Christmas tree?

Servant68 said:

I grew up in rural Idaho where we would go out around my birthday (December 15th) and cut down our own tree in the woods.

When I got married and had kids, I continued the tradition until they became teens and then we went to a combination of artificial and Boy Scout lot live trees.

Now that I live in a house alone, I don't get a tree but do put up lights and decorations. Was talking to a fellow Believer and he quoted Jeremiah 10:1-5 as to why he doesn't put up a tree in his home...

1Hear what the LORD says to you, people of Israel. 2This is what the LORD says: "Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the heavens, though the nations are terrified by them. 3For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. 4They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. 5Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good."

Just wondering if others here do live trees or artificial trees, or any tree at all...

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Servant68 said:

I grew up in rural Idaho where we would go out around my birthday (December 15th) and cut down our own tree in the woods.

When I got married and had kids, I continued the tradition until they became teens and then we went to a combination of artificial and Boy Scout lot live trees.

Now that I live in a house alone, I don't get a tree but do put up lights and decorations. Was talking to a fellow Believer and he quoted Jeremiah 10:1-5 as to why he doesn't put up a tree in his home...

1Hear what the LORD says to you, people of Israel. 2This is what the LORD says: "Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the heavens, though the nations are terrified by them. 3For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. 4They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. 5Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good."

Just wondering if others here do live trees or artificial trees, or any tree at all...

Click to expand...

Servant68 said:

I grew up in rural Idaho where we would go out around my birthday (December 15th) and cut down our own tree in the woods.

When I got married and had kids, I continued the tradition until they became teens and then we went to a combination of artificial and Boy Scout lot live trees.

Now that I live in a house alone, I don't get a tree but do put up lights and decorations. Was talking to a fellow Believer and he quoted Jeremiah 10:1-5 as to why he doesn't put up a tree in his home...

1Hear what the LORD says to you, people of Israel. 2This is what the LORD says: "Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the heavens, though the nations are terrified by them. 3For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. 4They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. 5Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good."

Just wondering if others here do live trees or artificial trees, or any tree at all...

Click to expand...

Miss Spaulding said:

(answering the OP, not directed towards anyone in this thread)

There's nothing spiritually wrong with putting up a tree, whether fake or real, for Christmas. If you have to dig high and low to scrape up some obscure, deeply debatable verse or two that you personally interpret as Scripture warning against decorating trees for Christmas (or for any reason), then you're over analyzing the actual context of those verses. I mean, we're talking turning an ant hill into a mountain here...in fact, there really isn't even an ant hill to begin with.

Listen, if a person chooses not to put up a tree for Christmas, then I think that's their business and it's perfectly fine. But if you come to me about it and start 'backing up' this decision with scripture, you better have your facts straight. I have to be frank, it's stuff and people like this that really make Christianity as a whole look stupid to the rest of the world.

I've met a good number of people like this, and one thing each of these people always, always, always has in common is: a lack of joy.

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Christmas traditions including dinner feasts, gift-giving, and decorative wreaths can be traced back to winter solstice rituals. For instance, for the Celtic druids, mistletoe was a sacred plant called “All Heal.” Priests would cut the plant from the tree, hold a feast and sacrifice animals underneath it. Mistletoe was believed to cure illnesses, serve as an antidote for poisons, ensure fertility and protect against witchcraft. Some people would hang it from their doorways or rooms to offer goodwill to visitors.

Ancient Romans would decorate their homes with holly during winter solstice. Holly wreaths were given as gifts and used as decoration in public areas and in homes to honor the sun god Saturn. Ancient Celts would have similar traditions. Many would plant holly in their homes as a form of protection since the plants was believed to hold magical powers for its ability to survive the winter months.

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Multifavs said:

Maybe they were pagan in the past, but they're not now and I think that's what matters.
We don't know exactly what day Jesus was born, but we have to celebrate it on some day. Better to celebrate his birthday on December 25th than not at all, I think.
I definitely don't mean to offend anyone, I'm just surprised by all the talk I've seen on CF about "we shouldn't celebrate Christian holidays and traditions because they may not have always been Christian". If we shouldn't do anything pagan, then we might as well not eat or sleep or anything like that because the pagans surely did that too. That's the idea I've gotten from some places, anyway. No one in real life has ever told me anything like this.

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Servant68 said:

Just wondering if others here do live trees or artificial trees, or any tree at all...

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Paulie079 said:

It's what I would consider kind of a deadly epidemic within Christianity because it is so anti-Gospel. When we are given a command in Scripture, there is always a heart-level reason why. Clearly in Jeremiah and elsewhere in the OT the heart level reason here is idolatry. The action-level command is not to cut down a tree, have someone fashion it, decorate it, etc. The heart-level command is to not engage in idolatry. "You shall have no other gods before me." So when people say that it's wrong to cut down and decorate a Christmas tree because Jeremiah 10, they are actually missing the entire point of the passage (not to mention that they also fail to acknowledge that the passage talks about having someone shape the tree into the form of an idol, which is not what people do with Christmas trees).
In the end they are missing what the actual act of sin is. It's not in the action, it's in the heart behind the action. The sin in that passage is not in the cutting down/decorating, it's in the idolatry behind it which doesn't exist in today's tradition. Jesus clearly denounced this works-based understanding of Scripture throughout his time on earth. When they miss the heart and only look at the surface, they miss both the meaning and the Gospel because they might have a tree-free home and think they are okay, and yet it is still entirely possible that their heart is rife with idolatry. "Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart."

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Saucy said:

Can you tell us what the context of those verses are then? Because when I read them, it sounds like a warning against doing pagan things, like cutting down and decorating trees. It's not about not having joy, but making sure we're doing the right things. While there may not be anything wrong scripturally with decorating a tree, there's nothing overtly Christian about it either. Not trying to stir up trouble, as this was a genuine question. If there's a different way to interpret those verses, I'd like to hear it.

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Saucy said:

So, I don't know. It's a debate that continues to rage in my mind lol. I don't think, though, we can just call these things Christian when they're not. They have no roots in Christianity. It's like taking a golden calf and saying, "this represents Jesus now, so I can worship it!" It doesn't work like that.

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