# Christmas? Easter?



## CrossCentered (Feb 5, 2019)

So in my quest for knowledge, I have come across Christians and nonchristians who claim Christmas and Easter were pagan holidays well before Christ was born and crucified. They stated that celebrating these holidays, as the pagans do is an abomination to God. Also as evidence they asked me to show them anywhere in the Bible where God instructs us to celebrate Jesus birthday, and or his death and resurrection. The Bible does caution us about following traditions of man.

 I still celebrate these holidays, and my answer was that the devil, knowing of Christ story, and how it would happen. Deceived men and gave them the false stories of virgin births, and dying and coming back as a way of distracting us from celebrating God. PS if you do not know about the pagan stories I am referring to, look them up. Something about the sun god impregnating a virgin human, the son was born on what we call Christmas now, (something like that, but it shares some common elements of our Christian beliefs, and allegedly it was around WELL before Christ)

 I am wondering if someone has supporting or denying Biblical proof of what we should do?


----------



## Israel (Feb 5, 2019)

I find the Lord's death and resurrection a continual cause of celebration and worthy of attention. But I am not a good man, and _certainly not_ a good christian.


----------



## CrossCentered (Feb 5, 2019)

I appreciate your honesty there


----------



## welderguy (Feb 5, 2019)

One man eateth meat offered unto idols, another man eateth meat with thanksgiving to God. 
We are instructed,as Christians, not to eat the meat offered to idols if we are told that is it's purpose. 

My point,...whatsoever you do, do it unto God, with thanksgiving. period.
Whatsoever is done without faith is sin.


----------



## Israel (Feb 5, 2019)

CrossCentered said:


> I appreciate your honesty there


Just very selfish.
I didn't want any days without joy. And I was way too selfish to settle for just a few happening "once in a while". (I don't think there was ever a man who "loved" Christmas...more)

Who knew there's provision for the very selfish?

I just had to come clean about liking Friday afternoon way more than Monday morning and admitting that was in some way my testimony that Jesus wasn't Lord of each...making me a liar. But again...who knew there's such provision for liars, too?

I just had to let go of "my" special days to see things I'd never seen before.


----------



## j_seph (Feb 5, 2019)

CrossCentered said:


> and my answer was that the devil, knowing of Christ story, and how it would happen. Deceived men and gave them the false stories of virgin births, and dying and coming back as a way of distracting us from celebrating God.



I cannot get past this statement. Please help me, am I reading correctly that you told someone that the Devil deceived men and that the virgin birth of my Savior and his resurrection was false? That it never happened?


----------



## gemcgrew (Feb 5, 2019)

Just don't ever own or drive a Saturn.

Pagan origins and all.


----------



## BANDERSNATCH (Feb 5, 2019)

I celebrate God's feasts.        (note, they are not Jew's feast, they are God's feast days....and were celebrated all the way to the end of Acts, 30+ years after Jesus ascension)


----------



## BANDERSNATCH (Feb 5, 2019)

In the OT - ill have to look up the references - God asked Israel to "not worship Me in the way the pagans worship Me"   Christians typically do not mind that Easter originated with a pagan god, and that many of the Easter customs are pagan.   Nowhere in the bible, OT or NT, are we asked to honor Jesus' birth....only His death, which is where the blessings originated!

Let me add that Passover is how God told us to celebrate the death of our Passover Lamb, Jesus.    We also celebrate Jesus' resurrection with yet another of  GOD'S Feasts, 'First Fruits'.    Modern Christianity, being very anti-Semitic and doing away with most everything "Jewish" about our faith has left us clueless with it comes to how the Lord fulfilled these feasts.   That's how we scratch our head wondering how Jesus was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights when Good Friday is on a Friday.    Every Christian should know how, and why, Jesus was in the grave 3 days AND 3 whole nights.


----------



## CrossCentered (Feb 5, 2019)

j_seph said:


> I cannot get past this statement. Please help me, am I reading correctly that you told someone that the Devil deceived men and that the virgin birth of my Savior and his resurrection was false? That it never happened?


No sir, I was referring to the pagan sun god myth, how he impregnated a virgin. Read the rest of the paragraph. The pagan mythology has similar elements with our Christian beliefs, and was around before Christ.


----------



## CrossCentered (Feb 5, 2019)

welderguy said:


> One man eateth meat offered unto idols, another man eateth meat with thanksgiving to God.
> We are instructed,as Christians, not to eat the meat offered to idols if we are told that is it's purpose.
> 
> My point,...whatsoever you do, do it unto God, with thanksgiving. period.
> Whatsoever is done without faith is sin.


Do you have the original verse sir? I always like to gather context from previous and after verses.


----------



## welderguy (Feb 6, 2019)

CrossCentered said:


> Do you have the original verse sir? I always like to gather context from previous and after verses.



