What is for Thanksgiving Dinner? | Rapp Report Daily 0189 | Striving for Eternity

The Origin of National Thanksgiving in America

Welcome to The Rapid Pull, daily edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.

Now we mentioned that for over 30 years, Sarah Hale wrote, had a letter writing campaign, and it was actually 36 years, that she had been writing to governors, senators, and presidents to make a national holiday known as Thanksgiving.

Abraham Lincoln finally gave in to that request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, and he gave a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to, quote, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife, unquote.

And he created this holiday to, quote, heal the wounds of the nation, unquote. That is where we see that start. And you end up seeing that they came up with this. They didn't celebrate it with the original food.

What the First Thanksgiving Meal Was Like

Most people think of Thanksgiving with cranberries and turkeys and things like that, stuffing, and yet that wouldn't have been on the first Thanksgiving. The first Thanksgiving they would have had venison.

They might have had corn, maybe cranberries, but they wouldn't have been the way we have it today. And so you see that that actually came from Sarah Hale. She had been in her 30 years of writing. She ended up coming up with recipes for a Thanksgiving dinner.

George Washington and the First Presidential Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving was actually celebrated over about three days, but it was Abraham Lincoln that started the first national Thanksgiving. When do we first see it in America? We actually saw it first by a president known as George Washington.

He's the first in 1789 to establish a Thanksgiving, but it wasn't a national holiday.

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