Celebrations?

[Darkhorse]

I've noticed a new trend in threads here; apparently:

We're not supposed to celebrate New Years, or Easter, or Christmas, because of their "pagan origins";

We're not supposed to celebrate Halloween because of its "association with witchcraft and sorcery";

We're not supposed to have candlelight Christmas Eve services, due to "pagan fire worship" and "extinguishing the Holy Spirit"...


Are we all supposed to become Jehovah's Witnesses, and not celebrate any holidays?

Or are we to become Quakers and refuse to use the pagan names for months and days?


I've got an idea: let's ditch all this nonsense and re-capture the joy of becoming God's adopted children!

Colossians 3:17 (NIV)

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

 

[Hank77]

 

[salt-n-light]

I've noticed a new trend in threads here; apparently:

We're not supposed to celebrate New Years, or Easter, or Christmas, because of their "pagan origins";

We're not supposed to celebrate Halloween because of its "association with witchcraft and sorcery";

We're not supposed to have candlelight Christmas Eve services, due to "pagan fire worship" and "extinguishing the Holy Spirit"...


Are we all supposed to become Jehovah's Witnesses, and not celebrate any holidays?

Or are we to become Quakers and refuse to use the pagan names for months and days?


I've got an idea: let's ditch all this nonsense and re-capture the joy of becoming God's adopted children!

Colossians 3:17 (NIV)

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

I think the most recent post about New Years was made to be a click-bait.

 

[Bumble Bee]

I've noticed a new trend in threads here; apparently:

We're not supposed to celebrate New Years, or Easter, or Christmas, because of their "pagan origins";

We're not supposed to celebrate Halloween because of its "association with witchcraft and sorcery";

We're not supposed to have candlelight Christmas Eve services, due to "pagan fire worship" and "extinguishing the Holy Spirit"...


Are we all supposed to become Jehovah's Witnesses, and not celebrate any holidays?

Or are we to become Quakers and refuse to use the pagan names for months and days?


I've got an idea: let's ditch all this nonsense and re-capture the joy of becoming God's adopted children!

Colossians 3:17 (NIV)

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

What do you mean about the Quakers not using pagan names for months and days? My in-laws are all Quakers, but they use the standard names for everything, and I haven’t noticed anything different in their church.

 

[Darkhorse]

What do you mean about the Quakers not using pagan names for months and days? My in-laws are all Quakers, but they use the standard names for everything, and I haven’t noticed anything different in their church.

My understanding is that some branches of Quakers are quite traditional and conservative, while other branches are quite liberal and non-traditional. The traditional ones used to re-name days of the week, Sunday being "first-day", Monday being "second-day". etc. to avoid using the names associated with pagan gods. I'm sure they had a similar system for months also.

Maybe they don't do that anymore.

Update: my sources say that these alternate names were used mostly between Quakers, not with the general public.

 

[grandvizier1006]

From what I understand, Christian fundamentalists started the whole "Halloween is Satanic" thing, and also emphasized the secular origins of Santa and the Easter bunny, which they likely saw as sacrilegious. The days on which Easter and Christmas are celebrated are commonly assumed to be deliberately so in order to replace older pagan holidays (a fertility festival for Easter and a holiday dedicated to a Roman deity known as Sol Invictus).

In truth, the development of why certain days are used to commemorate holidays is much more complicated. Other theories suggest that the pagan Roman emperor Aurelian changed Sol Invictus to match Jesus' established birthday as December 25th. Other theories suggest that Jesus' birthday was made to be December 25th because there was this idea that Jesus was deliberately born on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, which on the calendar used then was December 25th rather than the 21st like on our calendar (the Gregorian calendar). Another idea was that December 25th was 9 months after the Incarnation (Mary becoming pregnant), which for other reasons was considered to be March 25th. There was also a bishop named Dionysius (can't remember which Dionysius) that had attempted to calculate Jesus' birth, but miscalculated and ended up with December 25th, but by that point the tradition was fixed. The date for Easter, meanwhile, was debated in Christian circles, but agreed that it had to be on a Sunday after the spring equinox (why I don't know) but before the Passover.

Due to various winter festivals in northern Europe involving drinking and merry-making, Christmas became associated with drinking in places like England. As such, the Puritans banned the celebration of Christmas because it was, ironically, un-Christian. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol had a tremendous cultural impact by making people think of Christmas as a time to spend with family and be charitable. Later in the 19th century some Enlightenment-era atheists came up with the idea that Christmas' and Easter's dates were picked to coincide with pagan religious festivals.

