Christmas: Christian or Pagan?

[ThyWord IsTruth]

I agree with J. Dean. Growing up in a Cuban household I was always told that the "Dia de los reyes" was celebrated on Jan 6th. This is the day the three kings came to give gifts to the newborn King, Christ Jesus. My parents while in Cuba never celebrated Christmas only the 6th of January. I also agree that it is a matter of "Christian liberty" as according to Romans 14. Lest we be thrown back into legalistic practices that are in direct opposition to the freedom we have in Christ. Not as a license to sin but as in the non-essentials there is liberty for one to eat meat and another to eat vegetables, all while not offending the weaker brethren.

 

[py3ak]

The Scriptures never told us to celebrate o Christ birthday. Oh yes, she (I can use "she" for the Scriptures or is correct use "it"?) also never told us to celebrate our birthday, but this are different thinks. I also support the other comments that this "party" is from a pagan culture and be translated to the christians, because the "church" (romanism) wanted to be like the world and not different of the world. But I think that we don't need "rock out" everyone because it, but - in love - is necessary teach each one about the necessity to look only to the Scriptures and not to the world's commandments.

"It" is usual for Scripture.

 

[Filipe Luiz C. Machado]

The Scriptures never told us to celebrate o Christ birthday. Oh yes, she (I can use "she" for the Scriptures or is correct use "it"?) also never told us to celebrate our birthday, but this are different thinks. I also support the other comments that this "party" is from a pagan culture and be translated to the christians, because the "church" (romanism) wanted to be like the world and not different of the world. But I think that we don't need "rock out" everyone because it, but - in love - is necessary teach each one about the necessity to look only to the Scriptures and not to the world's commandments.

"It" is usual for Scripture.

Thanks, brother!

 

[py3ak]

You're welcome!

This link should completely settle the debate, by the way.

 

[Unoriginalname]

This link should completely settle the debate, by the way.

 

[Weston Stoler]

You're welcome!

This link should completely settle the debate, by the way.

What about on the 25th of December. That link shall sin against you!

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Presbyterians had the right approach before liberalism weakened that resolve in the latter part of the 19th century. We abolish things abused to idolatry and superstition instead of thinking we can borrow and reform them and safely take fire to our bosom and not be burned later (to apply Prov. 6:27 a bit broadly).
http://www.puritanboard.com/f67/sign-cross-71095/#post910124
http://www.puritanboard.com/f67/sign-cross-71095/#post910133

Calvin is generally conceived as more moderate than say Knox and the Scottish Presbyterians, but barely so and more in approach perhaps. At best he thought holy days trifles to bear until they could be removed; and generally in one tract says there wasn't much in the RCC that didn't fall under the treatment Hezekiah gave the bronze serpent (which he destroyed even though it had at least the pedigree of having been instituted by God). On things abused unto idolatry Gillespie cites this tract in the second link above. Responsio Ad Versipellem Quendam Mediatorem, p. 41–44. [Cf. CR 37 (CO 9), 542. Cf. [French] “Response a Un Certain Moyenneur Rusé”, Recueil des Opuscules (Geneva: Stoer, 1611) 2191–2192. To quote Calvin at length (which Gillespie does not, translation from the French (courtesy of Raymond V. Bottomly):

“… that what is alleged of an Italian writer, that abuse does not take away the good usage, will not be true if one holds to it without exception: because it is not in the least commanded [i.e. it is commanded] to us to prudently watch that by our example we would not offend the infirm brothers, that of never undertaking that which would be illicit. For Saint Paul prohibits offending the brothers in eating of flesh which was sacrificed to idols, and speaks of one kind, he always gives as a general rule that we are to keep ourselves, from troubling the consciences of the weak by a bad or damaging example. Indeed, one would speak better and more wholesomely when one says that what God himself ordains may not be abolished for wrong use or abuse that is committed against it: but it is necessary to abstain from these things which, after they have been corrupted with error by human ordinance, if the usage of these is harmful and scandalizes the brothers. And here I marvel how this “Reformer”, finally, after granting that sometimes superstitions, ordained by public authority, have such strong popularity that it is necessary to take them away from the realm of man (like we read having been done by Hezekiah regarding the bronze serpent), yet he does not even a little consider that his shrewdness is a horror to ways of good conduct: in defending some rituals as supportable, he would oblige that all superstitions if they are weighty enough, should be considered as safe and whole. For what is there in the papacy that would not resemble a bronze serpent, if only at its beginning? Moses had it made and forged by the commandment of God: he had it kept for a sign of recognition. Among the virtues of Hezekiah that we are told is that he had it broken and reduced to ash. The superstitions for the most part, against that which true servants of God battle today, are spreading from here to who knows, as covered pits in the ground, seeing the same are filled with detestable errors, which can never be erased, unless that usage of them be taken away. Why, therefore, do we not confess simply that which is true, that this remedy is needed in order to remove the filth from the church?”]
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[Rev. Todd Ruddell]

I agree with J. Dean. Growing up in a Cuban household I was always told that the "Dia de los reyes" was celebrated on Jan 6th. This is the day the three kings came to give gifts to the newborn King, Christ Jesus. My parents while in Cuba never celebrated Christmas only the 6th of January. I also agree that it is a matter of "Christian liberty" as according to Romans 14. Lest we be thrown back into legalistic practices that are in direct opposition to the freedom we have in Christ. Not as a license to sin but as in the non-essentials there is liberty for one to eat meat and another to eat vegetables, all while not offending the weaker brethren.

This post points up one of the reasons the Lord, in His wisdom, has forbidden non Biblical superstitious practices, for they tend to supplant the Scriptures themselves in our thoughts and practices. There weren't three kings, and they did not come to give gifts to the "newborn king". The Scriptures are clear that by the time the Magi (the political intelligentsia of the east) arrived in Judea that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were living in a house, and had left the stable. Further, no where does the Bible say that there were three kings from the east--that is a fiction. Historical records state that the Magi came with a great company--camels, soldiers, etc. to give homage to "He that is born King of the Jews" who was a "young child" by then. The word used by Matthew (2.9) can mean a child as old as 10 or 11. (See Matthew 2.1-12)

Brothers, sisters, let us turn from these vanities and perversions of the truth to the Scriptures alone. It is not a matter of Christian liberty to promulgate un-Scriptural fables about our Lord, no matter how good the local "creche" makes you feel.