.

3. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, served in the eighth month. Luke 1:5 says, “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judæa, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia [Abijah]: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.”

As a descendant of Abijah, Zacharias would have served in the temple in the eighth month of the Hebrew calendar, the month Heshvan. Heshvan corresponds to mid-October to mid-November on our calendar. Zacharias was fulfilling his normal term of service when the angel Gabriel appeared and told him he and Elisabeth were going to have a son.

4. Zacharias would have completed his service and gone home between the middle and end of October. The Bible tells us that Zacharias stayed and completed his normal duties in the temple before returning home (Luke 1:23). It was shortly after his return that Elisabeth conceived as promised by the angel. The most likely date, therefore, for John the Baptist’s conception was the end of October.

I first came across this timeline in a study done by John Stormer, a well-known author. We are told that Elisabeth hid herself five months after conceiving John
(Luke 1:24).

5. Gabriel appeared to Mary in the sixth month of Elisabeth’s pregnancy to announce the birth of Christ. The start of the sixth month of Elisabeth’s pregnancy would have probably been close to the end of March. It was at that time that Gabriel announced to Mary that she would be the mother of the Messiah. He also told her that her cousin Elisabeth was pregnant (Luke 1:26–36).

6. Normal gestation for a human baby is approximately 270 days. The angel Gabriel made his announcement to Mary somewhere close to March 31 on our calendar. If you add 270 days to that, you come to December 25. We do not know for certain that Jesus was born on that exact day, but a careful study of Scripture gives us good reason to believe that it was very close to that date.

C. Lambs Are Born at Christmastime
John Stormer talked about a conversation he had with one of his sons-in-law who is an agriculture major. He told his son-in-law about his findings on the birth of Christ, and he confirmed the timing with this additional piece of information. Ewes commonly become pregnant in July, just after the summer solstice.

The normal gestation period for a lamb is just over five months. That means the lambs are usually born in middle to late December. Stormer also related his conversation with a rancher’s wife in Montana. When he asked to verify this information, she confirmed it and added that the men in her church who raised sheep hardly ever got to church at Christmastime. The reason for their absence is that they are so busy with the lambs that are being born.

Shepherds usually stayed out in the field with the sheep at night during the time when lambs were being born.
The shepherds stayed in the field at that time because they wanted to make sure the lambs and the mothers were well taken care of during the birthing process. The shepherds were out in the fields when the angel came to announce the birth of Christ to them (Luke 2:8–12).

Thus we have two separate verifications from the scriptural chronology and the account of Christ’s birth that Jesus was born around Christmastime. There are some people who honestly object to celebrating Christmas. But it is not legitimate for them to do so on the basis that Jesus was not born at that time.

Certainly there are things associated with Christmas, especially here in America, that are of concern to all of us. Santa Claus is a fictional character about whom I believe you ought to tell your kids the truth. Don’t teach your children Santa Claus brings them presents. Why would you want some stranger to get the credit when you are the one who spends all the money? I never have understood that.

It’s dangerous to build up falsehoods. If you lie to them about Santa Claus, eventually they’ll wonder if you lied to them about other things as well. The excessive materialism of our culture can easily overwhelm the meaning of Christmas. But if things are kept in their proper perspective, there is absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating the birth of Christ.

III. The Consequences Taught
Understanding the truth about the birth of Christ from a careful study of the Word of God rather than accepting the traditions of what others teach us is important. From such study we not only learn the truth about Christmas, but we also learn much about the Bible and how God works as well.

A. The Bible Adds Up
It’s fascinating to me that I can take what the Bible gives me and arrive at a logical conclusion. Even if people hadn’t been celebrating Christ’s birth on December 25 for centuries, we would still have the record of the shepherds in the fields with their lambs and the calendar calculations from Zacharias’ service that would establish that as the time of year Christ was born.

You could study the Bible for ten hours a day for the rest of your life and never run out of things to learn. God has given us a wonderful Book. If you find something that doesn’t seem to add up, it’s your adding, not the Bible’s numbers, that is at fault.

If you don’t see how something in the Bible could be true, don’t assume that the Bible is wrong—it isn’t. Be patient and be attentive. Eventually somebody will figure it out.

Skeptics used to criticize the Bible account of the birth of Christ because Luke talked about it being “when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.” They said Cyrenius wasn’t governor of Syria until years later.