1 Cor.10:28
Rom.14:5-8
Rom.14:23


----------



## Madman (Feb 18, 2019)

Christians have always observed those days and many others, in fact one of the topics of the 1st Council of Nicaea was to come up with a way to set the date for Easter.

The Church uses many things that point us to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

P.S. Even if Christmas and Easter were set on dates to offset pagan holidays, who cares?  God use many things that once were "dirty" for His purpose, I am but one example.


----------



## BANDERSNATCH (Feb 19, 2019)

Madman said:


> Christians have always observed those days and many others, in fact one of the topics of the 1st Council of Nicaea was to come up with a way to set the date for Easter.
> 
> The Church uses many things that point us to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
> 
> P.S. Even if Christmas and Easter were set on dates to offset pagan holidays, who cares?  God use many things that once were "dirty" for His purpose, I am but one example.



It's not so much the dates that are the problem with Christmas and Easter, it's the fact that Christians use them as "holy days" while mixing in pagan rituals and practices, something God definitely forbids.   (ie.   Easter eggs...Christmas trees....etc) 

No doubt the predominantly Gentile church got rid of its Jewish feasts....that are God's feasts:   Passover, Tabernacles, etc.    Christianity, over time, got rid of God's feasts and replaced them with their own.   A quick google search for the origins of Easter will give you results that most Christians ignore.


----------



## BANDERSNATCH (Feb 19, 2019)

This is where God's Feasts were dropped and replaced with man's versions, hundreds of years after Acts:    BTW, we see in Acts how Christians were still observing God's feasts 30-40 years after Jesus ascended....men decided to do away with God's feasts, not God.


historian Eusebius record’s a letter from Emperor Constantine which summarizes, among other things, the following:


“_When the question relative to the sacred festival of Easter arose, it […] was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of all festivals, to follow the custom of the Jews, who had soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes, and whose minds were blinded.  In rejecting their custom, […]. We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Savior has shown us another way; […], in unanimously adopting this mode, we desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews, for it is truly shameful for us to hear them boast that without their direction we could not keep this feast. […]_.” 

Good ole Constantine....anti-Semitic to the core


----------



## 1gr8bldr (Feb 19, 2019)

Since we don't know the dates anyway, I think celebrating a date sometime is better than not simply because we were originally told when we could celebrate it. Christians wanted a day to celebrate Christ's birth.... so they, authoritys,  gave us a date, only it was given out of the interest of the Secular society, we got what we asked for. Edit, several holidays, roman festivals, Jewish as well were granted to coincide with other to keep up economy. If each celebration from each group were a week apart, rather than the same time, economy would be effected due to limited services spanning a month. So better to put them all the same week, let everybody take off that week than to deal with such limited work force


----------



## Madman (Feb 19, 2019)

BANDERSNATCH said:


> It's not so much the dates that are the problem with Christmas and Easter, it's the fact that Christians use them as "holy days" while mixing in pagan rituals and practices, something God definitely forbids.   (ie.   Easter eggs...Christmas trees....etc)
> No doubt the predominantly Gentile church got rid of its Jewish feasts....that are God's feasts:   Passover, Tabernacles, etc.    Christianity, over time, got rid of God's feasts and replaced them with their own.   A quick google search for the origins of Easter will give you results that most Christians ignore.


  Peter claimed not to eat unclean food, but God asked him why he proclaimed unclean what God had created for good.




BANDERSNATCH said:


> This is where God's Feasts were dropped and replaced with man's versions, hundreds of years after Acts:    BTW, we see in Acts how Christians were still observing God's feasts 30-40 years after Jesus ascended....men decided to do away with God's feasts, not God.



The Jews did not celebrate Resurrection Day (Easter) still don't, and the writer of Hebrews teaches that there is a better way that has been provided.  Be very careful falling back into the Jewish ways. 


By the way Constantine had no say at the councils.


----------



## BANDERSNATCH (Feb 19, 2019)

Madman said:


> Peter claimed not to eat unclean food, but God asked him why he proclaimed unclean what God had created for good.
> 
> The Jews did not celebrate Resurrection Day (Easter) still don't, and the writer of Hebrews teaches that there is a better way that has been provided.  Be very careful falling back into the Jewish ways.
> 
> By the way Constantine had no say at the councils.



Correct, Peter had not eaten anything unclean, years after Jesus had left.   Peter understood the vision to be about Men, not food.   Pigs had always been unclean, men were not, even though the Pharisees were teaching that they were.   peter explains the vision twice, both times he never mentions food since he understood the vision to be about men.

The Jews celebrated what they were asked to celebrate, Passover, the day the lamb was slain.    Also, they did celebrate the resurrection, still do.    It's called "first fruits", when Jesus presented Himself before God, as the High Priest also presented the wave offering of the new grain to God.    The church doing away with its Jewishness is why we have Good Friday...and why Christians can't figure out how Jesus was in the grave 3 days AND 3 nights

Constantine is why churches are the way they are today....anti-jewish.    Like Constantine's letter said, or even it was only the council, they no longer wanted the church to resemble its jewish origins.


