WWUTT 1105 Q&A Multicultural Wise Men, O Christmas Tree, Christians and Kwanzaa?

Were the wise men who visited Jesus of varying ethnicities? Is it alright to have a

Christmas tree in your home? And should Christians celebrate Kwanzaa? The answers to these questions and others, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, rejoicing that the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only

Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Find all of our videos covering a variety of Bible topics at www .tt

.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. From all of us at what? Yeah. Since this is the

Friday before Christmas. So this being the Christmas edition of the broadcast, we're taking

Christmas questions. And you can submit questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

The first couple of questions I want to get to though is actually a recap of a couple of questions that we answered last week.

Last week or the week before? No, it was last week. Okay. Because it was the question on the Ark of the Covenant.

So if the... Yeah, that was the week before last. No, that was last week. Last week I wasn't on.

No, it was the week before last you weren't on. Really? And I got all political because you weren't on that broadcast.

Oh, that's right. I was confusing the two weeks, so yes. I'm so sorry.

Yes. Have you napped enough today? Nope. The kids aren't even here.

Nope, they are not, which might be part of my confusion. I don't have my normal routine to go through.

That's right. This is a day that Becky's folks have taken the kids from us.

Yes. All of them. We're recording in silence with no risk of the five -year -old in particular walking in here saying she has to go to the bathroom.

That happens about every other time we record this broadcast. Pretty close, yeah. So anyway,

Ark of the Covenant. Yes. The Ark of the Covenant question. And then the other one had to do with Watchman Nee, Witness Lee.

Right. Okay. We're coming back to those two questions today. So first of all, a recap on Britt's question.

He says, what happened to the relics that were in the temple when Rome destroyed it? And if the

Ark was in it, why didn't the Romans die like Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6, 6 -11?

Right. Now, he mentioned in question two, if the

Ark was in the temple, why didn't the Romans die like Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6, 6 -11?

Well, the easy answer to that question is the Ark wasn't in the temple.

So the Romans didn't have to worry about what would happen to them if they touched the

Ark. It wasn't there. Okay. Now, there are some theories that the

Ark was in the temple, but God's presence was no longer in the Ark. Right.

Some do believe that the Ark was there and the Romans took it out, so it disappeared after the

Roman invasion or their destruction of the temple in 70 AD. But the prevailing notion and the one that scholars most widely accept is that the

Ark disappeared after the Babylonian invasion, which was 600 years before that. Right. So the

Babylonians took the Ark of the Covenant out of the temple, and then you've got a different question.

So why weren't the Babylonians affected by the Ark the way that the Philistines were when they took the

Ark of the Covenant? That's a great question. Now answering that question as it had to do with the Romans, it was very simply that God's presence was no longer in the temple, and that was signified by the tearing of the temple curtain that separated the holy place from the holy of holies.

So God was showing that he no longer dwelt in temples made by hands, but rather he dwelt within all of those who are followers of Jesus Christ.

Right. And that was the point we kind of illustrated last week. But how about if the Babylonians had seized the

Ark, why didn't they perish, or why weren't they afflicted the way that the Philistines were afflicted?

Because that would have been before Christ? Yeah, that was 600 years before Christ. Okay, that's what I was thinking.

So what happened there? Why weren't the Babylonians harmed when they touched the

Ark? That's a great question. Well, the answer to that is actually somewhat the same. The Lord had left the temple, and we read about that in Ezekiel 10 and 11.

So the presence of God, the way that Ezekiel sees this happening is that the presence of God actually gets up and leaves the temple, and kind of in a chariot of sorts.

And first he goes out to the gate of Jerusalem, and then he goes from there up on the hillside as though to watch the conquering of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple.

So God's presence was no longer there. When God's presence came down in his glory into the temple, it rested on the

Ark of the Covenant. So the mercy seat right there on the Ark is where the presence of God was.

And I think I said this last week, when Moses would go in and talk with God, that's where the voice of God came from.

It came from the top of the Ark of the Covenant. So God's presence no longer being there, the

Babylonians went in, took everything from the temple, and they would have likely destroyed the Ark of the

Covenant and made it, they could have even fashioned it into their own idols. Yeah. Who knows? Yeah.

Who knows what they did with it, but it wouldn't have harmed them the way that it affected the Philistines because God's presence was no longer there with the

Ark. We don't see the presence of God come back into the temple when the temple was reconstructed.

So you have the story in Ezra, in Nehemiah, the reconstruction of the temple and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, there's never any indication that the presence of God comes back to the second temple that they built the way that God's presence was there the first time it was constructed.

Right. Because we read about this in 1 Kings 8, when Solomon builds the temple and he dedicates it unto the

Lord, and God's presence comes down and fills the place so much that the priests couldn't even stand because God's presence being there, it would have killed them to go near the place where God was dwelling.

Wow. But then after Israel had continually disobeyed God so that he turned them over to the hands of their enemies to show that they were now vulnerable, he leaves the presence of the temple.

Right. So God's presence is no longer there. The Israelites felt like they were invincible. The Ark of the Covenant goes with us.

Well, of course. Yeah. I mean, if you have God on your side, of course you're invincible. And he's with the

Ark. So he goes with us in the Ark whenever we go to battle. Right. The Ark goes before the army of God.

Right. But when God's presence is gone, they're... How did they not see that? Like, was that just a metaphor of what they assumed happened?

