John Butt

I can't find anything in the Bible that says we should celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ . Christmas only really started gathering speed in the late 1800s. For instance, the first year there was a Christmas tree in the White House was 1889.
Also, as they moved into cultures that had traditionally observed religious feasts on certain days, they often created Christian Holy Days with similar emphases as substitutes to be held on the same days. This became so common that by the time of the middle ages there was hardly a day in the year that wasn’t sacred to some saint or a commemoration of some biblical event.

One famous example of this syncretism occurred in the fourth century when the Church began to observe the feast of the nativity of Jesus Christ at the same time as the Saturnalia, a pagan festival beginning on December 17th. We now know the feast of the nativity as “Christmas.” And no, Jesus was almost certainly not born in December, he was probably born in April, nor did the Apostles celebrate Christmas. In fact, Christians did not celebrate Christmas for the first 300 years after the birth of Christ. Why was that? Because they weren’t commanded to do so by Christ.

December 16 2015 • Report