Anti-theist atheists types latched on to this theory despite evidence of other theories such as the ones I mentioned above. The implication they likely intended to spread is that Christians are intolerant bigots who deliberately suppressed the freedom of religion of others by imposing their holidays on the days of pre-existing holidays and in effort to wipe out Greco-Roman paganism. So they would annoy easily-offended Christians (usually fundamentalists) by telling them that "Christmas is really a pagan holiday!" The same applied to Easter, and some fundamentalists believed these allegations and decided that anything in Christmas or Easter that explicitly didn't have anything to do with Jesus was pagan and therefore needed to be done away with. Verses in Jeremiah got re-interpreted to mean "worshipping a Christmas tree", and I had an idiot roommate who believed this because he was impressionable and believed what other fundamentalists told him.

Despite the actual history being more complicated, things tend to get viewed in hindsight as having very simplistic answers, and the celebration of holidays is no exception. Unfortunately, just like the flat earth and anti-vaccine crowd, the anti-holiday crowd gets to spread their poorly-thought-out ideology in place of common sense because people naturally like simplistic answers and things either being good or bad. The truth is that Christianity, above all other religions, doesn't care about random specifics like that. We see this in Acts and Paul's letters in several places, but Scripture's meaning gets replaced with ignorance and petty conflicts.

 

[now faith]

It is not about if we are supposed to, it could be on some we are commanded not to.
The reason of a holiday celebrates the benefactor of the holiday.
If parents and Children think the holiday is just for kids , and a rabbit that lays colored eggs is the normal reason we celebrate this way, mental illness has set in.
The idea of a winter wizard who is the judge of a child's behavior is a bit disturbing .
Considering the notion of reward vs no reward.
I doubt children are as easy to fool as days in the past.
It would take proactive parents to instill pagan belief into them so far fetched.
What is the concern is parents go along with the idea as if it were true, and neglect teaching their children the Gospels.
Their are no such commands we celebrate Christmas as Jesus's birthday.
When you see depression at the holidays , it is most likely from missing loved ones ,and a lack of money to live up to the required expectation.
My thought it is wrong to have festivities based on buying presents.
We do not know if tomorrow will come, never mind unrealistic expectations of a day.
Then there are people who say well it's for the kids.
Great this creates a neighborhood class warfare among our children.
But that's my opinion ,Thanksgiving being my favorite.
It promotes family's gathering to give Thanks hopefully unto God.

 

[Dave-W]

So celebrate the Biblical festivals.
See Leviticus 23.

 

[now faith]

So celebrate the Biblical festivals.
See Leviticus 23.

Christ fulfills the Law of Moses ,we are under no law that was proprietary to the Children of Israel, pertaining to sin offerings , Holy days new Moons.

Galatians 3: 2. This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3. Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? 4. Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. 5. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 6. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. 7. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

Colossians 2: 16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. 18. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19. And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. 20. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21. (Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22. Which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men? 23. Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
There is a verse in leviticus 23 that i am curious about.

Leviticus 23: 40. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. 41. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:
To me this is a direct law for Israel (all that are Israelites born)
And it being a statute forever in the prior verse.
We could interpet this for Messianic Jews as well.

As to your tag line...
Derek Prince did not promote the Law of moses,He spoke against those denomations that do.
Do you remember the no pork no bacon spirit that was cast out?
He took issiue with Ellen White as well.
I do not remember any teaching on the Sabbath, and know He was a Pentecostal in doctrine.

But who better to help me understand the forever part of the verses I posted than you?
God Bless

 

[now faith]

Dave W,
I personally believe in 6 days of work and rest on the 7th
This was what God did long before Moses, and I believe it is His will for man when it comes to labor.
It is a personal conviction.
I do not think it must be Saturday, for what ever reason most worship on Sunday, and this was set fourth so long ago God's grace is bigger than counting what day , as long as 6 work and on the 7th rest.
And besides Joshua prayed the sun Stand still, so in the Quantum universe time moves on as they battled ,yet the day was held back on the Jewish calendar.

 

[grandvizier1006]

Christ fulfills the Law of Moses ,we are under no law that was proprietary to the Children of Israel, pertaining to sin offerings , Holy days new Moons.

Galatians 3: 2. This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3. Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? 4. Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. 5. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 6. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. 7. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

Colossians 2: 16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. 18. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19. And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. 20. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21. (Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22. Which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men? 23. Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
There is a verse in leviticus 23 that i am curious about.

Leviticus 23: 40. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. 41. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:
To me this is a direct law for Israel (all that are Israelites born)
And it being a statute forever in the prior verse.
We could interpet this for Messianic Jews as well.

As to your tag line...
Derek Prince did not promote the Law of moses,He spoke against those denomations that do.
Do you remember the no pork no bacon spirit that was cast out?
He took issiue with Ellen White as well.
I do not remember any teaching on the Sabbath, and know He was a Pentecostal in doctrine.

But who better to help me understand the forever part of the verses I posted than you?
God Bless

I'm quite certain that Derek Prince knew more than Ellen White did. Ironically, both Messianics and SDAs agree on keeping Mosaic dietary laws, so there should be no conflict.

