Re: Christmas is pagan
 

True. I just found it interesting that the Quakers traditionally didn't use the names of the days of the week on account of their pagan origin.

I don't think there's anything wrong with celebrating the anniversary of one's birth. However, I'm not sure if the custom is mentioned in Scripture. I'll have the research that.

Yes, the birthday cake was a cake believed to give one good luck for the coming year (much like the wedding cake tradition). The addition of candles were a part of ancient pagan "candle magik". They were not originally placed on the cake as one for every year, but rather as one for every "intention" (or spell) the individual wished to cast for the coming year to bring favor and fortune. Of course, as witchcraft became rather unpopular traditions evolved... soon the cake became merely a treat, and a candle was placed on the cake, one for every year of life so that one might count their blessings. The only reflection of the old way that remains is "making a wish" (establishing an intention) while blowing out the candles.


My point is that what most of us know as the traditional "sermon" today originated among the ancient Sophists... not Scripture. Peter didn't "preach" his "sermon" on the Day of Pentecost from notes, with an introduction, statement, text, opening analogy, and four points, etc., etc.. In fact, Peter spoke strictly from the heart as the Spirit led him, and even interacted with the crowd below. "Sermonizing" as most of us know it is as "pagan" as birthday cake candles.

Amen. I've always found it interesting when someone does go on a rant against the "pagan" influences of various holidays, but go to church in a church building that reflects pagan customs. lol

When I was first married, we chose not to wear wedding bands either. After she became pregnant with our first child she began noticing "stares". When I went to a safe childbirth and labor class with her, the instructor referred to me as my wife's "significant other". I was livid. I corrected her, "I'm her HUSBAND." She looked at us, and apologized. Then she apologized again as we were getting ready to leave, saying, "I'm so sorry, I didn't see a wedding band." In our culture it has become a token mark of marriage. My wife was "scolded" by a woman on the buss for being a "Christian" having a child out of wedlock, people often whispered about her behind her back. She broke down crying several times because she felt wrong not having one. After changing churches (a totally different issue) we decided to begin wearing wedding bands because the second church wasn't so strict in this area.

Persoally, I could care less. But I've noticed that not wearing a wedding band is a little different for women than with men.

It's my understanding that even the bread/cake was a part of the practice.

I think a distinction ought also to be made between simply superstitious customs that have survived the centuries (like saying "Bless you" when someone sneezes which originated in the belief that a sneeze could invite demons to enter the body) on the one hand, and undoubtedly RELIGIOUS RITES and CEREMONIES and HOLY DAYS being promoted to people under the lie that there's something CHRISTIAN about them. Both ought to be examined, but the rites of demon worship are clearly a greater danger.

That's why while I do enjoy the lighting and ambiance of a Christmas tree, I have never sang, "Oh Christmas Tree".

I think it is important to be honest about the "holidays". Aside from Thanksgiving, I think all holidays originate from ancient pagan customs and ancient church traditions. I believe in being honest about the holidays. I tell my kids they are not in the Bible and that while we might take time to reflect on various spiritual truths during the "holidays" they are just "cultural" traditions. There's nothing "sacred" or "Biblical" about any of it.

Re: Christmas is pagan
 

LOL.

I think he's sincere.

Re: Christmas is pagan
 

I'm Scott-Irish and we have a number of traditions that aren't "biblical". They are just a part of our cultural identity.

As long as people don't get all "religious" with the holidays, I don't mind the lights, decorations, traditions, etc. But they have to understand, if they get "religious" with it, I'll have to remind them that it is no more "spiritual" than the 4th of July. lol

Re: Christmas is pagan
 

Can anybody tell me what the Israelites named the Golden Calf?

No its not thread hijacking.

Its follows along the lines of God being against pagan practices.

Re: Christmas is pagan
 

It's not pagan except in the sense that alphabets are pagan (since the Bible gives no indication God delivered an alphabet for His people to use). It does however correlate to "man's wisdom" as the term is used by the apostle Paul. Have you actually studied classical rhetoric? I have (it's also part of our children's homeschool curriculum). I haven't found any correlation between the five canons of rhetoric and pagan RELIGIOUS practices. It's simply an art and science dealing with how to communicate effectively. Enunciation (proper pronunciation) and orthography (proper spelling) are subsets of rhetoric, but who will argue that speaking and writing correctly is a pagan religious practice?

