How long is this festival?
Give me biblical support for Christmas.
- Thread starter Mickiel
- Start date
How long is this festival?
Lol...Yup that is your tradition indeed...always nailing people down...
Still seeing dead trees lying on curbs and in alleys...what senseless vanity...
Can't imagine this being heaven on earth...
Well, it would be a peculiar effort to make if it wasn't.
lain:How many are there? And how many would surprise me?
The celebration won't recontextualize your problems until you accept the premise.
As if the date that can't be know is the point and better? You don't really believe that, spending so much time nay saying on the point of missing the exact day. The point, again, being the celebration of the known and not the reliance on speculation.
A tradition of honoring the birth of Christ? That should only bother the sort of people who are still looking for nails.
The last part first, it didn't. That's your strained read in. And the Bible celebrates it. Angels in the field, wise men from the east, the noel star above. That's not slipping under the radar, is it.
Literally none of that is true, but it's like you to strain at gnats while denying the divinity that makes the discussion meaningful.
An idiot can make nearly anything sound idiotic. An evil man can find darkness in light. The corrupt will find corruption in any act of man. And so on.
Or, you're wrong.
Why do I need a car to go to town? I don't, but it helps. It's the best way to share the celebration and the birth occurred on a day, not randomly throughout the year. It's a celebration of the birth of Christ and the deliverance that birth brought with it. The problem isn't that you don't understand that so let your yes be a yes and your no be no and stop pretending points that have no impact or influence on you do.
No, she was led into vanity, which literally has nothing to do with this or the quote you abuse, along with scripture, to make it.
I should charge you by the hour for this much therapy. Get it out. Get it all out.
You don't even know who He is and you're telling me about what you believe He wants?
What? A heretic finding himself in opposition to Protestant and Catholic? :shocked:
Also people who don't agree and aren't protesting. So that should cover it.
You completely missed the application of that one, which is consistent.
All that matters is that we realize our actions will never gain heaven, that God's grace is sufficient, and that we live to find our joy in His as we mature.
You don't know who the Christ is and you're worried about my exegesis.
No, but it's like you to criticize a thing you haven't read and don't understand. Now quick, run Google.
You're merely compelled to confuse error with virtue and your hostility with righteousness. I'll take my joy over that.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
we had high winds here lately - lots of dead trees got blown down in my woods
is that "vanity"?
No that is sloth...you should remove all those dead trees from your woods before they blow around...
But why so many dead trees on your property?
"When the LORD could no longer endure your wicked actions and the detestable things you did, your land became a curse and a desolate waste..."
"He changes...a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein."
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
my mom likes leaving them up for the woodpeckers
http://biblicaldiscipleship.org/content/marvel-god’s-creation-10-woodpecker
Good on her...leaving the dead wood for these little miracles and for not bringing it inside to decorate for the sake of vanity...
Or because she believes they are a blessing and useful and and have songs and literature about them saying "come unto me all ye littles ones that peck and I will be sacrificial food to you"...that is paganish
indeed...what we do expresses our inner heart and minds...you want to have a good Christmas...glad you got it...Well, it would be a peculiar effort to make if it wasn't.
it was made obvious long before that this is important enough for you to find out...
the premise is that He was born to save us from all this vanity...and waste...
imagine if we celebrated His throwing the money changers out...and then found out the exact date He did so...it matters only when it matters
celebration of the known doesn't include obedience to what else is known instruction to not to add to the word...and further supported by speculation that the latter doesn't apply...
they said and made the golden calf...we are celebrating and honoring they said...stop looking for sin they said...
celebrated once and never again until centuries later by disobedient followers...the handing out of the Law which instructs against this pagan assimilation is celebrated every year...
lol...denying the divinity is holding on to man made traditions...adding to what happened in scripture but only once...
and yet He taught rather remove your eye than cause it to make you fall...do not cause the weaker to stumble...and Paul instructs even eating clean meat after the weaker takes offense IS OFFENSE...none of that here...just mocking and redicule...and accusations of projetion and mental deficiency...not surprised as this is typical of yours...mine would would cease the evil that made a weaker to compromise...
for that you must show me that is exactly what HE WANTS as I have shown you that is exactly NOT what He wants...your adultery...and "but I was thinking of you"
as a member of His body it is mine to say scripture does not approve...you already stumble around with "it's the best way...not randomly thoughout the year" LOL...really...so much for we could do it everyday...
