Santa, Trees, and other traditions- Laborers' Podcast #santa #christmas #christmastrees

Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast. Tonight we're going to be talking about Christmas, Santa Claus, and other

Christmas traditions. What do you think about it? Stay with us. Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast, which is a part of the

Truth and Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things in the

Christ. Subscribe and follow the Truth and Love Network on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and iTunes.

Now, let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast. What's up, guys?

What's up? I look at that little clip in the intro and it just, it reminds me of all the great conversations that we've had thus far in the

Laborer's Podcast. And I'm thankful the Lord has brought all you guys in my life. And I pray that it will be an encouragement of help to others.

And the Lord will use this gathering, how he sees fit.

But are you guys doing well? Doing good? Doing well. Good. How are you doing?

Go ahead and answer that first. I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I want to say

Merry Christmas, but also, I don't know, at the end, I may be being pagan.

I don't know. You're a heretic. Oh, man. So, full disclosure.

I haven't watched all of Keith Foskey's dissertation on this the other day.

I was watching part of it and then somebody called and I was watching it on my phone. And if anybody ever watches YouTube on your phone, you know how that goes when the phone rings.

When the phone rings, I don't know where I left off at. So, I'm not sure how much of this is a rehash or how much is going to be contradictory.

I'm glad that you brought that up. I've listened to several different things. And so, I forgot some and I remember others.

So, it may be. But I did want to, I'm glad you brought that up because I did want to bring up his video.

One of our fellow laborers, Keith Foskey, he is, he did recently, or this week, he posted a video on Christmas.

And I think the title of it is Christmas Pagan or Christmas Is Not Pagan. I think that's what it is. Yes. And so, that was a great conversation.

I enjoyed it. And so, go watch that video. And this will just be, hopefully, compliment, compliment.

It will compliment his video. He did say in our chat that he had hoped to be with us tonight, but he's got some sick children.

So, pray for his family. Yes, sir. Listen. So, I don't know if this is going to get

Keith in trouble or not. But Matthew Henson, he was one of the guys that was doing the video with Keith. And he gave me and a couple of other guys the heads up that that's what they were doing.

He was like, this is what we're doing. Please don't leak it until Keith publishes it.

So, I was already getting ready. And I have to say,

I have to strongly, strongly disagree with Keith on everything that they said.

No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I was like, wow, this is going to take a right turn quick.

Awesome. I'll say my thoughts. And to be honest with you,

I haven't even finished the whole video because I listen to it while I'm working. And so, sometimes if I've got to do things at work,

I've got to pause the video. So, I haven't been able to finish it all. But I thought it was, so far, a good conversation.

I'm probably going to agree with some things and maybe put some caveat into a couple of things.

I did want to ask, has nothing to do with our conversation tonight. At the intro video, the intro video for the

Laborer's Podcast, who is that guy that does the voice? That's an amazing radio voice. It's a friend of Tyler's, isn't it?

No, we had a gentleman who was, at one point, a member of the

Truth and Love Network group. He was in our chat. He had to leave, but in his time with us, he had a friend.

And so, when we set up the initial video with the voiceover, we wrote out this little, the little thing there.

And he had his friend to record it. And he graciously, at no cost, allowed us to use it.

So, yeah, totally grateful for that opportunity. And he does the outro video. Yeah, no, it's great, great talent, actually.

I wish I had a voice like that. Nope. Absolutely. Not even close. All right.

Sorry. That's okay. I guess I can start out with this question. It happens every year, maybe to different degrees.

Like, I know one year, it was huge. I'm thinking about going to your local shopping center and whether the cashiers said

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. I mean, that was a huge one year. And so, it seems like we have this conversation every year.

Do you think it's going to be something that we ever settle, or are we going to have this conversation every year, the

Christian perspective on Christmas and its traditions, and what should we think about it? Are you asking if people are ever going to stop arguing about something?

Because the short answer is no. They're always going to argue about something. Yeah. As long as we have different opinions, different denominations, it's always going to exist, right?

As long as people exist, there's going to be something to disagree with. There's going to be no end to it.

I mean, there'll be no end to it. That's true. Very, very true. I think that we're, as Christians, way past the whole

Merry Christmas versus Happy Holidays thing. I think we're at the point where we have bigger things to worry about.

