Give me biblical support for Christmas.

[clefty]

I'd deny anything I know to be untrue.

yes that has already been established...you think Christmas is true pure expression...despite even other Christians proud of the assimilation and rebaptising of pagan ways which is the tradition as even your Augustine acknowledges without flinching...

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 heard and disagree as you said Christmas is a "celebration of God and the act that began our redemption"...which clarifies my point that your elevation or Christmas distorts and disturbs the true worship respect and understanding of what has been done and is happening for our redemption...

I forgive you.

for what? Bringing to light what you seek to avoid? That your false worship and vain celebrations are adulterous abominations and because "but I thought of you"...

Nothing at all.

until you enjoin what is prohibited to you...just like celebrating the Red Sea crossing with a golden calf...duh...they could just as easily sung and danced and feasted without it...

As it is even Augustine who commits travesty to the resurrection with new tradition and application that voids previous law and understanding...clap clap clap...some celebration

Shall we begin to discuss now the holidaze more important to the church than Christmas? It's Easter? With again Ham and false calendar dates?

Find a priest. Hash it out.

yours? Sure. Would love to hear his rational too...

How is it that we are hungry,

biology?

angry, proud?

biology environment learning choice...the irony that ALL three have strict restrictions and clear warning to prevent abuse of it...again not from without but from within...nothing defiles from outside but what defiles is already within...just as you no longer flee evil but see yourself standing next to the tree...Christmas one this time...and seeing it beautiful...

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.

whisper? You are deaf by the loud roar that says to accept the gift God gave us to process but reject that we are nevertheless to sacrifice all to Him and die to self and our desires and come to HIS UNDERSTANDING not our own...our understanding is no longer our own but HIS again as we gave it back when we died to self...

Everyone needs grace and nothing I wrote leads to the conclusion that there is no sin.

you concluded I brought the sin as there was none there...

I reject your application.

mine and others too...happy and content to know that Yuletide lights and trees and Saint Nicholas and all the reindeer is not vanity or distraction but indeed to celebrate the beginning or our redemption...

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.

you insisted I project the abomination which is not there...merely celebration of a birth...the beginning of our redemption...

Just so, and anyone claiming Christ should have felt that conviction or what is it they believe they need of grace?

you need no grace for celebrating what others also in Him see as pagan...

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.

lie? You have yet to admit your celebrations could even tempt a weaker brother to stumble...much less admit the chain of man's traditions around your own neck

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 think your mass of Christ celebrations happened the next year they were in Nazareth do you? And ever since without change or effect on further tradition?

You just found it.

what His birth? Sure I can find it August 18 or may 6 over lemon tea...but I don't find the Mass of Christ and all else that abomination snowballed into...

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.

living His way and loving His way is clearly outlined...and includes not Christmas

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 cross has not removed you from being desirous of vanity and waste and carnal desires...once received to return to the vomit of what once was...celebration of seasons even pagans employ is losing merit and more...

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.

The importance of the salvific is to obey and be more not less like His Son which did His Father's will...

You speak of others but it sounds an awful lot like you're really speaking of you.

I might be even more in compromised were I surrounded by more of them and not you and yours...

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?

Of course and is why He placed absolutely NO emphasis on His human birth...and asked you to do as He did...

But whatever right?

 

[clefty]

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

Yes indeed too many foul odors reaching Yah's nostrils...

sadly even this calendar referenced here is off by a day...and by those that replaced His entire calendar with abominations of their own inventions...and continue to do so...

 

[meshak]

Clefty,

I must admit you are tenacious.

TH can go on and on for eternity.

 

[Town Heretic]

Clefty,

I must admit you are tenacious.

TH can go on and on for eternity.

You know what distinguishes tenacity from "going on for eternity"? Your bias...now see there, that was succinct.

 

[ok doser]

Clefty,

I must admit you are tenacious.