My yes is firm...to Him His Way and until I see bday celebration instructions...it remains NO and firmly
as are you...led by her own free will...undisciplined and true...compromising and compromised...you have learned nothing and continue the same...as if it was Satan's fault...she was LED into vanity...LOL...
your secular humanism rot is quite deep...
no I am showing you scripture knows who He is...and what He wants...to follow Him His way...He had at least 33 chances to throw a bday party...not one...NOT IMPORTANT
why so histrionic? There is with Him and Not with Him as He did...and instructed we do His Father's will...no Christmas Ham there for sure...
and out of His mouth you go...as if this war against principalities is NOT what we are to wear the whole armor of God for...to fight the good fight...endure to the end...
celebrating Christmas is not maturing in Him...His grace is not sufficient for willful sin...and you haven't disproven Christmas is not for His...OUR actions may never gain heaven but certainly can lose heaven as they reveal the state of our hearts as defiled...never wishing repentance
I know Him by His fruits and I know you by yours...they don't match...He never did X...and you do...He said to not do X...but you insist
says even the pagan of the Satanic bible...some at least offer to share understanding...but most like you redicule and mock...No, but it's like you to criticize a thing you haven't read and don't understand. Now quick, run Google.
His are set apart peculiar sanctified pure...and FLEE evil...did you catch that? His people flee evil not rationalize nor pontificate to rebaptize or compromise to that which is an abomination to Him...namely...and merely props...
Spirit and Truth is all...and what He gave and instructed for use in true worship...not man's tradition...His seek His joy and not their own...
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
no - she shoot them and stuffs them and decorates the house with them - we have a dozen on the mantle alone, all garnished with tinsel and glitter
then on Christmas eve at the stroke of midnite we sacrifice a goat in front of them to celebrate our pagan heritage
no - she shoot them and stuffs them and decorates the house with them - we have a dozen on the mantle alone, all garnished with tinsel and glitter
then on Christmas eve at the stroke of midnite we sacrifice a goat in front of them to celebrate our pagan heritage
Does explain the all the dead trees and the desolation to come...lol
Celebrating the Christ.
Rather, the assumption on your part is that Christmas is the fruit of either.
I'm not adding to the word. Not a comma. You can give it a mighty twist, but at the end of the day, Christmas is simply a celebration of the Christ born into the world that the willfully separated could be reconciled in Him.
They made a calf to worship the gods of their captors, not the God of their fathers.
If someone built a house in a field once and one day you pulled it down and built a very different one would you say you assimilated the old house?
Do you deny the Trinity?
You need to make that into actual sentences.
That's above your pay grade.
Fellow, that's the only kind there is.
Rather, we are lost without and until grace. If you believe it can be lost then you place grace under our control and by merit. You boast.
He did. He hung a star in the sky, sent angels to shepherds and drew wise men in wonder.
I celebrate that celebration.
No, He didn't. You did. You and your fashioning sin from something sinless.
I entered this thread gently enough.
Here's my response to Mick: http://theologyonline.com/showthrea...or-Christmas&p=4899556&viewfull=1#post4899556
You decided to respond to that post, interjecting mockery and hostility, which I noted in answering. Here's your post:
Or, I entered to help. You entered to mock and divide and judge.
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you keep saying...He'd rather you worship His Father and do His will which is not to learn the way of pagans their celebrations and false worshipCelebrating the Christ.
rather the assumption on your part is that Christmas if free of either and once worship is either vain or a waste it ceases to be worship...He even HATED their worship which He ordained...for the same reason...imagine what He feels towards celebrations He forbade?
and how did the willfully separated do so? By not keeping His will and insisting on their own...adultery "but I thought of you"
How to reconcile with Him? Flee evil and the ways of the world...Obey Him and not with vain false worship...but follow Him do as He did...JUST AS...and if He didn't do it...DONT...so simple...He had at least over 30 years to throw a bday party...wasn't important...and not to the early church either...