I'm not saying that I like the whole Happy Holidays replacing Merry Christmas. I would rather say

Merry Christmas because that's what we're celebrating. But there are so many bigger problems right now for Christianity.

It's kind of like if you're in the middle of a battle, right, and you're in a fort,

I guess, and there's this whole army coming at you, and there's this one guy just saying, but listen, we need to clean the barracks because it's dirty right now.

It's like, okay, sure, that's important, dude. But there's this whole army coming at us right now.

How about we focus on that? You're talking about priorities. Yes, absolutely.

Exactly. I think we have to start with what is the point of Christmas in the first place.

It's not merely saying Merry Christmas versus Happy Holidays. It's what are we celebrating?

We've got to start with that. Whether you believe that Christmas is pagan or not, I'm sure we'll get into that as well.

But whether you believe Christmas is pagan or not, historically, it's been a holiday that has been celebrated by Christians, whether they took it from paganism, whatever.

I think we have to start the conversation there. What is the point of all this? It didn't dawn on me.

I'm saying this because it's on my mind, and I don't want to lose track of your question either. But I wish

I would have thought about this question prior to the podcast because I would have wanted to do more research on it.

But even that word, Christmas, does it come from the

Catholic perspective? Is that its origins? How are we to view that from a

Protestant perspective? Because we're talking about it as Christmas pagan.

The word itself has Catholic origins.

So how do we deal with that? Decent questions to ponder.

Listen, I'll just say this. In Spanish, it's not really a problem because it's Navidad.

Do you guys know what that means? Nativity. So we just call

Christmas Nativity. We don't call it Misa, would be Mass in Spanish.

We don't call it Misa de Cristo, although I guess if you're

Roman Catholic, you could. But ironically enough, Latins who tend to be more Roman Catholic, they don't tend to call it

Misa de Cristo, which is the literal translation of Christmas. They call it Navidad, which is

Nativity. So just for my people out there that don't like Christ Mass, maybe

Nativity could be an option. Just saying. Right. So what was your question prior to that?

Can you restate your question? My question? Yeah. I don't think I had one, did I? Look, I don't know.

I'm all over the place. That's what happens. Go ahead. I defer to Big John.

Don't do that. The only thing I want to talk about, and I done told you what it is, and we'll wait on that. We got to work our way into the fist fight.

The fist fight. Fine. Then is Christmas pagan? I would say no.

I mean, as a whole, there's several things that we not necessarily observe from what the

Catholic Church may have began or may have took place in that wasn't completely altogether wrong.

I mean, for instance, I've read a historical document that was secular in its origin.

It said that the cross that we got in our church is incorrect. The Romans used something that looked more like an

X, but I didn't see people running around throwing their crosses away and grabbing Xs and putting around their neck.

You know, I don't know exactly what a

Roman cross that Jesus hung on would have looked like, but historically and culturally, whenever I see a cross,

I know that it points to Christ and to the payment for sin that happened on that cross.

And ultimately, more important to me than whatever kind of device, what the device looked like that Christ hung on whenever he gave up the ghost.

So similar to, we refer to Jesus Christ as Jesus in Spanish, Jesus in Jewish dialect, it's

Yeshua. Yeshua. But we know that we're talking about the same one whenever we use the name

Jesus. So I think if you want to, you can wind up becoming so contrary that you can't find common ground with anybody or you can become so compromising that you don't find anything to ever stand apart from the rest of the world in.

We talk perpetually on this podcast about staying out of ditches on either side of the road. I think if you're not careful, then that's what you'll wind up doing.

You'll wind up saying that because Catholics began celebrating Christmas on December 25th, that that somehow another makes it entirely altogether wrong.

And we must throw away the entire thing. Right. And if that's your convictions, you don't want to celebrate

Christmas on the 25th. If you don't want to put a tree in your home, if you don't want to hang a wreath on your door, like I look,

I'll be honest with you. I hate lights. Me hang them on the house. I wasn't happy about it.

The whole time I'd done it. I was even trying to find good biblical arguments to say, look, as a priest in my home, this is somehow another bringing shame on the

Lord. But she didn't believe me because there was not enough compassion in my voice when

I said it. I think I got a solution for you. Rob, are you familiar with the regulative principle of worship?

Yes, I am. Okay. So I'm just trying to think of what we're going to talk about Christmas here, right?

