This is a summary ((for the sidebar menu) of five posts on whether Christians can rightly celebrate Christmas, addressing some arguments often used. Some arguments have better Biblical basis than others. I’ve also included links to a few other related articles.
Silly Reasons to Abandon Christmas #1 — “Christ-Mass” — This argument is historically bankrupt, and the error of doctrine by etymology violates the sufficiency of Scripture.
Related: Puritans, Huguenots, “Christ-Mass,” and “Immanuel’s Day” — an interesting historical note on how believers from different nations viewed Christmas.
Flawed Reasons to Abandon Christmas #2 — “It is Pagan / Catholic” — This argument has historical doubts AND significant doctrinal problems. It institutes two new doctrines not found in the Bible — doctrine by speculative history, and the doctrine of discernment by origins. Dead gods are dead, and have no power over us.
Misused Reasons to Abandon Christmas #3 — “God Didn’t Command It” — The principle is correct — we are not free, in worship, to do whatever we want. But Scripture clearly gives freedom in commemorations / holidays. Jesus observed one that was not commanded by God, the Feast of Dedication, now know as Hanukkah.
Related: Happy Feast of Purim! — Some interesting parallels between the Feast of Purim and Christmas.
Silly Reasons to Abandon Christmas #4 — “It’s the Wrong Date” — The date of God-ordained commemorations doesn’t matter, so it certainly doesn’t matter whether we celebrate this one on the “right date.” (Besides, there is reason to believe the date might actually be close — if we fight geographical myopia, and don’t let Internet experts who know nothing about sheep in Israel tell us about, well, sheep in Israel. 🙂 )
Solid Reasons to Scrutinise Christmas — There are some solid Biblical reasons to examine how we celebrate Christmas, reasons which might cause some to consider whether they should even celebrate at all.
Related: The Slavery of Christmas Spending — Challenging the current societal trend, which may catch Christians in its trap, of excessive / irresponsible spending on Christmas.
New in 2019 — Christians and Christmas, Revisited — The comments responding to the above articles demonstrate just how impossible it is for “Doctrine by Speculative History” or the “Doctrine of Discernment by Origins” to have any authority.
Excellent collection! Definitely to be bookmarked for future reference!
Thanks, Glenn. It’s coming up to the season where the Internet will be full of arguments against Christmas, so I wanted to get this out there so it would be handy for those who might not know which arguments are Biblically sound and which aren’t. If people stop celebrating Christmas, I hope they do so for Biblical reasons, rather than because someone pushed them using reasons that are actually contrary to Scripture.
I’ve done two of them in the past, which you might find of interest:
http://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-time-scripture-abuse.html
http://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2010/12/plundering-egyptians.html
Those are good articles, Glenn. I’m not persuaded of your assertion that Christmas did have pagan origins, as I said in my article, but as we’ve both said, that is hardly the issue. Your example of the gold and silver from Egypt is an excellent one — the Hebrew slaves certainly didn’t have gold and silver, so what they gave for the tabernacle must indeed have been what they got from the pagan Egyptians.