"Hear are your gods Israel who brought you out of Egypt" they worshipped the God that brought them out of Egypt in like manner of the pagans around them...
that pagan house was never fully pulled down and the new one is not very different from it...what in fact the new house is very different from is the one Constantine et al should have built...he broke the very calendar found in scripture to change times and laws and intent...
not ironic you bring that up in discussion of man's traditions...
you would blame Satan or God himself for Eve being led into temptation...He put it into the midst of the garden next to the tree of life and made it beautiful after all...but like you, she did not flee but thought herself clever and built a hedge around the command to ensure herself...and once touching and seeing she did not die she became entangled and ate...
what being spit out for being lukewarm?
willful sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit is having once known the Holy commandment and still returning to your vomit like a dog...you don't even wish to see a need to repent...Israel was to be repentant for sins it did not even know it committed...and here you are eating in offense...mocking the offended claiming they are merely projecting Satan when what is actually the Spirit and what It wills...that fellow, is exactly blaspheming the Spirit
we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling...what we are given without merit can certainly be lost...go and sin no more BY HIM is the gospel
one time does not make a tradition...nor is it instruction to do so...nor was it done in His lifetime again or centuries after...He also made images, killed, stole, told Hosea to marry an adulteress...is all that no longer prohibited?
as did the Hebrews their deliverance from Egypt...weren't asked to but were asked not to offer false worshipI celebrate that celebration.
Is not the instruction of what to do when a weaker brother is offended...pluck your eye out, flee sin, repent
Indeed it is not what goes into the body that defiles but that the heart and mind are already defiled and see no defilement...
Yup, you helped...defend your choice to celebrate...
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Christ and the Father are one. Your problem with me is your problem not His.
Like I said, if I build a house where another house once stood it doesn't follow that I'm assimilating.
It's not an assumption. It's clear the Bible celebrates the birth and nothing in it tells me that I shouldn't.
You need to work on your sentence construction. Half the time I'm just throwing darts to connect your thoughts as presented. As for the insult, disconnected as it is with argument, in neither moves nor convinces me of anything beyond the hostility of your entrance into this conversation.
No idea what you're trying to do with that. Moving on then.
You need glasses. It was and it is, in turn.
So I was right in remembering you as anti-Trinitarian. Well then, my heretical friend, if you can't get the foundation right I suppose it's unfair of me to expect you to frame a door, or an argument.
No, you blame God the moment you ascribe her fall to his design. Else, she was tempted. Who did that?
Thought herself clever? Where does it say that, legalist? How aren't you rebuking yourself for that addition? That's all you. The other part of the insult is of no particular interest, so I'll leave it.
All sin is willful.
Every Christian repents and any Christian who understands that we receive grace as a gift, through no merit of our own, understands that need.
Yet all traditions begin with the first. And most traditions aren't edicts in foundation.
It would have been impossible to celebrate what is captured in Christmas before the cross.
I'm speaking to Christmas. You should start a thread on the new covenant if you're interested.
The overreach of the legalist, again. If a brother found your exegesis a stumbling block would you throw your Bible away and abandon your attempts to instruct or share it?
Christ Jesus. Also known as God. Of course.
being One I imagine the Son agrees that what was established is good enough thus no further instructions but to keep keeping His Law...nothing there about including His bday...my problem remains those claiming to wear His yoke misrepresenting it by also adding to what wearing it entails...
you rebuild on the exact footprint, reuse the old material, make it look so nearly like the old that others even celebrate that yes we merely rebuilt it for our own purposes while others are horrified of its resemblance of the former...yeah it follows
yes that is what I said Christmas is not free of vanity nor waste...and even when a worship which is sanctioned becomes so it too is HATED...
sure the birth was celebrated but not again...the Red Sea crossing was also celebrated...and like it there is specific instruction that tells you that it shouldn't be...for the very reason...man decided to do it...not how or when but merely that it was at all...