When they dug a little deeper into the archaeological record, they found that twice Cyrenius had been governor of Syria. The first time he was governor was when Christ was born, and the second time was later. I’ve yet to see any published articles in any of the national news journals admitting that the skeptics were wrong and the Bible had been proven right. But the Bible record stands every test and challenge.

People used to criticize the Bible because there was no evidence of the race called the Hittites. Through the years the archaeologists continued digging. Ultimately they found ample proof of the existence of the Hittites. Given enough time the scientific investigators will usually catch up with the Bible.

B. The Bible Has Much More to Tell Than What Has Been Learned
Have you ever thought, I’ve read the Bible so much, there’s nothing new for me to learn? That’s wrong. I had a man tell me once, “I’ve been in church so long, there’s no sermon I haven’t heard. I’ve heard all the sermons there are to preach.” I said to him, “I haven’t even heard all of my sermons yet.”

We always have more to learn. I read the Bible through several times each year. Every two months, I read through the New Testament. Every three months, I read through the Old Testament. I do not discover deep and wonderful truths every day, but I’m always seeing things I had not seen before.
For example, I preached a sermon once about Phinehas. He was Aaron’s grandson who stopped a plague by killing the Israelite who brought a Midianite woman into his tent (Numbers 25:6–8). I mentioned in passing in the message that later on in his life Phinehas made it into the Promised Land (Joshua 22:13). Someone came up to me after church and said he must have been under twenty because all the men twenty years old and up died in the wilderness except for Caleb and Joshua.
I read more carefully and found that the death penalty pronounced on all the men twenty years and older did not apply to the Levites. They were not counted when the people were numbered (Numbers 26:62,63). The Levites all got to go to the Promised Land, regardless of their age. It was there all the time in the Word of God. I just hadn’t seen it before.

C. The Bible, Therefore, Is Worthy of Careful Study
I believe you should read the Bible like a person who is mining for gold. I have a chunk of gold ore in my office that somebody gave me. Everything in that rock that looks like gold isn’t gold. The sparkly stuff is fool’s gold. The real gold looks more like rust.

It would take fifteen tons of ore like the rock I have to get one ounce of pure gold. When you read the Bible for your personal devotions, look for gold. Don’t try to examine every rock. Don’t try to pulverize it and do a chemical analysis. Just look till you find some gold. Look for nuggets. Don’t get stuck on something that you don’t fully understand.

H. A. Ironside was once asked, “What do you do with all the hard parts in the Bible?” He said, “I do the same thing I do when I’m eating fish. I put the bones on the side of the plate for someone else to choke on, and I eat the rest of the fish.”
When I’m having devotions, I don’t try to do an in-depth analysis. But there should also be times when you study in depth. When something arrests your attention, make a note of it so you can follow it up at a later time. Study the Bible, just as we did with finding the timeline for the birth of Christ, until you come up with the answer. You’ll find fascinating and amazing truths as you carefully study the Word of God.

D. God’s Timing Is Perfect
Isn’t it interesting that the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29) was born at the same time the lambs out in the field were being born? Paul said that Jesus was born, “when the fulness of the time was come”
(Galatians 4:4). God never does anything accidentally.
Bethlehem is only a few miles from Jerusalem. It’s very possible that the shepherds to whom the angel announced the birth of Christ were the same shepherds who kept the sheep for the temple to provide the lambs for the sacrifices. The symbolism associated with the birth of Christ is very powerful.
We can always count on God to work at exactly the right time in exactly the right way. One of the things that careful study of God’s Word does for us is to build our faith by showing us how God makes “every thing beautiful in his time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

This is submittted so that those who are so terribly critical of the celebration of Christmas might have the opportunity to look at the subject from the standpoint of the Bible and be able to put aside what they may have heard from some other source. As a fundamental Baptist I believe the Bible is the SOLE authority for both faith and practice. I search out the things I am told in the Bible rather than accept someone's say-so about what is supposedly truth and what is not.

In Christ,
George

[ChuckieTrout]

Thank you George for that wonderful message!!! I've made a printout of that one for future reference. I'm challenged of your time & ability to get through the scripture so quickly...I feel fortunate to read them through once a year, but with similar results finding new nuggets nearly every time I read. The time line was excellent.
What a special time of year to focus ones attention on Christ . The world tries to blot it out at every opportunity which makes application of our Christmas Holy'days testimony even more special (see Post #3 of Brother Tims).
A candle-light communion service (Thanksgiving eve & Christmas eve) is so appropriate this time of year (I Cor. 11:25) "After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me."

