JESUS OR SANTA

[Maryjane]

When i think of christmas...I think about how excited I was to be in the church program...and as for Santa...My older brother and I had a great time sneaking out of bed and watching our parents wrap, put toys together and of course..they played with them before we did...It has always been family and God blessed us with a wonderful family and gave us the most wonderful memories of growing up...We got spankings but I thank God for those spankings..all nine of us have never been in trouble and it is because of parents that raised us in a christian home and our values we received never left us...

[Chaplain Bob]

This may well have been discussed already over the years, but I would like to see what others think.

I have a writing called JESUS OR SANTA.
In it, I say that Satan created santa and the Easter bunny to take away from what these holy days really stand for. And I state that no Christian should teach their child that santa is real, for first, they are lying to their child...(thou shalt not lie)...and they are perpetuating the lie that satan put forth to deceive people....but you would be surprised how many tell me that it is no big deal.

So, what think you all about this?

God bless you all.....Roy.

Neither Christmas nor Easter are Biblically mandated "holy days".  Jesus never told us to celebrate His birth or resurrection.  They are nothing more than Christian religion traditions created by man.   Little wonder they are subject to perversion.   Those who celebrate either or those who include the image of Santa or the Easter Bunny as part of their celebration are not in violation of any Biblical principle.  Rather than accusing people of worshipping those images (and in turn Satan) we who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ would better spend our time sharing with other why we celebrate those days.

[nChrist]

Neither Christmas nor Easter are Biblically mandated "holy days".  Jesus never told us to celebrate His birth or resurrection.  They are nothing more than Christian religion traditions created by man.   Little wonder they are subject to perversion.   Those who celebrate either or those who include the image of Santa or the Easter Bunny as part of their celebration are not in violation of any Biblical principle.  Rather than accusing people of worshipping those images (and in turn Satan) we who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ would better spend our time sharing with other why we celebrate those days.

Hello Chaplain Bob,

It's great to hear from you and I hope that things are going well for you and your family.

I celebrate JESUS CHRIST every day - multiple times every day, and I'm most happy to tell everyone why. I might even give you a cup of coffee and a piece of cake if you're willing to listen.   

Bluntly, JESUS CHRIST is the core of my life, and HE is the LORD over my life. My faith, trust, HOPE, and STRENGTH are in HIM. ALL days of the year belong to HIM, and I give Thanks every day that HE rescued me and I belong to HIM 365/24/7 until HE comes to take me HOME. I also celebrate HIM before, during, and after Christmas and Easter. I have a great time in the LORD on those days and nothing to be ashamed of. As far as I'm concerned, every day is Christmas and Easter.

You are right that Christians have better things to do than judge and criticize other Christians about celebrating Christmas and Easter. I will specifically celebrate both, and it won't be anyone's business but mine and GOD'S. For those who are determined to butt into my business, I'll hide their Easter eggs for them and holler Merry Christmas while they look for them just for the first year. If it continues the next year, they get full custody of bunnies, reindeer, the tooth fairy, Jack Frost, and an unknown number of angry elves. For those who are obsessed and possessed with this issue, the elves will be intoxicated and in the habit of playing Lawrence Welk records LOUDLY 24/7 with a bubble machine going full blast.       

ALL days are HIS, including this one. This is simply another day that the LORD has made - let us be glad and rejoice in it. I had a great Day in the LORD today, and I give thanks for it. Every day is SON-DAY - HAPPY SON-DAY!

Love In Christ,
Tom

KEEP LOOKING UP!!

[Soldier4Christ]

Easter is mentioned in some English versions of the Bible. Others in the same verse call it the passover or the pasch (a middle English word meaning passover). The word Easter was used in the early middle ages to denote a pagan holiday. Why would Christians use a pagan word in the Bible? It is said that it was used in order to attempt to get pagans to accept the celebration or Mass of the resurrection, a compromise if you will. There is actually much, much more than that to it. The word Easter means "to shine forth" or as the Etymology Dictionary says "to shine (especially of the dawn)". It is the celebration of the rising (resurrection) of Jesus Christ. An anomaly between the rising of the sun and the rising of the Son.