Or were only certain people able to see God leave? Or how...

Why did they not know? Well, Ezekiel, in particular, being a prophet, was being shown things that other people don't see.

Very good point. But likewise, the eyes of the Israelites were closed and their ears were stopped up.

True. So because of their rebellion, their hearts were hardened. They would not have seen or have known that God was no longer with them until their enemies came upon them and they realized, what have we done?

Right. God is not defending us against our enemies. He's turned us over to our enemies. And that was...

What a scary place to be. Right. And that was foretold even before it happened. Prophets like Isaiah had warned about this before it had come upon them.

So that was one of those things where after I answered that question last week, I posted the podcast and I even typed the title of the podcast in there.

What happened to the Romans after... When they touched the Ark of the Covenant. And I was like, well, that was kind of dumb.

The Ark wasn't even there when the Romans came and... Supposedly. Nobody emailed me about it though.

I'm surprised. So maybe everybody is just of the understanding. There's a few... There's some less known theories out there, less accepted theories regarding the

Ark of the Covenant being in the temple, even when the Romans were there. One theory that I read was that Jeremiah was forewarned.

And so he hid the Ark of the Covenant underneath the temple. And then when it was rebuilt, it was brought back out and set on top of the place where it was sitting in the

Holy of Holies. Interesting. But there's nothing that affirms that. In fact, even among Jewish antiquity, they state the

Ark of the Covenant was not there in the second temple period. It was a raised platform where the Ark would have been.

So when the high priest would go in to offer sacrifice for the people, since he couldn't sprinkle the blood on the top of the

Ark of the Covenant, he would just sprinkle it on the raised platform where the Ark otherwise would have been.

Gotcha. But there was that curtain still that separated the Holy of Holies from the holy place.

And it was that curtain that God tore when Christ died on the cross, demonstrating that he doesn't dwell in temples, but dwells in his people.

So we are the temple of the living God even now. Yay! Anyway, so I wanted to come back, revisit that question because I didn't get that totally right last week.

But Britt, you were... Clarified a bit more. Yeah, clarified a little more. But Britt was right toward his question, if the

Ark was in it, why didn't the Romans die like Uzzah did? Romans didn't have to worry about it.

It wasn't there. There is a relief. If you type in Romans, you go to do a

Google search and you type in Romans take Jerusalem or seize Jerusalem or something like that, siege, and click on images, you'll see some reliefs.

And there is a relief that shows Romans taking the treasures of the temple out.

And they're carrying something that looks like a box. And so that's why some scholars believe, well, maybe the

Ark of the Covenant was there or something that looked like the Ark, though it may not have been the original

Ark. And so when they were carrying that out with them... Yeah, so maybe that is documentation.

Yeah. That that happened. But anything else is scant. And like I said, even among Jewish antiquity, they state that the

Ark of the Covenant wasn't there in the second temple period. There has not been any animal sacrifice since the destruction of the temple in 70

AD, nor has there ever been a high priest, because that's what the high priest would do. He would go and offer sacrifice to atone for the sins of the people.

So one of the things I mentioned last week is that the Judaism that we see today, that we would even call

Orthodox Judaism, is not temple Judaism. It's rabbinic

Judaism, because they follow a completely different practice. Doesn't look anything like even

Judaism that we would have seen during the time of Christ. It's totally different. So anyway, but thank you for your question,

Britt. And hopefully I answered that a little more thoroughly this time around. The next question comes from Sam, or the next email comes from Sam.

And this is a follow -up on the Watchman Knee Witness Lee local church question that I answered last week.

Oh, yeah. Uh -huh. Basically, who are they? Right. Are they sound teachers or are they not? So dear

Pastor Gabe and Becky, hello from Orange County, California. Aw, fun. I appreciate that.

We have that nice weather. Yeah, you probably so. We have snow on the ground right now, so yeah. We got eight inches of snow on Sunday.

Eight inches. Eight. It kept snowing forever. Yeah, that was over double what they were predicting for our area.

Yep. We were only supposed to get like three. Yep. And it's funny because they were predicting, my parents who live an hour away, the eight -ish.

They were supposed to get the eight. And we were supposed to get the three, and yet it swapped. Yep. It was quite interesting how that played out.

I had planned on keeping my sermon short. Originally, I had planned on keeping the sermon short.

Because I was like, the earlier I get people out, the less likely anybody's going to get stuck in our parking lot. Right. You have to go up a hill to get out the parking lot.

Right. Especially with the construction we've had going on. I was going to put that in there, yeah. Yeah. That would have made it even more difficult.

So I had planned on ending my sermon early, but then that morning when I checked the forecast, it was saying it was going to stop snowing by like 1030.

Oh. PM maybe. Yeah, right. So I thought, well, it would look silly if I ended early and then it was done snowing.

Right. So I went ahead and like, okay, well, I'll keep the notes that I had planned on using.

But it just kept snowing. Yes, it did. Huge flakes. Yeah. It was like that Hollywood snow from Orange County.

You know. It just comes straight down. There's no wind. There's like huge flakes.

It's not like wet, rainy, you know, hitting your windows and you can hear it kind of thing.

It was just beautiful. It was a dead quiet snow. There was no wind.

Yep. There was at one point the trees were rustling outside and Becky goes, oh, the wind picked up. No, it was the weight of the snow falling through the trees.