Lol...it's the messenger who can't give the message that Christ was born desirous to reconcile a world which willful seperated through idolatry...adultery and in your case it remains "but I thought of you while doing it"...yes very difficult message to hear...must be the words or grammar...lol
Yes move away from the reality that the Hebrews like you worshipped the right God wrongly...not another God entirely...
even in this very thread a poster was pleased traditions were assimilated and rebranded and now used, in turn. Your Augustine insisted the houses of demons remained useful...just white wash them with holy water or something...
All I commented on here was the irony that you would bring up another tradition of Christianity...never claimed it for myself but the more I see the response of those of that mindset I can only recall that it was a wise man who said that lies need violence to be sustained...your jump to I am heretic is in that spirit and not surprising...
I put the blame on her with "She said to herself taking of the fruit" you countered with "NO she was led into vanity..." My point was that she was willing to compromise as you did with false ideas and distortions which she came up with herself...as if she was told she could not touch it...that was of her own devise...as you devise your own now with your "but I thought of you" during your adulterous acts...
Perhaps seeing it again will bring interest...like tradition it must be done more than once...and well Christmas is not biblical tradition but added much later...
exactly wrong. There is sin of omission. I could go on but you don't seem the sort who seeks out reasons to repent and make right with Him...or others...
no not all Christians repent...some don't even own their error or see their defilement or wish to change expecting grace to cover all...
Sinning against the Spirit is exactly knowing better and doing otherwise returning to the vomit...defiance...even Satan knows He is the Son of God and gives grace unmerited...could avail himself of it...but well remains defiant...kinda a model of those more apt to satisfy themselves and not yearn to please Him...die to themselves and their desires but sacrifice all for His
true and barring changes continue in course in due form to celebrate the author and originator of them...
and those that are not are EXACTLY not the ones we are to keep...the ones we follow have His edict as the foundation. His way JUST AS He did.
is EXACTLY why NO bday among His people was ever celebrated...even His...it would be vanity...
the New Covenant thread would explain why we can now kill steal commit adultery make idols? All that was done and recorded in scripture just as surely as the star over Bethlehem...your only precedent you claim now permits the same continuously...
I am still here with you...willing to throw away the exegesis but not the bible...nor the attempts to instruct or share...I remain however the weaker brother...
Yup...Son of the One those with the golden calf wished to celebrate as well...they were celebrating something about coming out of Egypt/sin...you know...being reconciled....etc...
I've answered you on the error of conflating proscription and silence and we differ on the exegesis, so I don't know what else there is to say on the point of Christmas.
Not what happened. The material was new and remains so. There is nothing inherently pagan about a tree or about using the fragrant (see: the three wise men's gifts).
Christmas is full of people. You'll always get a mixed bag. But it's not inherently anything other than a celebration of God and the act that began our redemption.
It wasn't the custom. Recognizing the beginning and meaning of that journey is one among His people now. And there's nothing wrong with it, unless you bring something wrong into it.
The "lols" speak to a want of sobriety in addressing the Holy that completely disinterests me in what ever comes after it.
I'm fairly certain you're the one who brought Augustine into the discourse. Peculiar complaint then.
Rather, I noted your attack on the Catholic, your attack on the Protestant, and I recalled in the midst of it that you espoused a fundamental heresy. It's not a thing I want to be mistaken on and so my advance and question. Your response seemed to sustain my impression. I believe you went into a "tradition" dance. You certainly didn't meet it as anyone wrongly noted would, with a quick denial and clarity that would have found me happy to have been mistaken.
Actually quote me if you're going to quote me. I recall noting that she was tempted to sin. Just as we are. And she failed, just as we do. Thank God for grace.