TH can go on and on for eternity.

he's like a solar powered energizer bunny set loose in the sahara desert

 

[meshak]

You know what distinguishes tenacity from "going on for eternity"? Your bias...now see there, that was succinct.

thanks, I am not going to start with you. I have been there.

good day

 

[Town Heretic]

yes that has already been established...you think Christmas is true pure expression

Rather, Christmas is what we bring to it and in my house it is a wonderful expression of thankfulness and joy.

...despite even other Christians proud of the assimilation and rebaptising of pagan ways which is the tradition as even your Augustine acknowledges without flinching...

Addressed in full and rejected prior, with argument.

I heard and disagree as you said Christmas is a "celebration of God and the act that began our redemption"

Then I'd say you're wrong and stand by what I wrote and the reason offered.

yours? Sure. Would love to hear his rational too...

I don't have a priest. I'm a Protestant.

biology environment learning choice...

In other words, we are tempted in any number of ways.

the irony that ALL three have strict restrictions and clear warning to prevent abuse of it...again not from without but from within...nothing defiles from outside but what defiles is already within...just as you no longer flee evil but see yourself standing next to the tree...Christmas one this time...and seeing it beautiful...

There is no evil in the tree or in its presence in my home. The evil is what you bring to it, create for it and it would be sin for you given that.

whisper? You are deaf by the loud roar that says to accept the gift God gave us to process but reject that we are nevertheless to sacrifice all to Him and die to self and our desires and come to HIS UNDERSTANDING not our own...our understanding is no longer our own but HIS again as we gave it back when we died to self...

I'd debate your understanding but I'm loath to go further into it without settling the foundation. A simple question. Asked at least twice now, not to embarrass or impugn, but to clarify and to make certain that I don't speak a thing that isn't true.

Is Jesus God?

you concluded I brought the sin as there was none there...

Rather, you asked,

"who needs grace if one feels as you...there is no sin"

This is the problem with your consistent use of half formed sentences. I took you to mean it in a larger sense and I answered that I have never said there was no sin. Now you're applying a particular context that the answer isn't designed to meet. You need to discipline your writing.

you insisted I project the abomination which is not there...merely celebration of a birth...the beginning of our redemption...

You do when you point a gnarly finger of judgment at my house. So it isn't inherent and your objection isn't a rule. It's an observation in anecdote for who knows how many.

you need no grace for celebrating what others also in Him see as pagan...

Your eyes are your eyes. Whatever is in them is yours also.

lie? You have yet to admit your celebrations could even tempt a weaker brother to stumble...much less admit the chain of man's traditions around your own neck

I think that's the same problem you had in "there is no sin". That is, you aren't framing your declarations with particularity and we're talking past one another. So if applied to the particular not a lie, only wrong headed in application. I don't feel the need to repent a thing that carries no sin. And I've already answered you on the problematic application of the stumbling bit. As you manage it little can be said or done, given how much the Body divides over. I don't for a moment believe the man who counseled discernment meant for that to be the rule or impact.

you think your mass of Christ celebrations happened the next year they were in Nazareth do you?

In the Protestant tradition, we don't have a mass, so Christmas is something else and I've spoken to that about as completely as I can. The celebration happening the next year or a hundred years after Christ's birth changes nothing in it.

living His way and loving His way is clearly outlined...and includes not Christmas

Raised and answered fully prior and above.

The importance of the salvific is to obey and be more not less like His Son which did His Father's will...

Obedience will not bring salvation. That's the unfulfilled law.

Of course and is why He placed absolutely NO emphasis on His human birth...and asked you to do as He did...But whatever right?

You confuse asking that we follow His example with the idea that anything that he literally didn't do is forbidden. In which case, why are you on the internet, sinner? Same problem I noted with you attempt to transform an understanding that requires consideration into black letter law that doesn't.

Thanks for the answer. So you didn't attack the orthodox understanding of the Trinity?