[daniel1212av]

Neither Christmas nor Easter are Biblically mandated "holy days".  Jesus never told us to celebrate His birth or resurrection.  They are nothing more than Christian religion traditions created by man.   Little wonder they are subject to perversion.   Those who celebrate either or those who include the image of Santa or the Easter Bunny as part of their celebration are not in violation of any Biblical principle.  Rather than accusing people of worshipping those images (and in turn Satan) we who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ would better spend our time sharing with other why we celebrate those days.

i just stumbled upon this topic, but I take a more "radical" stance, as a long time ago, without anyone influencing me that i can remember, the Lord spoke to me (in response it my praying whether i should celebrate it)  that Christmas was a "charade." I was not even sure what the word meant, but i came to see that not only was it a birthday party in His name that He was not invited to (and that would reject Him), but that the whole thing was a tree that His Father had not planted.

And that as born again new creatures in Christ, who are set free to walk in newness of life (Rm. 6:4) and not the traditions of men, we are not to bow down to a yearly to a tradition instituted by a religious system that sought to accommodate pagan elements into it's worship. It seems rather incongruous that most every born again pastor has (or should have) the Lord's leading on what to preach every other months of the year, but once December comes most must preach an entire month on Christmas themes (plus wind down the net one), when the early church knew no such thing.

I am sure many have heard arguments, but briefly mine is that it is contrary to the principal of the New covenant to fall into the practice of annual liturgical observance of "days, months, times and years" (Gal. 4:10) which Paul chastened the Galatians for so doing.  The only day which the Holy Spirit records as a specific day of purely Christian meeting is the first day of the week (Jn. 20:19; Acts 20:7; 1Cor. 16:2).  Under the New covenant, the church is to be led of the Spirit, within and according to the boundaries and precepts and principals of Scripture. Transitional attempts to even accommodate Jewish observances did not work well (Acts 21), and are warned against (Col. 2:16).

It is contrary to the O.T. transcendent moral precept  to "Christianize" distinctively pagan worship.  While we may use things as the names of the days of the week as mere reference points , and may adapt to the culture in amoral things such as food, or clothing that is similarly modest, we are not to Christianize practices or observances that are distinctively pagan and non-Biblical. The law of Moses forbade Israel to plant a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD (Dt. 16:21);  cf. 1Kg. 15:13; 16:33; 2kg. 17:16; 21:2),  and were told to tear down pagan high places (Num. 33:52),  as such had become  places setting up idols and or other pagan idolatrous worship (Num. 21:28; 22:41).  And when Israel backslide they fell into such idolatrous worship thereby (2Kg. 17:9-11).

Other times they turned such pagan places into venues for Jehovahistic worship (1Kg. 22:43; 2Kg. 2:3; 14:4; 15:4, 35). This helped to keep them alive until Israel backslide again (2Kg. 16:4). 2kg. 23:19, 20). "So they feared the LORD, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places." (2 Kg. 17:32). 

Other kings teared them down (2Kg. 18:4;  23:19, 200, which only an exceedingly wicked men as Manasseh would restore to their pagan purpose.  (2Kg. 21:20).

I think the lesson is that God needs no help from paganism (while sometime they adopted things from Judaism, or did according to the law written in the hearts in doing likewise), and as in the case of a new creation (2Cor. 5:17). God does not want us to reform the old, but to crucify it. And in the case of "Christianizing" distinctively pagan practices, we to let a practice as Saturnalia turned Christmas die it's natural death, rather than trying to pump life back into an annual "tree" not planted by God, and replace is by worship by the Spirit.

This position does not infer that that nothing good is in the Christmas celebration, for whatever Biblical content is placed in such has power, nor that we are not free to sometimes Biblically (not ritually) celebrate the incarnation of His Son, like any other Biblical event we may choose, nor that those who choose not to submit to the annual rite are more spiritual in heart, as i certainly do not claim that (nor that choosing freedom from such ritualism is a form of legalism, as the basic social requirement to do so fits the Biblical definition of such: Mk. 7:7). Rather, that if we seek to march foreword back into Biblical Christianity, it mainly exhorts that we need not to bow down to a set feast that has no Biblical precedent as a yearly tradition (in Dec. no less), and which thus used to be banned by England and the Puritans, etc, and they should not seek to Christianize paganism, but worship God in Spirit as a He leads, and in truth, consistent with it's principals and precepts. 
   