Yep. It got too heavy for the trees that the snow just started falling out. And it was falling so fast it caused wind.

But, yeah, it was one of those dead, quiet, picturesque sort of snowfalls.

It was pretty for snow. I mean, I don't like snow. So it was pretty. Yes. For snow.

Until Monday rolled around and then the whole city was just gross. Yeah. And driving around and it was terrible.

It got up to 28, I think was the high on Monday. But that doesn't mean that the sun didn't melt the top.

And so the sun melted the top. But we got the sheen of ice freezing. So, yeah, it just became ice.

There wasn't much sun on Monday, though. No. Most of the sun that I saw was even behind a haze.

So it wasn't like the sky cleared up or anything. That is true. But it was enough to make it.

Yeah, to melt it a little bit. Anyway. So we're back to Orange County, California here.

Orange County. At this rate, it's going to take us a long time to get through this email.

Sorry. I'll quit. Well, it was me, too. I appreciate your boldness in the Lord and your willingness to not only refute error, but also extol truth.

Your podcast is a blessing to me. I was happy to hear you speak about Watchman Nee, Witness Lee and the local church movement in your most recent episode.

This would have been December 13th. I think you did an admirable job. I wanted to give you some more resources for understanding this group.

My own life has intersected with them a few times. Once in college, when I went to a few Bible studies with the group and promptly left upon the advice of more mature believers, and when the son of some friends was getting ensnared just like I was early in college.

It is not surprising to me that you don't run across this group. Usually you need to meet one of three criteria to meet local church members.

You either need to live in an area with a prominent Chinese or Taiwanese population, or you need to be in a college town of a university that attracts overseas

Chinese, or you need to be in the orbit of their headquarters in Orange County.

I met all three criteria. They often style themselves as Christians on campus or Christians at...

Fill in university name. Recently I gave some advice to the aforementioned friend's son about leaving the group, upon which he left the group for a true church.

I paste here the portion of the email where I voice their differences from the

Christian faith and he gives me several links. I haven't had the chance to explore these links yet, and maybe we'll come back to this in a future episode.

But he summarizes the problems with the local church movement teaching.

Poorly stated Trinitarian theology all the way to full modalism, so that God appears in different modes.

Sometimes a father, sometimes a son, sometimes a Holy Spirit, but he's not three in one.

Lack of emphasis on the atonement. That's a continued problem.

We just watched a documentary about that. We did. We'll talk about that here in a moment. Emphasis on subjective emotional experiences rather than being transformed by the renewing of our mind, a denigration of quote unquote doctrine.

That's common. You see that in a lot of the church today. Sectarian approach to other

Christians and unwarranted exclusivity claims about their church, which is cult -like behavior.

Okay. So like we're right and everybody else is wrong. Oh, right. Right. Deification of man.

That's interesting because I didn't see that in, again, just the limited stuff that I read. What does that mean?

So the belief that man becomes God. Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah. Easy believism.

See, oh Lord Jesus and how this group believes people can be saved. So I guess that's among the topics that I would have to research in the links that he gave me there.

Right. And then lastly, a doctrine of purgatory and the punishment of believers for unforgiven sins.

So that would go with the problem or a lack of emphasis on atonement because they wouldn't believe that Jesus has truly atoned for our sins.

Yeah. Yeah. If there's still some sort of purification we need to go through after we die. So Sam goes on, all in all, this group ranges from having teachings so contrary to the scriptures and schismatic that I would recommend no

Christian to fellowship with them at best to a group that goes full modalist and thus teaches damnable heresy.

I hope the links are helpful in that it gives you much information with which to resist, refute, and exhort these enemies of Christ and his church.

It is my hope this group puts away their division and comes to know the Lord. Thanks again for everything,

Sam. Well, thank you, Sam, for taking the time to send that. Yes, thank you.

So I thought of this while reading it, especially where Sam had made the comment that you should stay away, do not have any fellowship with them because they are so schismatic that we couldn't regard them as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ even to the point that they might go full on modalism.

So I thought of what John said in 2 John starting in verse 7. Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the

Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

Consider that when you encounter anybody that might be of the local church movement influenced by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee.

Interesting. I always have to check myself before I say that because even after I say their names, I feel like I just said

Witless Lee. No, not quite. You get it right every time.

Okay, good. So now we get to the Christmas questions portion here. This first one comes from Celia.

Do you remember Celia? Yes, I do. I think she's even won something from us before. I think so. Hello. Hello.

Hello, Gabecki. Hello. My Christmas question is this, were the wise men different ethnicities?

I know that it wasn't three of them. The Bible doesn't state only three wise men, but when people think of three, they also think of one

African American, one Asian, and one of some other race. I always see pictures of them like this, and I am just wondering where are people getting this from, or am

I missing something here? Thanks, and hope you and your family have a safe and merry

Christmas. How do we have a safe Christmas? What? How do we have a safe Christmas?

Just I hope the Christmas tree doesn't fall on you. Or the fire, or you know, traveling.

I mean, it's fine to wish us a safe Christmas, but it just sounds like sometimes Christmas is not safe.

Well, a lot of time people travel. Oh, that's true, okay. You know. Traveling. Yeah.

And you're always telling somebody when they leave, be safe. Yeah, of course. As if you were going to drive recklessly on your way to -

Well, you never know. We have encountered quite a few.