And I'm thinking, okay, well, some people object because of paganism. Some people object because they follow the regulative principle of worship to a

T. John, do you know what that is? I call it RPW, just quicker. I think what you're referring to is whether something is completely described in Scripture as being authoritative in the only form or whether things aren't said at all and whether you use grace in them.

Is that? Yeah. Yeah. So there's the regulative principle of worship, which basically says whatever is not explicitly prescribed in Scripture should not be practiced as part of our worship to God.

And then the opposite of that would be the normative principle of worship, which says whatever is not explicitly forbidden in Scripture, thank you, can be practiced as part of our worship to God.

So for your wife, just say, honey, I am now following the regular principle of worship.

The Bible says nothing about lights. She's smart, man. She made me get rid of my electric guitars.

I bought them just for church. I don't play them anywhere but church. And the next thing you know, man,

I'm out a really sweet Strat, a Silver Sky, and a nice PRS Custom 24.

And lights ain't going to be up that long. I'll take them down here in a couple weeks. It's not a big deal.

I have another solution for you. Oh, I'm sorry. Since you've already given up. I was going to say, you know, when she tells you to get rid of your guitars, you could be like, well, honey, you know, it's not really a law.

It's a principle. Oh, my goodness.

I'm glad you kind of started with that question. Is Christmas pagan? I feel like I had some decent thoughts on that as I was looking some things up.

And I do apologize. Full disclosure, I'm not a brilliant person and I do not do well with memory dates and history and all those things.

So please forgive me. But going back to the just the word Christmas, you know, there was a point where the

Catholic Church was not the Catholic Church that we know today. The Catholic basically just meant what it still does.

Lowercase C means universal. Right. And so that's basically what it was. It wasn't necessarily the

Roman Catholic Church. So we would adhere to and be OK with some of those early creeds that they had.

And so I would want to know, you know, when they started using that word, you know, Christmas, that it was a more

Roman Catholic or was it prior to that when it was the more universal church. But I was thinking as I was going through the different arguments for Christmas and the different traditions, you have decent arguments on both sides.

Talking about the date of when Jesus was born, Christmas trees, Santa Claus, celebrating

Christmas. You have decent arguments on both sides. And it made me reflect on.

This idea of Noah and the ark. You go to all the different traditions or geographical locations.

So like the Chinese and I've heard people talk about how the Chinese and their lettering.

The word for. I can't recall. It's been so long since I've heard it before, but it's it's a.

A boat, a symbol for a boat and eight people is is the word for something. But so they have a tradition of Noah and the ark and the flood.

They have a flood tradition in China. And you have a flood tradition in other cultures, in other areas of the world.

And so that's that's kind of how it came to me as I was listening to traditions of Santa Claus, because different regions had different ideas of Santa Claus.

I mean, there were similarities, but there were differences. And you've got. Of course.

One of the arguments is. Christians replace the Saturnalia holiday or with Christmas and then what is it,

Easter and the resurrection? You've got people say that we we stole it from the pagans who celebrate

Horace and all these other, you know, false gods. But in reality, you know, all these different traditions and all around the world have similarities.

And their origin seems to stem from Christianity. And so instead of Christianity stealing or borrowing from earlier religions, pre -Christian, they like to say pre -Christian religions.

It seems like because these traditions have are so similar and they're so widespread and all across the world, it seems like they all originate the flood story, the story of the resurrection, the story of Christ's birth, the celebration of Christmas.

They're all around the world, maybe different in some ways, similar in other ways, but they're all around the world.

That makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, from a secularist point of view, the flood was worldwide, right?

So if you choose to not believe that everyone died in a flood, save those that were on the ark, it's reasonable to assume that every, like I said, we're talking from a secularist point of view, that every remaining civilization would have had a story of a worldwide flood if it in fact was worldwide.

And from our point of view, the Christian point of view, we know that every living, breathing person that's alive today is a descendant from one of those people that was on that boat, right?

So they would have told their kids and their grandkids and blah, blah, blah, until you get to where we are today. Either way, one way or another, however you cut that cake, it's only reasonable to assume this is why the story of the flood is worldwide.

Right. And the same will be true for, like I said, these other events in Christian history.

Yeah. So, I mean, I know the whole Saturnalia thing that folks talk about with Christmas, but one of the things

I did catch from Foskey's podcast the other day was, why are we so quick to attribute things to the world whenever it's quite possible that the world will steal them from the church?