----------



## Madman (Feb 19, 2019)

Constantine did not set Church doctrine.  If your church is anti-semitic it is due to sin.


----------



## Madman (Feb 20, 2019)

Paul seems to disagree with keeping the law for salvation.  Galatians 2


----------



## BANDERSNATCH (Feb 20, 2019)

Madman said:


> Paul seems to disagree with keeping the law for salvation.  Galatians 2



    As do I.    Salvation is a gift through faith.    Obedience is how we show God we love Him.


----------



## kmh1031 (Feb 20, 2019)

Responding to the Holiday issue, John 4:24 helps set the stage:
God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth.

Truth is the key word here…not what we think, or someone told us, or what we have always done but the truth from the bible.
Regarding celebrations, holidays, that is a sensitive subject with many…some find nothing wrong, others celebrate a few, but not others.

We may remember, that thousands of Israelite's were killed by God when Moses came down from Mt Sinai, after they made a “Golden Calf” and were having a “celebration for God”….proving not all celebrations are approved by God!
Easter is a religious holiday, said to be held to celebrate the raising from the Christ from the dead

But Jesus gave no command to celebrate his resurrection?
Also, a simple check of history, and references shows that Easter was not celebrated by early Christians and that it is based on ancient pagan practices.

_The Encyclopœdia Britannica _says:
“There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament.  The sanctity of special times was an idea absent from the minds of the first Christians.”
What of the simple celebrations that happen at Easter? Is god OK with them?
Dr. Alexander Hislop says of Easter customs:
The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean [Babylonian] rites just as they do now.”
The word “Easter” that appears once in the King James Bible at Acts 12:4and is noted to be a wrong translation for the word “Passover.”
“Easter” appears nowhere in the Catholic Douay Bible and Easter, really finds no support at all in the Bible.

Doing our own research, we would most likely come to the same conclusion that it is of pagan origin, and therefore displeasing to God. 

And Christmas? By checking reference works, you will find that this “holiday” was also unknown among the earliest Christians and not celebrated.

Jesus instructed his followers to observe a memorial of his death, (1 Cor 11:24-26) not of his birth.

I find it interesting that nowhere in the bible is the day of Jesus birth recorded, but his death is.
Says _The Catholic Encyclopedia: _“Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church. The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt.”

December 25, celebrated by many as the birthday of Christ could not have been the date of Jesus’ birth.

The Bible shows that at the time shepherds were still in the fields at night.

 As the _Encyclopœdia Britannica _acknowledges, they would not have been there in the cold, rainy season of winter.
 As for the origin of the date, _The World Book Encyclopedia _says:
“In A.D. 354, Bishop Liberius of Rome ordered the people to celebrate on December 25. He probably chose this date because the people of Rome already observed it as the Feast of Saturn, celebrating the birthday of the sun.” Certainly not a Christian celebration.

Since the date of Christmas is of pagan origin, so are many of the customs of Christmas.  Anyone can do their research on these items to find their origin.


Is celebrating these holidays OK? Going back to the first scripture “Worship god with Spirit and TRUTH,
Thus we can make our own decision about holidays, based on the evidence from the Bible and reference works…
Finally, we may want to give attention to the apostle Paul’s warning against mixing the true and the false.
He says at Galatians 5:9. that even “a little leaven ferments the whole lump.”
Everyone's choice.. just answering a question in this thread....


----------



## BANDERSNATCH (Mar 19, 2019)

God told His people "not to worship Him in the ways that the pagans worshiped their gods".    Christmas and Easter definitely have pagans origins so, as for me and my house, we will not be observing them.    When they Assyria sent priests back to Samaria the bible says that they not only worshiped God, but also worshiped the gods of the Assyrians, too.   God was not happy with that and dispersed them across the world, as He said He would do.   

if you care, read II Kings 17:26-41   This is how God still feels about it still.   He does not change


----------



## GunnSmokeer (Mar 23, 2019)

Since it came up twice in this thread, let me ask about "3 days and nights" in the grave.

Jesus died Friday ( preparation day) in the afternoon.
At sundown, the next day began. That was Saturday, the Sabbath (seventh day).
Jesus was dead and entombed for no more than the last couple hours of preparation day.

He was entombed all of Saturday, from one sunset to the next day's sunset.

Sunday,  The first day of the week and the day on which work could begin again, began at darkfall on Saturday   evening.

Jesus was discovered to have left the grave early Sunday, at dawn.  Perhaps he left sometime before then but let's just *assume*  that he left minutes before the women entered his tomb and discovered he was missing.