We've gotten close, but it's never been us. Everybody else is a terrible driver. Well, of course.

So in Matthew chapter two, when we read about the Magi, now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the

Jews? For we saw his star when it rose, and we have come to worship him. So we know they came from the east, but we have to dig into a little bit of history to find out where in the east exactly they came from.

Right, because I mean, east from here is England. Yeah. So east from there was

Asia. Well, yes, Asia, specifically would have been the

Babylon and Persian area. Okay. So, because the name that they are identified with is the

Magi. Wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. In Greek, it's Magioi.

And this is the word that is also translated Magi. And it's from that word that we get words like magic and magician.

So these men were essentially guys that dabbled in a lot of different arts, put it that way.

And some of them were very pagan. So they were astrologers. They studied the stars, believing there were messages in the stars.

And what you could discern from the stars affected the course of human activity. So just like you would read a horoscope, that was kind of part of what they did.

They also probably dabbled in some mysticism, magic spells, the magic arts.

And that's why Magi applies to them and why we've gleaned from that word things like magic.

They were diviners. So they looked for messages from the gods or some sort of invisible force.

The religion that they were associated with, we know today as Zoroastrianism. And these were the guys who were descended from the wise men that Daniel would have been over when he was a wise man among the

Medes and the Persians. Oh, okay. So they had the Old Testament Jewish scriptures and they knew they were looking for the

King of the Jews because he was prophesied about in the Old Testament. That's why they came saying, where is he who has been born

King of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose. In the book of Numbers, there's a prophecy concerning a scepter that will rise out of Jacob in a star.

And so the scepter is in reference to a king and they know a star is going to guide them into the way.

Right. So because of these Old Testament scriptures, the Jewish scriptures that they had, they knew that they were looking for the one who was born

King of the Jews. I'm going to be talking about this in a few weeks because we're going through Matthew right now.

And about the time we get to Epiphany, we'll be talking about the wise men in Matthew chapter two.

So you'll get to hear all of this again. Yeah. And you've heard all of it before. Yes, I have. It's also in my book, 25

Christmas Myths and What the Bible Says, which you can get now at Amazon. As close as it is to Christmas, you might want to settle for the

Kindle version, which is also cheaper than the print version anyway. Yeah. But I like print books myself.

So maybe. I do too. Yeah. Except for the fact that our littlest likes to pull out all of my bookmarks.

There's that. Becky can't have nice bookmarks. Nope. I can't have nice things.

That's right. But that's okay. Because our youngest pulls out all our bookmarks. Yep. What was

I saying? Okay. So the. The Magi. Yeah. So the Magi. Now, given that these Magi, these wise men who worked in a king's court, they worked for royalty.

They were there appointed by the king to be able to divine things for the king. Okay. Now, given that they were drawn from all kinds of people, it wasn't just a specific race of people that made up the

Magi. Not just one courtroom? Not just one courtroom? King's court?

I don't think that's the right word. Well, no. They were wise men for one king. Oh, they were? Yes. Oh, okay.

So the ruler, you know, whoever. But they came from all over then? Right. Okay. Okay. The Persians had drawn people from all over and would look for those men who were wise and appoint them to their wise men.

We know that because Daniel and his friends became wise men. Right. Even though they were

Hebrews. True. So since these wise men were made up of different persons and different races that was appointed by the

Persians, yes, it is possible that these Magi that came and visited Jesus may have been of different races.

And this also signifies that Gentiles would come looking for Jesus when the

Jews themselves were not looking for him. They came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the

Jews? And verse three says, when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all of Jerusalem with him.

And Herod had to assemble his own wise men just to say, what are they talking about? Yeah.

That would be a little embarrassing. Yeah. So then they said, oh, yeah, there is a prophecy about this.

And that king is supposed to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. For so it is written by the prophet, and you, oh,

Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people

Israel. Now that is cited from Micah 5 too, but it's possible that the

Magi did not have Micah. Okay. That would have been one of the prophets writings that they did not have in their possession.

So they didn't know where the king was born. Gotcha. Naturally, they went to the capital city, right?

They went to the capital city of Judea, which was Jerusalem. And they thought this king of the

Jews was born in the palace, which was where Herod lived. But Herod was as floored by this whole thing as anybody else was.

All of Jerusalem troubled with him. They should have known exactly where this king was born and anyone in Jerusalem should have been able to tell them, oh, yeah, he's over there.

That's where you need to go to find this king. But nobody knew. That's crazy.

Herod had to consult his own wise men. So this shows how Christ came not just for the

Jews, but he came for the whole world. And this was also the words that he shared with Nicodemus when he said that the whole world would look upon him and be saved, not just a savior for the

Jews, but even a savior unto Gentiles. So where is it that they get the different shades of wise men?

It's just assumption? That's definitely a Western world thing. That's just that whole inclusion of races, tolerance.

There's no black people in the manger scene here. So we need to make one of these guys black.

Let's do it with one of the wise men. So it's almost like he becomes the token black guy.

Right. But all of them portray Jesus and his family as being very white.

Very, very white. Extremely white. They were likely olive -skinned. Yeah. Galileans were darker -skinned.

But I mean, this is all very arbitrary. Yeah. Because you're just talking about melanin count.

Yeah. Race has always been a funny conversation to me. So what?

What difference does it make? But yeah, so that's probably his shade.