Right. It's just as likely that the pagans were mocking something that they saw the believers doing or the

Jewish people before the church began. And I don't understand.

I don't understand why we as a people are so quick to take something away from the church and give it to the world.

And it's weird. It's always been weird to me why we just assume it that way.

Right. Folks try to defend biblical creationism by harmonizing it with science for some reason.

Right. Which is stupid. Right. That's like that's like knowing the truth and then trying to convince somebody how a lie can somehow another be bent by the.

I don't know. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Right. Why would you start with what you know and then just make up something you can't you can't prove.

Yeah. Yeah. Have you guys seen that meme where like there's this this

Spanish Chad guy looking real strong showing up like at an Aztec temple and saying the sacrifices will stop.

Have you guys seen that meme? I haven't seen it. You haven't. OK. So basically the idea is like because he's bringing

Christianity to to the Aztecs to the pagans. It's like, OK, well, the sacrifices are going to stop, you know.

Yeah. And so even if it were true.

Right. Even if it were true that we took the the pagan celebration of Saturnalia and replaced it with Christmas.

So what? You know what I mean? So what? Even if that were true, I don't think it's true, but even if it were true, who cares?

Like it's idolatry. Let's get rid of the idol. Let's replace it with something awesome, you know, and biblical.

Christ is king. Submit. Sorry. That's right. It is what it is. And, you know, there is an argument to be had about whether Christ was born around around December 25th.

I don't think you can really make an argument that he was born for sure on December 25th.

I forget the details of how it is. It has to do with like, you know, when the angels came to the shepherds, that was during a time when, you know, they would have been out at pasture, right?

Taking their flock to the pastures. And then there's the whole timing of like when Elizabeth was pregnant with John the

Baptist and all that. So, you know, maybe there's a case there. But I would say even if it wasn't

December 25th, let's say it was in July. All right. Christmas was supposed to be in July. Let's say that were true. Christmas in July.

Sure. Yeah, exactly. Let's say that were the case. It's OK to celebrate a birthday, you know, when we don't know exactly when it was.

You know, I remember an uncle of mine who they didn't know even what year exactly he was born.

So they gave him a year and the date. And he was he was born. I think it was like 1930,

January 10th or January 15th or something like that. They don't know if that was true or not. How old did he look?

He looked like he was about 70. Yeah, exactly. I mean, he already passed away. He was like a great uncle.

But, you know, back then people didn't always go to the hospital when they had babies and things like that.

And so they didn't keep track. But, you know, it's OK. You know, we celebrate his birthday on January 10th or 15th.

And that's OK. You know, we can do the same thing with Jesus if we want to celebrate his birthday. I was thinking about something.

Oh, OK. So a pastor of mine actually told me something that was pretty interesting. I want to see what you guys think about this.

He was saying, you know, I have no problem with like people in general celebrating

Christmas. I don't know if we should be observing it as a church because he does hold to the regular principle of worship.

And so he says, yeah, me and my wife, you know, we'll put up little decorations or whatever around our house.

But we really just try to focus on Christ. But one thing that he was saying is even though we should celebrate the coming of the king.

Absolutely. He says some people miss the point or the part that is actually sad about it, which was pretty interesting.

He says, think about almighty God condescending down to us, abandoning all of his worship, his comforts, all of all he had, all of his glory on in heaven and coming down as a mere human being to which is infinitely beneath him.

You know, he was saying that's not that's not joyful. That's not good. That's that's sad. Right. We should be sad that that's what it took.

And so he was saying, like, even though we can celebrate, right, that we've been redeemed and we glorify him and give him thanks for coming at the same time, not enough people appreciate how sad that truly was.

What do you guys think about that? I think that's great. I mean, that's that's keeping in in line with the gospel.

We celebrate the blood that was shed to cover our sin. And that doesn't sound at all like something that we should be gathered around to celebrate.

But if it wasn't for that, where would we be? Right. Right. Now, obviously, the resurrection is what seals salvation.

But, I mean, God had to die. And that still trips me up.

You know, I mean, he ever pondered on it as much. I mean, that that the king of glory, the prince of life had to die in order for there to be salvation.

So he can speak the world and everything in it into existence. But in order to set man right with himself, he had to die.