 

[meshak]

BTW TH,

I know you are expert on making round and round talk.

I was admiring clefty for keeping up with you.

He has a great patience.

bye now

 

[Town Heretic]

thanks, I am not going to start with you.

But meshak, you already did.

Sorry then, I thought that when you took a moment to talk about me it was fair enough for me to answer the tilt. :think:

I have been there.

good day

:thumb:

BTW TH,

I know you are expert on making round and round talk.

I have no idea what that means.

I was admiring clefty for keeping up with you.

It really came through.

He has a great patience.

Really? I'd love to see it. So far he mostly seems interested in finding inventive ways to call himself Holy and me an adulterer of some sort. lain: In that case, this place is crawling with patience. \

bye now

:thumb: :thumb:

 

[ok doser]

he keeps going and going and going....

 

[clefty]

Rather, Christmas is what we bring to it and in my house it is a wonderful expression of thankfulness and joy.

could also have been said of the golden calf..."it is what we bring to it and in our camp it is a wonderful expression of thankfulness and joy...thanks for getting us out of Egypt"...instead they were killed...for their abominations which He HATES

Addressed in full and rejected prior, with argument.

oh sure deny even other Christians acknowledge its rebaptising for "but I thought of you"

Then I'd say you're wrong and stand by what I wrote and the reason offered.

so you elevate the birth as the opening act of the plan for our redemption...idols pervert truth created error and offer false worship...and with Christmas being the opening act of redemption you hereby reject all that was done prior...you MUST in order to celebrate Christmas...

I don't have a priest. I'm a Protestant.

no you aren't...you are NOT protesting ROME's Mass of Christ...a tradition you stumble after with...compromising to return to the vomit your ancestor's were killed for rejecting...you are the reason the reformation dies out 500 years to the year and the flame is but a Yuletide log...

In other words, we are tempted in any number of ways.

you stated Eve was led into temptation...I maintain she rationalized "there is no sin" rather than flee...and like you partook of that which is forbidden

There is no evil in the tree or in its presence in my home. The evil is what you bring to it, create for it and it would be sin for you given that.

Again could easily be said by the Hebrews with their golden calf...instead they were killed for it...

I'd debate your understanding but I'm loath to go further into it without settling the foundation. A simple question. Asked at least twice now, not to embarrass or impugn, but to clarify and to make certain that I don't speak a thing that isn't true.

You'd loath to go further into it?...I would rather you loath your incorporating what pagans do to what HE LOATHES...despite your insistence "but I was thinking of you"

Is Jesus God?

answered twice already and should have been mightily apparent from the onset of this discussing as being God He needs no birthdays or would have instructed and instead in being God He was particular as to how His people are to worship Him to be peculiar and not as the pagans who had no true god but the traditions of idolatry and birthdays...in vanity to elevate themselves

Rather, you asked, This is the problem with your consistent use of half formed sentences. I took you to mean it in a larger sense and I answered that I have never said there was no sin. Now you're applying a particular context that the answer isn't designed to meet. You need to discipline your writing.

My writing is ok...your practice of false worship needs disciplining...as you maintain that others bring the sin as it your Christmas celebration in and of itself is not a sinful act...when He is clear He loathes it or would have given instruction for it...you are not with Him then it is you are against Him...

You do when you point a gnarly finger of judgment at my house. So it isn't inherent and your objection isn't a rule. It's an observation in anecdote for who knows how many.

God Himself will find it difficult to convince you of your insult to Him as you accuse Him of projecting an abomination that is not there because "I am thinking of you"...

as would any who have by their example done away with Christmas as protest...

Your eyes are your eyes. Whatever is in them is yours also.

no when I die to myself they are His eyes His heart His mind...is why I see what you do not...and wish to do what you do not...namely live more like Him not less...including Christmas makes it less like Him...as He never did...