 

[now faith]

I'm quite certain that Derek Prince knew more than Ellen White did. Ironically, both Messianics and SDAs agree on keeping Mosaic dietary laws, so there should be no conflict.

Derek Prince was a Pentecostal.
But I do not mind what convictions others have.
To me it's not a deal breaker, Romans 14 is a reference point.

 

[now faith]

From what I understand, Christian fundamentalists started the whole "Halloween is Satanic" thing, and also emphasized the secular origins of Santa and the Easter bunny, which they likely saw as sacrilegious. The days on which Easter and Christmas are celebrated are commonly assumed to be deliberately so in order to replace older pagan holidays (a fertility festival for Easter and a holiday dedicated to a Roman deity known as Sol Invictus).

In truth, the development of why certain days are used to commemorate holidays is much more complicated. Other theories suggest that the pagan Roman emperor Aurelian changed Sol Invictus to match Jesus' established birthday as December 25th. Other theories suggest that Jesus' birthday was made to be December 25th because there was this idea that Jesus was deliberately born on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, which on the calendar used then was December 25th rather than the 21st like on our calendar (the Gregorian calendar). Another idea was that December 25th was 9 months after the Incarnation (Mary becoming pregnant), which for other reasons was considered to be March 25th. There was also a bishop named Dionysius (can't remember which Dionysius) that had attempted to calculate Jesus' birth, but miscalculated and ended up with December 25th, but by that point the tradition was fixed. The date for Easter, meanwhile, was debated in Christian circles, but agreed that it had to be on a Sunday after the spring equinox (why I don't know) but before the Passover.

Due to various winter festivals in northern Europe involving drinking and merry-making, Christmas became associated with drinking in places like England. As such, the Puritans banned the celebration of Christmas because it was, ironically, un-Christian. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol had a tremendous cultural impact by making people think of Christmas as a time to spend with family and be charitable. Later in the 19th century some Enlightenment-era atheists came up with the idea that Christmas' and Easter's dates were picked to coincide with pagan religious festivals.

Anti-theist atheists types latched on to this theory despite evidence of other theories such as the ones I mentioned above. The implication they likely intended to spread is that Christians are intolerant bigots who deliberately suppressed the freedom of religion of others by imposing their holidays on the days of pre-existing holidays and in effort to wipe out Greco-Roman paganism. So they would annoy easily-offended Christians (usually fundamentalists) by telling them that "Christmas is really a pagan holiday!" The same applied to Easter, and some fundamentalists believed these allegations and decided that anything in Christmas or Easter that explicitly didn't have anything to do with Jesus was pagan and therefore needed to be done away with. Verses in Jeremiah got re-interpreted to mean "worshipping a Christmas tree", and I had an idiot roommate who believed this because he was impressionable and believed what other fundamentalists told him.

Despite the actual history being more complicated, things tend to get viewed in hindsight as having very simplistic answers, and the celebration of holidays is no exception. Unfortunately, just like the flat earth and anti-vaccine crowd, the anti-holiday crowd gets to spread their poorly-thought-out ideology in place of common sense because people naturally like simplistic answers and things either being good or bad. The truth is that Christianity, above all other religions, doesn't care about random specifics like that. We see this in Acts and Paul's letters in several places, but Scripture's meaning gets replaced with ignorance and petty conflicts.

It's hard to deny the Pagan influnce in America to this day.

 

[Dave-W]

Derek Prince was a Pentecostal

Of course he was; and he lived the last 3 decades of his life in Jerusalem.

His close friend and associate (and my former house mate) Barry Segal also moved with him to Jerusalem in 1981. Does Barry keep kosher? Yes. And so did Derek; not out of legalistic obligation but out of a pure heart of love.

 

[now faith]

Derek Prince Had a unusual call ,late in life and was gifted.
He had some events happen that were out of the realm of normal.
Not to go too far of topic, but do you remember the Church piano player that they caught on tape?

 

[mama2one]

philippians 4:4

what about celebrating everyday we are alive
give yourself the present of living in the present and living in HIS presence

 

[Dave-W]

Not to go too far of topic, but do you remember the Church piano player that they caught on tape?

No I do not.

 

[now faith]

No I do not.

Are we talking about the same person?

 

[UnprofitableServant]

Putting the holidays being pagan aside, I personally don't celebrate the holidays because of the greedy spirit it involves.

Take Christmas as an example. This is a time of the year when people are encouraged to be buy a whole bunch of stuff that they don't really need, but think will show others that we care about them. If we have to buy someone a gift to show that we care, then our relationships are shallow.

It really amazes me how crazy people get during events like 'black friday' and other similar promotions. It is all suppose to be in the name of Jesus, yet He wasn't a rich man, nor did He teach others to be. He was a humble content person who didn't even have a place to sleep some nights. The Christmas 'spirit', IMO, is not a spirit of Christ, rather a spirit of greed.

In peace