That  means that on Sunday he spent the pre-dawn darkness of Sunday in the grave but none of the daylight time on Sunday.

So... a few hours on Friday 
+ 24 hours on Saturday 
+ half of Sunday 
= approximately 39 hours,

 or 1.7 days.
Not 3 "full days and nights."


Right?  Why not?


----------



## BANDERSNATCH (Mar 23, 2019)

Absolutely correct, brother!    Jesus said that the sign of Jonah was to be the only sign given.    I know the answer, but I'm going to see if there are any of my Christian brothers who can explain how Jesus was absolutely 3 days and 3 nights in the grave!  

Good Friday is a lie.    lol


----------



## BANDERSNATCH (Mar 23, 2019)

Can't stand it.   lol      Here's the info we should have been taught in church all our life, but since the church has done away with anything Jewish from the OT, we are left clueless.    Anyway, here is the answer.

As you know, Jesus died during Passover and, of course, He is our Passover lamb, slain for us.   What most Christians - and I was one of them - were never told was that Passover leads into the Feast of Unleavened Bread.    The day after Passover (Passover being the 14th day of the month of Nissan) is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the 15th.  The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is declared by God to be a special SABBATH DAY.       It even says in at least one of the Gospels that the Sabbath they were preparing for was a HIGH SABBATH, which is a special sabbath associated with the Feasts of the Lord, NOT THE WEEKLY every-Saturday Sabbath.     Another point is that if Jesus died on Friday evening, as we have been taught, then His mother, Mary, would not have had any time to go and buy spices to take to the tomb early Sunday, since the next day, Saturday, was a sabbath day with no buying or selling allowed.   
Anyway, here is how it works out.    Jesus is killed Wednesday evening (Passover) right before sundown, at the same time that the Passover lamb was being offered (amazing coincidence, huh?)    He is hurriedly placed in a nearby tomb because the High Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was about to start.   (Jewish days begin at sundown)    Jesus is in the grave starting Wed evening, then there is a High Sabbath on Thursday.   Friday is the preparation day (which would have been extensive since Mary had a large family) for the weekly Saturday sabbath, so Mary prepares for the Saturday sabbath, and also buys the spices to take to the tomb early Sunday.    Saturday is a sabbath.   Jesus raises from the dead late Saturday as it was turning dark, and is "discovered' missing (no one saw him rise Sunday) early Sunday morning before it was light.   He was already gone.   
Good Friday never works.    Jesus Himself said that He would be in the earth, like Jonah was in the fish, 3 days AND 3 nights.    The New Testament translators, being ignorant of the Jewish Feast days, only understood Jesus dying "before the sabbath" as dying on Friday.    There was a special sabbath that week, though.    A 'High Sabbath' associated with the Feast of Unleavened Bread". 

God is awesome.    Who else could have worked out those details like that?


----------



## Artfuldodger (Mar 23, 2019)

BANDERSNATCH said:


> Can't stand it.   lol      Here's the info we should have been taught in church all our life, but since the church has done away with anything Jewish from the OT, we are left clueless.    Anyway, here is the answer.
> 
> As you know, Jesus died during Passover and, of course, He is our Passover lamb, slain for us.   What most Christians - and I was one of them - were never told was that Passover leads into the Feast of Unleavened Bread.    The day after Passover (Passover being the 14th day of the month of Nissan) is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the 15th.  The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is declared by God to be a special SABBATH DAY.       It even says in at least one of the Gospels that the Sabbath they were preparing for was a HIGH SABBATH, which is a special sabbath associated with the Feasts of the Lord, NOT THE WEEKLY every-Saturday Sabbath.     Another point is that if Jesus died on Friday evening, as we have been taught, then His mother, Mary, would not have had any time to go and buy spices to take to the tomb early Sunday, since the next day, Saturday, was a sabbath day with no buying or selling allowed.
> Anyway, here is how it works out.    Jesus is killed Wednesday evening (Passover) right before sundown, at the same time that the Passover lamb was being offered (amazing coincidence, huh?)    He is hurriedly placed in a nearby tomb because the High Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was about to start.   (Jewish days begin at sundown)    Jesus is in the grave starting Wed evening, then there is a High Sabbath on Thursday.   Friday is the preparation day (which would have been extensive since Mary had a large family) for the weekly Saturday sabbath, so Mary prepares for the Saturday sabbath, and also buys the spices to take to the tomb early Sunday.    Saturday is a sabbath.   Jesus raises from the dead late Saturday as it was turning dark, and is "discovered' missing (no one saw him rise Sunday) early Sunday morning before it was light.   He was already gone.
> ...



 Thanks for not waiting, that was quite interesting.


----------



## Madman (Mar 26, 2019)

CrossCentered said:


> I am wondering if someone has supporting or denying Biblical proof of what we should do?


if you need Biblical evidence, let's begin here.
Luke 2:8-14


----------