I think that's the same problem you had in "there is no sin". That is, you aren't framing your declarations with particularity and we're talking past one another. So if applied to the particular not a lie, only wrong headed in application. I don't feel the need to repent a thing that carries no sin.And I've already answered you on the problematic application of the stumbling bit. As you manage it little can be said or done, given how much the Body divides over. I don't for a moment believe the man who counseled discernment meant for that to be the rule or impact.

we are to repent for sins we don't even know we did...

And yet here you are repenting only sins that you are caught in or forced to concede to...

In the Protestant tradition, we don't have a mass,

you don't have a Christmas then...and Protestants did not...the more protestant ones that is...

so Christmas is something else

historically the Church was upset by those even stealing the bread to make it something else...but yes you do celebrate differently...

and I've spoken to that about as completely as I can. The celebration happening the next year or a hundred years after Christ's birth changes nothing in it.

except that it shows it was added...and later...but yes yes yes you see no sin...is why that which goes into the body does not defile but that the heart already is...

Raised and answered fully prior and above.

yes to live and love LESS like He did...that is a new gospel and sin against the Spirit...

Obedience will not bring salvation. That's the unfulfilled law.

nope wrong on that as well...

Obedience was because one is saved...your works reveal your faith...yours is great in yourself and argument...the vanity of "I sin NOT" is exactly the proud Pharises's prayer...

You confuse asking that we follow His example with the idea that anything that he literally didn't do is forbidden. In which case, why are you on the internet, sinner? Same problem I noted with you attempt to transform an understanding that requires consideration into black letter law that doesn't.

lol...it is not forbidden us to ask forgiveness...He did not do that...but we know when we should...some more than others

Thanks for the answer. So you didn't attack the orthodox understanding of the Trinity?

you didn't ask that...you asked is Jesus God...

Which if He wasn't I would be more inclined to ignore His example and directives...and celebrate as I wish and NOT as He does...as you do...so do you think Jesus is God?

 

[Town Heretic]

could also have been said of the golden calf

No, it couldn't and suggesting that a pagan idol, made to appease is a parallel with what I just described tolls the statute on bothering to take you seriously, you doing enough of that for both of us and then some.

so you elevate the birth as the opening act of the plan for our redemption

No. And nothing I wrote does that.

and with Christmas being the opening act of redemption you hereby reject all that was done prior

Like saying that to honor the sacrifice of the cross ignores creation.

no you aren't

Imagine what the fellows down at the Presbyterian church are going to say. Why wait, it will probably be something like, "Is he all right?"

...you are NOT protesting ROME's Mass of Christ

Same mistake you made with stumbling and the last one. You're choking on black letter that isn't. A Protestant is by definition, by dogma and exegesis at odds with much of the Catholic understanding. I'm just not stamping my foot a lot. That mostly affects the arch and fails to find effect in anyone who isn't in agreement.

you stated Eve was led into temptation...I maintain she rationalized "there is no sin"

Right. You read into scripture a thing not presented there. A practice you condemn when reading narrowly as it suits you.

You'd loath to go further into it

Right. All you're doing is repeating the same mantra, no matter what is said to you.

My writing is ok.

Sometimes. Often it's a mess, an ellipses filled, convoluted mess.

God Himself will find it difficult to convince you of your insult to Him as you accuse Him of projecting an abomination that is not there because "I am thinking of you"...

The "I'm thinking of you" was weak the first half dozen times you used it, which you appear determined to do in every post of late. It doesn't reflect what I've written, only the poverty of your reinvention. Likewise the judgment you put in the mouth of God. Rarely a good idea.

no when I die to myself they are His eyes His heart His mind...is why I see what you do not

I don't believe anyone reading you can be confused about your admiration and where it vests. You see, you know, you're etc. And you think vanity is other people's problem? lain:

we are to repent for sins we don't even know we did...

Cite to scripture.

And yet here you are repenting only sins that you are caught in or forced to concede to...