Jesus' shade would have been like an olive skin. The guys that came from Persia may have been a variety of races.

Or since it had been so far removed from when those wise men were appointed at the time of Darius the

Mede, then it may be kind of a race among them had settled in, and maybe there wasn't a variety of races.

You really could go anywhere with that question. We don't know for sure. The Bible doesn't say. Yeah. But since we do have the example during the time of Daniel that there were wise men appointed from varying peoples, you could make an argument that the wise men were a variety of races, a variety of ethnicities, since race is kind of a...

Yeah, it's kind of a buzzword right now. As our friend Daryl Harrison has said, there's no such thing as race.

That's right. Well, you run the race. There is only the human race. You run a race. The human race?

We're part of the human race. Yep. We are a chosen race. Amen. According to 1

Peter 2. Nice. A people that have been purified in Christ Jesus, being built up into a spiritual house unto the

Lord. You are a royal priesthood. So that's how we should be in this world.

Not according to the shade of our skin. We are according to the Savior whom we serve and worship.

Amen. Next question comes from Beverly. This is

Beverly in Michigan. Hey Gabe and Becky, Merry Christmas to you and to your family.

Aw, Merry Christmas. First I have a funny story for you and then I have a Christmas question.

All right. When I was a little girl, we always decorated the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.

One year, for whatever reason, my mom decided to decorate it on Thanksgiving day after we were done with a big turkey dinner.

There I was full of stuffing and tryptophan and falling asleep on the couch while the

Detroit Lions were on TV losing yet another Thanksgiving football game. Dad brings in this big tree and mom says to me, hey, are you ready to help trim the tree?

I was never interested in gardening. Why would I want to prune a spiky plant? So I decided to go to bed instead.

The next day the tree was completely decorated. Mom and dad and my siblings put ornaments on without me.

It was on that day that I learned trimming the tree means decorating the

Christmas tree. I was so mad. No one ever told me trimming the tree was synonymous with hanging ornaments.

Who came up with that anyway? I don't know, but it bugs me to no end because it was well into my adulthood that I put that together.

Not joking. We never said trimming the tree. Never growing up.

I remember. So when people use that phrase, I figured they meant like you're going to prune the plant.

Like your live tree is uneven, so you need to shave some edges off. Oh yeah, right. You know what I mean? Like you literally trim the tree.

That's what I had in my mind. We need to make it that nice cone shape. Like a Christmas tree. Thank you. You know, or at least turn it so the uneven side isn't the back.

Yeah. I was well into my adulthood. We didn't use the term either, but somehow

I knew what that meant. I don't know why. You guys stick to traditions.

Yeah, something. A lot more. I don't know. I don't know. Well, she's from Michigan, though. True. I don't know.

Anyway. Where's your mom from? Beverly. Curious. Well, I had a neighbor when I lived in South Carolina.

Her name was Beverly. Oh yeah? Yeah. Is that you? Probably not. She was older.

I don't know. I thought she was from Michigan. No, no, no. The Beverly, my neighbor, was older.

So this Beverly was likely not the same Beverly. Anyway. Doesn't mean anything.

So she goes on to say, ever since that day, it's become a joke in our family to incorporate the word trim into everything.

Like someone will say, hey, does anyone want to go trim the mall? Which means let's go shopping at the mall.

I love it. Or, hey, does anyone want to go trim the latest Pixar film? Everyone else is totally confused.

It's like our family inside joke. That's awesome. Then she says, all right, so that story was about as interesting as the

Detroit Lions. I don't know. We're pretty entertained,

Beverly. I am. I love it. Here's my question. Is it okay for Christians to have

Christmas trees in their homes? Don't Christmas trees have pagan origins?

Your friend, Beverly. Well, hey, this is a chapter in my book, 25 Christmas Myths.

Yes, it is. And what the Bible says, isn't the Christmas tree a pagan?

Christmas trees symbolize the worship of Thor. That's really the origin.

That's where it comes from. All right. So there was Donner's Oak. This was in Germany. So this thing goes back to a monk named

Boniface who was traveling through Germania preaching the gospel. All right.

Wasn't called Germany then. It was called Germania. Yes. And this was a dangerous thing for him to do.

To go preaching the gospel in Germania could very well have cost you your life. Definitely. But the Pope at that time blessed

Boniface to go and preach the gospel in Germania. So he comes to this place where there was a big tree that was called the

Thunder Oak. In antiquity, it's also referred to as Donner's Oak or Jove's Oak.

Okay. But this was the place where Thor demanded a child sacrifice for healthy crops.

This is the Norse god Thor, not the Marvel comic superhero

Thor. Right. Right. Which, of course, the comic superhero is based off of the

Norse god. So Thor demanded child sacrifice. You don't sacrifice a child for him at the

Thunder Oak. He's not going to give you good crops. Well, Boniface was just grieved in hearing about this barbarism that was going on.

Definitely. Not too unlike abortion in America today. Sacrificing children, believing that my life will be better because I had done that.

So Boniface resolved himself to cut down this big oak, putting an end to human sacrifice and proving to the people that Thor did not exist.

If I cut down this oak and nothing happens to me, they'll see there is no such thing as Thor.

So Presbyterian minister Henry Van Dyke kind of wrote what

Boniface would have preached. All right. I think he was theorizing. It wouldn't have been word for word. But this is the handed down through tradition what

Boniface would have preached there at Donner's Oak. Okay. He said, Harken, sons of the forest, no blood shall flow this night save that which pity has drawn from a mother's breast.