[Jim]

Excellent post George, that is some good information!

Along with that, we may ought to look at Romans 14. If one does not want to put up a Christmas tree, or ignore Christmas simply because of the lineage of the term, then don't do it.

If one has no problem with putting up a Christmas tree, and have no issue with the term "Christmas" and it's lineage, and are under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, then give God the Glory for giving us His Son Jesus Christ, and enjoy the time of meditation upon it and remembrance.

I feel this is one of those things that falls under the weak/strong brother, and who eats meat and who drinks milk, and we need to be careful not to become legalistic about things.

Is a christmas tree going to cause our brother to stumble, or is our brother being judgmental and legalistic by telling us that we should not have a christmas tree? That is for you and God alone to decide. We can also apply that to the term Christmas.

I personally do not believe the christmas tree itself "honors" the Lord, However, we put one up each year because it brings my family together to do something together, and we sing hymns and carols, making a warm and blessed time together. Does the Lord get the glory and honour from it? Absolutely. Not because of the tree, but because of the charity we have with each other, which we should be communicating to our family every day of the year.

This time of the year, I only focus on Christs' birth, and the fact that God loved us so much that He sent us His only begotten Son, not because there is a christmas tree in the house or the fact that is is called "christmas".

And one needs to be thinking about one more thing. If the term "Christmas" is bad for christians, then why is the world-system trying so hard to do away with the name? Are you helping them accomplish their goal by agreeing with them?

Love in Christ,

Jim

[Davo]

Does the scripture actually say it is the time when lambs are born?

We are not actually told to celebrate Jesus's birthday. There are only two birthdays mentioned in the scripture, as far as I can remember and they both resulted in someone losing their head.

[Davo]

We have a lectern with a large open bible at our church. When they had a Christmas tree, this was put in the place of the lectern which was then relegated to the side of the church.

I said we should not have a tree in the church, and I was told that over recent years it has been vastly reduced in size. I remarked that when the Israelites departed from god they introduced trees (groves) into their worship. Last year we did not have a tree, but some members were not happy.

A few years ago,I did some research on a couple of baptist chapels in the early 1800s, via letters and minutes. Neither ever mentioned christmas, even for letters and minutes around that time and one actually had a church meeting on the 25th December.

[George]

Quote:This time of the year, I only focus on Christs' birth, and the fact that God loved us so much that He sent us His only begotten Son, not because there is a Christmas tree in the house or the fact that is is called "Christmas".

And one needs to be thinking about one more thing. If the term "Christmas" is bad for Christians, then why is the world-system trying so hard to do away with the name? Are you helping them accomplish their goal by agreeing with them?

Very true Brother Jim and very well said. Do we worship the tree? I don't, that is for sure. The tree reminds me of what the event that took place a little over 2000 years ago means to me and to the rest of humankind.

I had not thought about playing into the hands of the world by not celebrating Christmas. They certainly are trying very hard to eliminate that word from the English language.

Brother Davo, may I ask what the difference is between having an open Bible on a lectern and having a tree in the front of the Church is? I am completely serious. Compare the two of them. Do you worship the Bible? If not why is it there? Is it a reminder of God and what He did for the world? If so then it serves the same purpose as a tree. (I did not mention anything about the content of the Bible.) It is a reminder.

The cautions in the Bible against trees were done in specific instances and were done because the people were worshiping the trees. Personally outside of some nuts who like to sit in groves of trees at University of California campuses I don't know of anyone who worships trees.

As Brother Jim said, I believe this to be a case of the weaker/stronger Brother and the use of milk versus the use of meat. Is it a sin for me to put up a tree? No. I am not told anywhere in the Bible to not do it. Actually the Bible does not tell us to not place trees in Church either. Will the placing of a Christmas tree in my home or in my church for that matter cause me to sin? No.

In Christ,
George

[Davo]

George Wrote:The tree reminds me of what the event that took place a little over 2000 years ago means to me and to the rest of humankind.

Brother George, I cannot see how a tree reminds you.

Who celebrates Christmas? All the world, well nearly,

[George]

Quote:Who celebrates Christmas? All the world, well nearly,

And the point is? Some celebrate Christmas merely for the holiday and the season. Those of us who are Christian celebrate it for the birth of our Saviour.

In Christ,
George