You believe that to be true, but I reject the assertion that it is true. I do nothing of the sort. Speaking of fundamentally important ideas, I'm still waiting for a direct answer.
You can't fail to do what you don't know to do. Omission is still an act of will. You know what you should do and you do not. You refuse, reject the good. James understood that. You should too if you're going to speak to it: 17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. James 4:17
Yes, they do. It's orthodoxy on both the Catholic and Protestant side of the family.
Sure. Did you know that a great deal of the law is spoken to in the NT?
All I need do, reasonably, is note that what God does cannot be evil. If God grants special recognition to the birth, then there is no sin in echoing that celebration, extending toward the cross.
Then you concede the point. We don't fail to act because our brother misunderstands a thing if the thing is good. I think I'm obligated to do what I did, to explain what I'm about and why and to counsel any who feel otherwise to stay their course, understanding my own and my own understanding differs.
Now about the question everyone who loves Christ should be willing to proclaim across rooftops and because I never want to assume a thing that's wrong, again, is Jesus God?
Ask Mr. Religion
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Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW)
Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW)
http://www.thebluebanner.com/pdf/bluebanner8-9&10.pdf
Web version:
https://www.naphtali.com/articles/c...as-and-holy-days-in-american-presbyterianism/
We should all follow the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW). That is, the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. If it is not commanded in Scripture to do in worship, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture as that which is required, then it must not be done, it must not be added to God's worship.
In other words, that what is not commanded in Scripture regarding the worship of God is forbidden. Contrary to the Lutherans, Baptists, and others, the RPW does not imply that if it is not stated in Scripture then is it allowed. :AMR:
What is 'good' is determined by God alone. So while it might seem good to us to follow a pattern or shape to our year through a liturgical calendar with all its "holy days", it is only good if it is by God's design and command. In this, we could say that He has given us a pattern, commanded such a pattern to take place, and requires our keeping the pattern for our blessing.
This pattern is called the weekly Christian Sabbath. Fifty-two times a year year worshipping and celebrating Him with our full attention on Him, while the other days (second through seventh days) we work diligently. This is summarized in the 4th commandment. This is the only 'calendar' God has commanded for us as a means of worshipping Him.
I have been personally guilty of violating the RPW, and have in the past few years come to repent of my disobedience. There are already too many foul odors reaching God's nostrils from the many happy-clappy churches today, and we have no warrant to add to them.
AMR
Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW)
From a conservative Presbyterian perspective, there is no such support:
http://www.thebluebanner.com/pdf/bluebanner8-9&10.pdf
Web version:
https://www.naphtali.com/articles/c...as-and-holy-days-in-american-presbyterianism/
We should all follow the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW). That is, the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. If it is not commanded in Scripture to do in worship, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture as that which is required, then it must not be done, it must not be added to God's worship.
In other words, that what is not commanded in Scripture regarding the worship of God is forbidden. Contrary to the Lutherans, Baptists, and others, the RPW does not imply that if it is not stated in Scripture then is it allowed. :AMR:
What is 'good' is determined by God alone. So while it might seem good to us to follow a pattern or shape to our year through a liturgical calendar with all its "holy days", it is only good if it is by God's design and command. In this, we could say that He has given us a pattern, commanded such a pattern to take place, and requires our keeping the pattern for our blessing.
This pattern is called the weekly Christian Sabbath. Fifty-two times a year year worshipping and celebrating Him with our full attention on Him, while the other days (second through seventh days) we work diligently. This is summarized in the 4th commandment. This is the only 'calendar' God has commanded for us as a means of worshipping Him.
I have been personally guilty of violating the RPW, and have in the past few years come to repent of my disobedience. There are already too many foul odors reaching God's nostrils from the many happy-clappy churches today, and we have no warrant to add to them.
AMR
Well thanks for speaking on it this long. I see for myself the insistence and stubbornness of some who knowing better refuse to do it. Rationalizing and pretty words to keep on because others do...what some call tradition is only peer pressure...defiled hearts and minds rarely see themselves in error...
deny if you wish those who also celebrate as you knowing most of it was just a rebaptising of pagan props beginning from the date itself...met some proud of their ethnic contributions to this Mass of Christ.
could just as easily have been said of the mixture of people celebrating their redemption from Eqypt...