For this is the birth night of the Christ, the son of the Almighty, the savior of mankind.

Fairer is he than Balder the beautiful, greater than Odin the wise, kinder than Freya the good.

Since he has come, sacrifice is ended. This goes back to the destruction of the temple and how sacrifice is no longer being done because the greatest sacrifice has been given for us and that is

Jesus Christ. So Boniface goes on, the dark Thor on whom you have vainly called is dead.

Deep in the shades of Niflheim, he is lost forever. And now on this

Christ night, you shall begin to live. This blood tree shall darken your land no more.

In the name of the Lord, I will destroy it. So Boniface then takes up an axe and he begins to chop.

And legend has it that while he was chopping this tree, a wind began to blow and blew over the tree the rest of the way for him so he didn't have to cut clear through it.

Which was an incredible task for him to have done that. I was going to say. It might have taken him a couple days.

And so then he stood on the stump of Thor, no longer the tree of Thor, and he delivered a gospel message to them.

Now since the Germanic people believed that these trees were somehow symbolizing the worship to their

God, Boniface wanted to give them something to remind them that Christ lived in their homes and not out in the forest.

And so he gave them a fir tree saying that this would be their symbol of new life.

He pointed to a small fir tree and said, look, this tree points up to heaven and its leaves are evergreen just as everlasting life is given through faith in the

Lord Jesus. So he told them worship would no longer be done in the wild wood, but it would be done in their homes.

So that's where the fir tree would stand. There would be no more deeds of blood, but gifts of love and kindness.

And this was how the tradition of the Christmas tree began. It started in Germany.

So when the Germans came over to the new world, to the United States, they brought their

Christmas traditions with them. And one of them being the Christmas tree. Legend also has it that the first one to decorate the tree with lights was

Martin Luther. So he. Yep. He hung little candles on the branches, which we know the first lights put on a

Christmas tree were done in that way. And since it had a pointed look to it, you know, kind of sloped up, you could hang a candle on it without it like frying the branch above it, you know, starting a fire.

That's right. If you got the right kind of tree, you know, the cone shape and the one that's trimming the one that's truly evergreen, not browning.

Right. Because that will go up like kindling. Oh, yeah. You got to keep those watered.

So this is where the Christmas tree comes from. Now, given that this has some pagan roots to it, no pun intended.

Should we not be putting Christmas trees in our homes? Because a lot of a lot of folks will point to a passage in Jeremiah chapter 10, where it says, for the customs of the peoples are vanity.

A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an ax by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold.

They fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. And the fundamentalists who will like to point to that passage in Jeremiah 10, they will say, what else could this be describing but a

Christmas tree? Yeah. It's describing the making of idols is what it's doing.

Where does an idol come from? You go cut some wood, you shape it into the shape of the idol that you want, and then you overlay it with gold or silver.

So it's not solid gold or solid silver all the way through. Then you can't move it. Yeah, then it's too heavy.

You're wasting a whole lot of metal on that. Yeah. But you just cover it with that. So they would...

Jeremiah is pointing out the absurdity of worshiping an idol here. A man made it.

Right. And then he's going to bow down to it. You made it. So what can it do for you? Right.

It can't do anything for you. Nothing. That's what Jeremiah is pointing out. It has nothing to do with Christmas trees, but it's just too much similarity that the fundamentalists go, ah, look, silver and gold on the trees.

And a lot of this has even been perpetuated by the Hebrew roots movement. Oh, yeah. Because they'll say that this is directly pagan and the tree actually symbolizes something phallic.

So you're putting a phallic symbol in your home. Oh, really? Yeah. That's what they'll say. That's interesting.

It symbolizes fertility and whatnot. So this is not talking about Christmas trees in Jeremiah 10.

Really, there is not any difference between putting a Christmas tree in your home and having a potted plant.

That's what I was going to say. It's exactly the same concept. Except you're expecting the tree to go back outside.

That's right. With the Christmas tree, you're expecting it's going to die. You've cut it off at the roots or you've got a fake tree.

Right. But my plants don't usually last very long either. Becky's plants last as long as a

Christmas tree does. It's really sad. Arbitrarily, it's the same thing.

If you're going to have a potted plant in your house, you can have a Christmas tree. But if your conscience is so weak that you cannot have a tree in your home without believing that you're participating in something pagan, then don't have a

Christmas tree in your home. Or if you feel like your neighbors are those type of neighbors that you would lead them to sin, then don't.

Maybe so. Yeah. Is it worth compromising your witness to having a

Christmas tree in your home? But yeah, there you go. That was kind of a long story just to basically get to the point that it's the same as having a plant in your house.

We do like to take the long way around. That's true. But now you know something, something else about the

Christmas tree. Christmas tree. Really? Oh, okay. And everything was slow.

Everything's moving in slow motion. It was really weird. I was trying.

Acts 17, 29 through 31. I'll read this while you collect yourself. Okay, good. We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

The times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.

And of this, he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

So somebody might say, so the Christmas tree has pagan origins, doesn't it? Well, the story,

I guess, I suppose, yeah, you're going to be talking about paganism. Kind of. But the

Christmas tree actually symbolizes that we used to be pagans, but now we're not anymore.

