Give us your thoughts on anything Christmas. Here are some ideas:
Should we celebrate it?
Exchange gifts?
Decorate trees?
Should it be in December?
Wise men
Shepherds
Santa Claus
Etc...
You will hear many say bunch of self-righteous things and try to tie in pagan garbage to Christmas. But is you look at the context of what the church and believers do it. There is nothing about pagan in it.
What do we know?
The Birth of Christ
1. The word of God does not tell us the date that Jesus was born we do not know it. Meaning we do not know his Actually birth was on Dec 25. There is no writing of history to confirm that. Why that date ? the church choose that date to combat paganism not to support it. In the early church the Birth of Christ was not something that Rome looked to celebrate. In fact it would have been mocked. The Easter Passover and the Resurrection however, would have been celebrated. It was not until many years later that The Birth of Christ was commemorated. "200 C.E., a Christian teacher in Egypt makes reference to the date Jesus was born. According to Clement of Alexandria,"(Bible History daily2018). we find in church history the date of DEC 25 was deliberately chosen to combat pagan holiday.
The Christmas tree
2. Depending on what history you search from you will get many different things from Queen Charlotte’s compatriot, Martin Luther, the religious reformer, invented the Christmas tree, or 1605 decorated Christmas trees had made their appearance in Southern Germany. In any case the " Christmas tree" was not pagan in it's origin it was commemorative of the birth of Christ in it's earliest traditions.
The wise men , the Shepards.
3. both are mentioned in the gospel. Nothing pagan there :0
Santa
4.St. Nicholas was a Bishop who lived in the fourth century in a place called Myra in Asia Minor (now called Turkey). He was a very rich man because his parents died when he was young and left him a lot of money. He was also a very kind man and had a reputation for helping the poor and giving secret gifts to people who needed it.
The most famous story about St. Nicholas tells how the custom of hanging up stockings to put presents in first started! It goes like this:
There was a poor man who had three daughters. The man was so poor that he did not have enough money for a dowry, so his daughters couldn't get married. (A dowry is a sum of money paid to the bridegroom by the brides parents on the wedding day. This still happens in some countries, even today.) One night, Nicholas secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney and into the house (This meant that the oldest daughter was then able to be married.). The bag fell into a stocking that had been hung by the fire to dry! This was repeated later with the second daughter. Finally, determined to discover the person who had given him the money, the father secretly hid by the fire every evening until he caught Nicholas dropping in a bag of gold. Nicholas begged the man to not tell anyone what he had done, because he did not want to bring attention to himself. But soon the news got out and when anyone received a secret gift, it was thought that maybe it was from Nicholas.
Of course secularism today has tranfomed the context of St. Nick however, it is not pagan.
many legalistic church folk will say it is pagan yet being hypocritical as they will to buy gift for their families and participate in what they Hark " It is pagan". it is not. So Merry Christmas Jesus Christ is born and the world has a Savior glory to God in the Highest.
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