Perhaps were you not so bewitched by the charm of your Yuletide cheer you would realized His birth was long into a process for our redemption...it was not the beginning of it...and was actually necessitated by others who like you corrupted and distorted the earlier acts of redemption...they committed adultery "but celebrated you"...
you are right little much else to say about what yours brought in with Christmas...
nothing wrong with celebrating His resurrection either I guess...or baptizing infants with sprinkling...how about transubstantiation?...Mariolatry...using rosary...eternal hell...all traditions among His people now...nothing wrong here...
lol...Christmas...as if Holy
yup I did...your Augustine not mine...how so? Because he celebrated in pagan houses rebaptized and on the new Sabbath day newly fashionable among Christians...no surprise actually and a good example to exactly what I am speaking to...
it would seem appropriate that Christmas celebrations came about the same time as many other new customs...and traditions not as they were taught by the apostles...they instead warned of such false teaching to come...six of seven churches in revelations already corrupted...
how is it we are tempted? by fleeing sin or rationalizing it with pretty and clever arguments?
who needs grace if one feels as you...there is no sin
you reject my answer of learn not the way of pagans etc thus carry on...
Your counsel to weaker brothers is too see no sin...don't bring it in...
repentance occurs only of those convinced of needing to do so...you have proven you don't feel the need to do so...
Would be like asking a Catholic to repent his sin of Petrine primacy or the Protestant his protest...
lol...but not in favor of killing stealing adultery idolatry despite His having done so...
Still don't find Christmas in there either...His birth celebrated sure...but so was His mother...and the Sabbath...which do you pick and choose?
He also instructed to make bronze serpents...please continue...
oh good...a distortion of yet another teaching...be One as We are...doing as He did...Christmas removes you from His way doing as He did...He was celebrated once...but never Himself celebrated His own birth...
Not surprised with your go along get along gospel...others who died uncompromised should have learned from you...
Of course Yahushua is the Son of Yah...
Is why I wonder where you got this thing called mass of One called Christ...
I'd deny anything I know to be untrue.
The journey of Christ to the cross begins with the birth. Stop hearing what you expect and listen to what's actually being said to you.
I forgive you.
Nothing at all.
Find a priest. Hash it out.
How is it that we are hungry, angry, proud?
Any number of ways, I'd imagine. As many ways as there are men and notions. I suspect one of those is a whisper that says to suspect the gift God gave us to process our understanding.
Everyone needs grace and nothing I wrote leads to the conclusion that there is no sin.
I reject your application.
Once again, nothing you'll quote me writing resembles that peculiar straw you've fashioned in my likeness...careful, there are all sorts of idols.
Just so, and anyone claiming Christ should have felt that conviction or what is it they believe they need of grace?
That's a sad, miserable sort of lie...the sort that should warn you, but I suspect you're so far into whatever grips you that it won't.
That smacks of pride and vanity and endangerment. You hold the truth against nearly all of Christendom? Anything is possible, but few sentiments of that sort are actual.
You just found it.
Not at all, which is why you declare it but cannot address the problem your own words created for you. The problem with most legalists I've met is that they don't tend to apply as diligently as they believe and when you point out an inescapable incongruity, they do what you just did. It's a form of convoluted flight.
The cross removes me from being as I was and no action on my part will impact or further that gift. Repeating things I've literally answered in particular as though I hadn't is...peculiar and without merit.
That's not what it is at all. I recognize the importance of the salvific and the tendency of men to squabble over seating arrangements. That's why I asked you to be plain on whether you recognize that Jesus is God. That's not me trying to get along or gloss. It's getting to the heart of what matters.
You speak of others but it sounds an awful lot like you're really speaking of you.
That's not what I asked you. What you gave me might as well have been Peter fleeing inquiry. I'll state it plainly again: Is Jesus God?