Sorry for taking so much space.

[Soldier4Christ]

Hi daniel1212av,

We must keep in mind that Paul's statements in Gal 4:10 was in regard to individuals that were attempting to make it a requirement to observe those holidays thereby removing the liberty that Christians have so graciously been given by our Lord and Saviour. Just like the majority of what Galatians is all about we are not required by to be under such a law any longer. Col 2:16 is again speaking of those that tried to re-institute those days as a requirement. These are not to say that we can't celebrate Christ's birth on those days. It is saying that we are not to place such ordinances (as a law) of which Christians must observe as a requirement of salvation (works).

[ibTina]

a tree that His Father had not planted

I love this statement .. AMEN!

[daniel1212av]

Thanks for your comment Roger.

> Gal 4:10 was in regard to individuals that were attempting to make it a requirement to observe those holidays thereby removing the liberty that Christians have so graciously been given by our Lord and Saviour.<

I am aware that that was the primary issue, but the apostle's rebuke is also one that that links the ritual observance of annual Jewish days, months, etc. with going back under the law, and is contrary to the life of faith, as such ritual observances are contrary to the nature of the New Covenant.

Col. 2:16 directly contrasts this, insofar as Jewish observances were concerned, as we are no longer to look at the shadow for life, but at the body that made them. And overall, as those who are born of the Spirit are to be moved by Him (Jn. 3-7), so we do not see the N.T. church observing any annual days except the first day of the week, and the failed experiment of Acts 21 - which testifies to the necessity of Galatians. The only event we are commanded to formally commemorate is Jesus death (1Cor. 11). And while the N.T. principal of being led by the Spirit does not lend itself to liturgical seasons invented by an institutionalized system, it does not forbid recognition of the Lord's birth as the Lord may lead (like that of preaching on any other events). But consistent with the moral precept of separation, the primitive church certainly did not follow the "wisdom of Rome" in amalgamating distinctly pagan celebrations into it's worship, but as new creatures in Christ the they celebrated Christ's "birth" in saved souls.

In addition,  "in regard to individuals that were attempting to make it a requirement to observe those holidays thereby removing the liberty that Christians have so graciously been given by our Lord and Saviour", such a "requirement" is close to what Christians has become. Rather than the yearly Christmas celebration being a manifestation of Christian liberty, most any church member who forgoes the yearly observance of Christmas is usually treated as a scrooge and a legalist, and a minister in a church that does not follow this relatively late tradition of Christ-mass is likely to be censured or even lose his position - in the name of unity! So we see how powerful this non-Biblical tradition has become. And teaching for doctrines the commandments of men is legalism.

On the other hand, and to be fair, often those who are against Christmas (and usually i do not make it an issue unless someone else makes it one in response to my desire for liberty and truth), are those who are looking for something to justify their rebellion against authority. Thus they seek to find some legitimate fault in the established church, as well as perceived ones, to justify themselves. This is a whole other thread. yet this does not justify having faults, nor does it relegate those who chose N.T. truth and holy liberty over static liturgy as unholy rebels, and history testifies to the nobility of those who sought to avoid the accumulated corruptions of Rome, in seeking a more Biblical model.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Dec. 24, 1871):

We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas . . . because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Saviour; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because [it's] not of divine authority
 
When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide, and other Popish festivals was ever instituted by a divine statute, we also will attend to them, but not till then. It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men, as to observe the ordinances of the Lord. We ask concerning every rite and rubric, "Is this a law of the God of Jacob?" and if it be not clearly so, it is of no authority with us, who walk in Christian liberty. (from Charles Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalm 81:4.)