Right. We worship the Lord Christ. This is Paul talking to the Thessalonians and saying, there are people rejoicing because they hear your testimony about how you used to worship idols.

But now you worship the living God. Right. And he didn't use the same tree as the one he cut down.

No, he didn't. He used a fir tree. Right. No. It was something, it was totally different. They probably totally burned up Donner's Oak.

They probably did. I hope they did. Here's a fir tree for you to put in your house.

And now what I'm going to do is I'm going to make you some firewood for your fireplace. Here you go. Here's the rest of this tree.

All right. I think I got one more question here. Let me come back to my, yep, here we go.

This one is about Kwanzaa, which is coming up next week after Christmas. This is

Troy in Georgia. Isn't there a Troy, Georgia? There's a town called Troy?

I think so. Yeah. Isn't there a college there? Isn't it Troy? That I don't know. I don't remember.

I'm pretty sure I've been there though. I could look it up. Hey, Pastor Gabe, in your video on Kwanzaa, well, maybe

I should play the video first. Okay. Here's the what video on Kwanzaa. Let's do it. Kwanzaa is an

African -American holiday celebrated from December 26 to January 1st, created in 1966 by Dr.

Maulana Karenga. The holiday draws from African rituals and black national ideology to create the seven principles of Kwanzaa called the

Ngoza Saba. Among these principles are racial and national unity, self -determination and faith in humanity.

Decorations feature colorful art and foods that represent African idealism. Ceremonies include showing gratitude to ancestors, drink offerings and feasts, and reading the

African pledge and principles of blackness. Kwanzaa is a celebration of humanism in which human fulfillment and values are the focus.

This mindset is of the flesh and hostile toward God. The seven principles teach that people can improve their lives by sheer will and self -determination.

For the holiday's founder, apparently that means abusing drugs and women. Humanistic traditions never unify.

Jeremiah 17 .5 says, Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength. Titus 3 .3

explains that before coming to Christ, we were enslaved to our passions and pleasures full of malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

It is God alone who saves us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

Peter explains that in Christ, we're a chosen race, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

Apart from Christ, we're not a people. In Christ, we are God's people. It is only Jesus Christ who gives unity, not a man -centered holiday.

We must stand firm and hold to the traditions that we are taught by the word of God when we understand the text.

I happen to notice that the calendar you have hanging on the fridge mentions that Kwanzaa starts the day after Christmas.

Oh yeah? Yeah. Interesting. Does this one? Yes, it does. Kwanzaa begins. Yep. Yep, the one in which this one is about done because it's on December and then

I'm going to be hanging up my Reftunes calendar. That's the one that's going to be hanging in my study after that.

And I bet that one doesn't mention Kwanzaa. I doubt it. It's ridiculous to me that this holiday has gotten any sort of traction at all because the guy that came up with it is just a fool.

So I talk about this in the book as well, where Kwanzaa comes from and that it was just from some liberal college professor and the guy has a really shady past, very, very messed up in some of the stuff this guy's been associated with.

But he came up with this holiday and a lot of African Americans very unfortunately are sucked into thinking that this is a legitimate celebration of blackness.

When the Swahili sort of vibes that Malana Karanga brought into this, most

African Americans that live in the country today don't have a heritage, a

Swahili heritage. So just because something claims to be African, don't get snookered into that.

Yeah. Just because it's African, so therefore it has to do with me. It probably doesn't.

Africa's a big continent. It is. There's a lot of different places and countries. And not a unified continent on top of that.

So about Kwanzaa, this question comes from Troy, Georgia. All right. I don't know if it's the city or the person.

In your video on Kwanzaa, you state that Christians should have nothing to do with celebrating it because it's a pagan holiday.

Yet in your book, 25 Christmas Myths, you say that Christians should celebrate Christmas even though it is derived from a pagan holiday.

How are you not contradicting yourself? Well, first of all, Troy, I can tell you did not read the book 25

Christmas Myths and What the Bible Says. Definitely. Because I actually debunked the myth that Christmas came from a pagan holiday.

It doesn't have pagan origins. Even if it did, it wouldn't matter. Because when we have

Christianized something like that, we've made it something completely different than what it was.

Right. So Christmas has no sort of resemblance to whatever pagan holiday it would have been taken from if that's what had happened.

It's made new. Yeah. It's something completely different. It's so different, in fact, that we don't know what pagan holiday it came from.

That's right. This is always a source of contention. Speculation. Right. Because nobody can even agree on what pagan holiday

Christmas came from if it was taken from a pagan holiday. Right. So the point being that it's become something so different that it's not at all the paganism that it formerly was.

So if you were to celebrate Kwanzaa and you were to Christianize it, you would end up with the same result.

It would become something so different that it wouldn't even be Kwanzaa anymore. Right. Because Kwanzaa is all about yourself, it sounds like.

Yeah. Kwanzaa is nothing but humanism. It's secular humanism. And that's exactly what

Maulana Karanga made it to be until he realized that he wasn't winning over a

Christian base with that. And so then he changed the definition of Kwanzaa, was like, well, anybody can celebrate it however they want to.

Because he just wanted more notoriety and acceptance of his holiday. So yeah,

Christians can celebrate it too. At first, he created it to be a thing where he wanted to have nothing to do with Christ and nothing to do with Christmas, even tried to paint

Christmas as this white thing. So it's something white people do. Kwanzaa is something black people do.