Now that's a definite and unambiguously overreaching lie. Caught? Forced? No, convicted. How did you come to repent, from an over abundance of virtue?

I'm omitting the laundry list of unsupported accusations. There's no profit in them or attempting to dissuade a man who would decry the Pope but who in every meaningful sense seems dedicated to acting like one.

nope wrong on that as well...

Now you're getting "how to win an argument" cues from Stripe? Obedience will not save you. Grace will.

Obedience was because one is saved

No, the desire to please God flows from grace. Grace itself speaks to our failing, to our insufficiency, which the law instructed us in before Christ came.

...your works reveal your faith...yours is great in yourself and argument...the vanity of "I sin NOT" is exactly the proud Pharises's prayer...

That's dishonest. To say a thing is not a sin is not to say, "I sin NOT". Ironically, you sin in that false accusation and evidence the vanity that drives you to oppose Christendom as you will momentarily, or as you will begin to.

lol...it is not forbidden us to ask forgiveness...He did not do that...but we know when we should...some more than others

That was a courageous dodge. If you're going to condemn the doing of that which he did not do or command then you're hoisted on your own petard, or keyboard, or antibiotic, etc.

you didn't ask that...you asked is Jesus God...

In Christian orthodoxy the answer is the same. God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Do you deny the truth of that?

 

[meshak]

Hey TH,

I am not going into lengthy argument like you are doing with clefty but I would like to refute your claim of "Obedience will not save you. Grace will". Because this is the core of mainstream churches.

What is "grace" to you?

Please no lengthy reply. this is simple question.

thank you

 

[Town Heretic]

Hey TH,

I am not going into lengthy argument like you are doing with clefty but I would like to refute your claim of "Obedience will not save you. Grace will". Because this is the core of mainstream churches.

What is "grace" to you?

Please no lengthy reply. this is simple question.

thank you

If you look at my answers, meshak, they're rarely long. The problem is that I tend to speak with people who scattershot a great many issues instead of framing one. And I tend to answer on any point that's presented, so even a sentence of two over that sort of volume can be impressively long.

On grace, I'd say the Bible illustrates it better than I could:

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:22-24).

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:8-10).

"For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).

Short enough? :e4e:

 

[ok doser]

... I tend to answer on any point that's presented...

you don't have to do that

most people don't

most people absorb what another has said and respond in whole

like a conversation

 

[meshak]

If you look at my answers, meshak, they're rarely long. The problem is that I tend to speak with people who scattershot a great many issues instead of framing one. And I tend to answer on any point that's presented, so even a sentence of two over that sort of volume can be impressively long.

On grace, I'd say the Bible illustrates it better than I could:

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:22-24).

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:8-10).

"For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).

Short enough? :e4e:

ok, thank you

You quoted Paul. Can you find from Jesus' word?

 

[Town Heretic]

ok, thank you

De nada.

You quoted Paul. Can you find from Jesus' word?

I don't believe Jesus used the word, though I don't have the Bible memorized, so I might be mistaken. But then, Jesus never says "I love you" to anyone in the NT that I know of, but I don't doubt his love.

So Paul does a good enough job and in any event I'd phrase it differently: I quoted scripture. That's the word of God and sufficient for our instruction.

 

[meshak]

De nada.

I don't believe Jesus used the word, though I don't have the Bible memorized, so I might be mistaken. But then, Jesus never says "I love you" to anyone in the NT that I know of, but I don't doubt his love.

So Paul does a good enough job and in any event I'd phrase it differently: I quoted scripture. That's the word of God and sufficient for our instruction.

Ok, I rephrase my question.

Did Jesus indicate or teach "grace" you are talking about?

 

[Town Heretic]

Ok, I rephrase my question.

Did Jesus indicate or teach "grace" you are talking about?

Well, Jesus is God and the scripture is His word, so sure.

+

 

[meshak]

Well, Jesus is God and the scripture is His word, so sure.

+

How did He teach grace?