As for preaching, preaching should be led by the Spirit. I don't think that necessarily always precludes using notes or organising the data's presentation in a rational sense (homiletics, a subset of medieval Christian rhetoric). However, one doesn't NEED such things to speak the Word of the Lord. Other than Paul, I do not think any of the apostles were trained in classical rhetoric, and nobody today HAS to have such training in order to preach, or preach effectively.

The place of rhetorical studies in the church has been debated from the dawn of post-Biblical Christian literature, by the way, and continues to be debated. Perhaps another thread on that would be warranted, if there is any interest?





A man made a pass at my wife years ago, when we still wore rings. This was during the time that we were trying to sort out whether rings were indifferent, or pagan, or what. She told me that pretty much convinced her the ring is not at all about "making sure others know you are married", because even when they could clearly see that the heathens often didn't care anyway. Shortly after that it fell off her hand while she was in the yard doing something and she couldn't find it, so she concluded it was clearly God's will for her to let go of that tradition. We have NEVER had anyone question our relationship because we didn't wear wedding rings. By the way, once she was convinced by God about the Christian woman's headcovering, and began wearing it, she noticed that all the ways men were expected to treat a woman wearing a wedding ring (which often didn't happen when she wore the ring) now started happening. In other words, nobody these days cares about a ring on a finger, but a woman's whole deportment, modesty, and the presence of a headcovering, usually causes even rank sinners to change their behaviour and "Straighten up" and show respect, watch their language, refrain from smoking or cussing, and generally be on good behaviour, when a godly woman is around.

And by headcovering, I don't mean a baseball cap or fashionable hat. :)

Re: Christmas is pagan
 

Elohim, and YHVH (the LORD).

Re: Christmas is pagan
 

Exodus 32:4-5 KJV And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (5) And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.

The calf was a representation of the elohim that had brought them up from Egypt and brought them to Sinai. A feast to YHVH was proclaimed for the morrow. Clearly, they worshipped the golden calf as YHVH Elohim.

Notice, they seemed to have the idea that YHVH was plural, and not singular/unipersonal. Hence, the insistence by Moses that "YHVH is ONE" (Deut 6:4).

Re: Christmas is pagan
 

The golden calf incident shows several things:

• People can be guilty of sinful idolatry while believing they are worshipping Jehovah (syncretism).
• Syncretism is a key factor or quality of pagan worship.
• Syncretism is a natural result of rejecting God's specific messengers in favour of self-directed worship.
• Syncretism is an abomination to God.

In other words, mixing pagan practices in with the worship of Jehovah, and thinking it is acceptable to Jehovah, is a common practice, is the result of rejecting strict adherance to the Revelation of God, and is despised by God.

Re: Christmas is pagan
 

Barnes' Notes on the verse in question:

In the next verse, Aaron appears to speak of the calf as if it was a representative of Yahweh - “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.” The Israelites did not, it should be noted, worship a living Mnevis, or Apis, having a proper name, but only the golden type of the animal. The mystical notions connected with the ox by the Egyptian priests may have possessed their minds, and, when expressed in this modified and less gross manner, may have been applied to the Lord, who had really delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.

Re: Christmas is pagan
 

1 Kings 12:26-33 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: (27) If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. (28) Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (29) And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. (30) And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. (31) And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. (32) And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. (33) So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.

What was the "sin of Jeroboam, whereby he made Israel to sin"?

He altered the divinely ordained worship of God. He did not call Israel to worship the deities of Canaan. Rather, he introduced innovations into the worship of Jehovah.

These innovations had four characteristics:

1. Doing what God had explicitly forbidden.
2. Doing what God had never commanded.
3. Not doing what God had explicitly commanded.
4. Doing what was invented by man.

God had forbidden the use of graven images in worship. Jeroboam introduced (in imitation of Aaron's sin at Sinai) the use of graven images in the worship of Jehovah.

God had never commanded any feast or holy day in the eighth month. Jeroboam introduced a non-Biblical holiday tied to worship of Jehovah.

God had commanded a feast to be kept in the seventh month. Jeroboam induced the people to abandon the divinely ordained seventh month feast as part of their worship.

Jeroboam's innovations were the product of his own devising, they were human inventions introduced as the means of worshipping God. Interestingly, his human inventions mirrored the common pagan religious practices of the surrounding heathen nations. When man begins to invent ways to worship God in place of the divinely ordained way, he typically falls into the same patterns of worship found in heathen paganism. Thus, the sin of Jeroboam is the sin of altering Biblical worship so that it imitates and mirrors pagan devil worship, which is exactly what Christmas does.