But then he realized he wasn't winning over black Christians who were going, no, I don't want to have anything to do with that.

I want to worship Christ. And so then Karanga changed it to, well, you can do that if you want. Worship Jesus and then do your

Kwanzaa. But yeah, don't have anything to do with it, because this guy is just a shady dude.

And any sort of participation in Kwanzaa gives rise to the secular humanistic ideal that he was attempting to pass off as being legitimately

African, when it's not at all. It is trying to snooker black people into thinking that you are participating in something that has genuine black roots to it, when it really doesn't.

It's just Karanga trying to push his secular humanism on everybody. And get himself famous.

Yep. Which he has been. He's gained a lot of fame and notoriety from this. This is a guy who was a drug abuser.

He has connections with a lot of black power violence. He abused his own wife.

And that whole story is so colorful, I don't want to mention it, because we have kids listening.

Yeah, that's sad. So that's who this guy was. And he created this holiday called Kwanzaa. Nobody should have anything to do with it.

It's completely, it's a bogus holiday and advances something that is completely godless.

But that's it. That's our program for this time. Except for the document.

Oh, yes. We were going to mention the documentary. So we're talking about a documentary about atonement. American Gospel has now a second documentary.

So the last one was called American Gospel, Christ Alone. That's the one that you would have watched, came out last year.

That was amazing. Yeah. Incredible documentary created by Brandon Kimber. Thanks so much for putting that together.

Part two is called American Gospel, Christ Crucified. And I found out about this when

I was talking to Brandon. When I first saw the trailer to American Gospel, there were certain interviews that I did not see in American Gospel, Christ Alone.

So I asked him about that. I said, there were some interviews in there I thought that you were going to touch on penal substitutionary atonement.

And yet I didn't see any of that in American Gospel, Christ Alone. And he said, well, that's part two.

That's Christ Crucified, which comes out next year. Yeah. So I was like, yes! Woohoo! So now it's out.

And now it's out. So I think it may not be available for purchase yet, but it is coming in a couple of weeks,

I believe. Okay. Awesome. By the time we get past Christmas, I think you'll be able to purchase it. Yeah. So you're going to AmericanGospel .com,

AmericanGospel .org. I know that they're doing some work on the website right now. Hang on. I'm going to attempt to pull this up if my internet is going to cooperate, which it hasn't been today.

AmericanGospel .com is not the website. Hang on. American Gospel. Don't go to that one.

It is AmericanGospelFilm .com. There we go. That's where you want to go. AmericanGospelFilm .com.

And so that comes up with American Gospel, Christ Alone. You can still get that one.

There's the one -hour version you can watch for free and Christ Crucified. There you go.

So there is a link on there to Christ Crucified and it is coming up.

See, click here to watch on Vimeo On Demand. Let me check and see if that works.

Rent for $4 .99. There you go. So you can. You can do that now. Yeah. That's awesome.

Oh, it's a 72 -hour streaming period. So when you click on it, you rent it, you have 72 hours to watch it.

Or you can buy it for $15. Or you can buy it for $15. It sounded like you said 50.

Oh, no, 15. $15. 15. Sorry, my accent.

I'm going to wait until G3 and I'm going to get it on DVD. So I've got hard copies of it. That'd be awesome.

That's what they had last year. But then they've also got another documentary that's out is

By What Standard? Mm -hmm. Through Founders .org. You can watch that for free. Mm -hmm. So go to Founders .org.

You can watch that documentary for free. There's another one I was thinking of. Oh, the one that we reviewed a few weeks ago,

Babies Are Still Murdered Here. Yes. You can watch that one for free as well. And we'll give a more robust review of the

Founders documentary and the American Gospel documentary in a future episode. Woo -hoo. Looking forward to it.

Let's pray. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for our time together and especially this

Christmas holiday season when we are reminded that Jesus Christ came to earth.

God wrapped in human flesh. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And he came to die on the cross for our sins and rise again from the grave.

He didn't stay a baby in a manger, but he gave himself as a ransom for many.

And we can use this time of the year to tell people what Christmas is all about and that it points to the

Savior, our Lord Christ. Be with us in our celebrations that we always put Christ first.

And may this be a sort of a thing that reminds us of the coming of Christ that we carry it with us all through the next year.

May 2020 be a year that we are filled with boldness to proclaim the gospel and the truth that comes from your word, the

Bible. We cherish these scriptures and desire to teach them accurately so that others may hear the gospel and live.

We ask also that you be with our friends who are putting together these great documentaries. And we pray that through their talents and their efforts, that many others may come to hear

Christ or be alerted to false teachers, however that comes about, they cling more tightly to the word of Christ.

And we preserve this and hold it forth for it is the word of life. And we pray all of this in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen. Find all of our videos covering a variety of Bible topics at www .tt

.com. What's good is Postscope. Alright.

Oh, wait, hold on. I got to turn down my phone.

That's good. Because, you know, just in case mom has to call with the kids.

Yeah, I should mute mine because, you know, Justin Peters might text me or something.

Muted. I muted it while I was recording thinking you were trying to text me.

No, it's Justin Peters. I was blowing off Justin Peters. You're a terrible person. Blowing off your wife.

But instead. You'll forgive me, so. Justin's not as gracious as you are.

Of course, of course. Oh, goodness.