[Pilgrim]

Rather, that if we seek to march foreword back into Biblical Christianity, it mainly exhorts that we need not to bow down to a set feast that has no Biblical precedent as a yearly tradition (in Dec. no less), and which thus used to be banned by England and the Puritans, etc, and they should not seek to Christianize paganism, but worship God in Spirit as a He leads, and in truth, consistent with it's principals and precepts. 
   
Sorry for taking so much space.

Amen Daniel,

You may be interested in these articles.

"Truth" http://www.nlbchapel.org/truth.htm

"Christ-mass" http://www.nlbchapel.org/Christmass.htm

"THE CHRISTMAS JESUS CAME TO MY HOUSE" http://www.nlbchapel.org/Christmashome.htm

God bless,
Pilgrim

[Maryjane]

We have christmas and easter everyday awaiting the final event when we will be in the presence of the Lord..

The gospel stands true..God so loved us that He sent His Son Jesus that His only Son would come down to this earth and die a cruel death that we deserve yet by God's mercy He gave us grace through our Lord Jesus Christ..He rose from the grave to prove every word is true..and He keeps His promises and His promise is thatHe will return again..It has nothing to do with men's idea of holidays for the holidays do not belong to the Lord what belongs to the Lord is those who trust Him and know His word is true..It is very very hard to think of Santa or a bunny when our eternity does not depend on such..I do not know the full origin of the holidays..but at one time the holidays brought families together to celebrate the birth and the ressurection of Jesus..but Jesus has been taken out of it as this world has grown cold and our country has left it's first love and replaced it with what we see in our world today...a lack of holiness and the fear of God who one day we will all stand before and give account...Many will want to hide behind a tree in that day and baskets will not be large enough to hold the tears of those who never knew Him...

[Jon-Marc]

Toys when I was a child were rare, and presents were generally clothes. When I was old enough I did all the wrapping of presents for everyone but myself. Of course, I knew what I was getting since all the guys got the same thing--socks, T shirts and gloves for winter. Occasionally, I would get a simple toy that I cherished. Birthdays were the same--more clothes. That's why Christmas and birthdays have never had much meaning for me.

I don't remember ever believing in a fat, jolly man in a red suit. We rarely had a chimney for him to come down anyway. Besides, I knew that what I got came from my parents. I never encouraged my daughters to believe in santa.

[ludwig]

dear everybody
this innocent issue of Jesus or Santa stirs up more serious questions than we are aware of.
Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life
this is the central piece
anything measured against that are lies and should not be encouraged
children are very impressionable
wrong imprints on them and irreparable damage is done to their intellect and to their emotional life
we also assume the things we do to the children are right and never wrong
this or that has been done before so it can't be wrong
i remember a professor said just because something has been done before doen't make it right and just because
something has not been done before doesn't make it wrong.  HOW TRUE!
not just on Santa but everything else that has to do with children we have to do a rethink.

[mzipodi]

Hey I know that when it comes to what people think about what is of the devil anb what not, people get confused but the bible talks about a way that seems right in the eyes of man but a sin in the eyes of God the Father.So anyone must think before deciding what to do.
For we know the plans of the devil and that the enemy comes to destroy.

[ludwig]

hi everybody i think jesus and santa cannot occupy the same place.  christmas  is many things for many people but for christians there is only one thing and that is jesus christ.  no one can take that place not even santa claus.  so as not to confuse the kids emphasise christmas as the day to remember the birth of CHRIST.

[ollie]

This may well have been discussed already over the years, but I would like to see what others think.

I have a writing called JESUS OR SANTA.
In it, I say that Satan created santa and the Easter bunny to take away from what these holy days really stand for. And I state that no Christian should teach their child that santa is real, for first, they are lying to their child...(thou shalt not lie)...and they are perpetuating the lie that satan put forth to deceive people....but you would be surprised how many tell me that it is no big deal.

So, what think you all about this?

God bless you all.....Roy.

Jesus at the cross, His death , burial, resurrection and ascension not at the manger.

We should celebrate the Christ for what he is, our saviour, our King, in Heaven with all power and not the physical birth that brought Him on the road to fulfilling all in all.

ollie