Yeah. That's a that's an unbelievably tall task.

Right. And so, yeah, I mean, I can I that fits with the gospel picture that that man celebrates that God came down and we should because it was, you know, salvation is unattainable without him.

But from his point of view, that's why it's referred to as a sacrifice.

Yeah. You know, I thought to myself.

Well, I think I think the thoughts of this pastor are very helpful because it goes back to what

John was talking about, how our group, the minds of our group is to stay away from the ditches and to remain balanced biblically.

And so we want to do that in all your areas. And the thoughts from this pastor helps keep us balanced at Christmas.

And we've done in other places. You know, we talk about the beauty of the cross, the beauty of the cross. Yeah, there's beauty in the cross because of God's amazing grace and his glorious, loving kindness to us.

But on the other hand. It shows us our sin. Yeah. And why

Christ had to be nailed on the cross. Yeah. And it shows us the wrath of God. And you talk about the law and the gospel like John was talking about.

We've got to know our sin. We've got to know the state of our depravity. And then we we see the cure.

We see God's grace in his through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. And so I think it's a beautiful thought to keep us balanced at Christmas.

The humility of Christ to come down. Even the

Lord says in Scripture that it was at the right time. But but imagine the time that he did live in being born in a stable.

Yeah. Most the animals. Yeah. He did not live in a palace. It was it was a hard life.

Yes. They had to walk everywhere. I mean, it was I can imagine the difficulty living that life.

Yeah. He lived it, you know, for the glory of God, but to save us.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think it's tremendously helpful. I don't know if you guys think about this ever.

But I think about like when I was younger and I used to hear

Bible stories, like the the Israelites complaining and wanted to go back to Egypt after they had left.

Right. And I'm like, man, how can they be so stupid? Or like, you know, when you read about like people that were, you know, a week before celebrating

Jesus is coming triumphantly into Jerusalem on the donkey, saying Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.

And then like, you know, a few days later, they're like saying crucify him. I was like, man, these guys are idiots.

Like, I would have done so well if I had been in biblical times. And then as I've matured and grown,

I'm like, no, no, I would have been the first one to complain. I would have been the first one saying crucify him.

It was me. Right. It was me that put him on that cross. And when I think about that, you know, might as well have.

I know it was physically me, but it might as well have been me. Every time I sin, right, every time we sin,

I don't know if you guys have thought about this, but I thought every time I sin, I'm nailing him to the cross all over again, in a sense.

Right. I'm basically spitting in his face and saying, I don't care what you did for me. I'm going to do what

I want to do. And that just, man, like it, it crushes me.

I know this has nothing to do with the conversation, but you guys are, since we're talking about the solemnness of him coming down, you know, it's like he had to, and I was the reason.

Right. Like I'm the cause of it. And he didn't have to in the sense that he didn't owe us anything, but it was the only way that we could be saved.

You know, so that's, I mean, man, crushes you, like hold him by my tears.

Cause it's, it's, you know, it's praise him. Praise him.

That's all I can say. Praise him because man, I don't deserve it.

I don't deserve it. So anyway, I'm sorry. No, I think it's definitely part of this conversation because Christmas has become so commercialized.

Yeah. In our hearts and in our homes, it can be about so many other things.

Yeah. But when we have that balanced perspective that you're talking about and remember our sin, remember why he had to come.

Boy, it puts it in perspective and it helps us to remember why we celebrate. To worship in it.

To worship. Yes. Absolutely. I think that if we were to take the word

Christmas, if I understand right, mass means worship, right? I'm clearly not a linguist.

I'm not sure. I thought mass meant like sacrifice to the not.

I can't, I can't answer. I guess in my opinion, whenever people, Catholics say they're going to mass, it's like M -A -E -S -S -E.

I thought that was their worship service. It is. I could be wrong.

And the first time it was used, it was, it was spelled like that. It wasn't spelled with just M -A -S at the end.

However, you know, whether it's, whether that's what mass means or not, what we should do.

Well, okay. To be saying what we should be doing, what we should be doing is worshiping Christ and everything that we do.

Right. We should be worshiping Christ. Truthfully, with everything your hand finds to do, you should be doing it to the glory of God.

You should have worship in your mind whenever you're working. You should have worship in your mind whenever you're raising your children.

I know that we don't do that because we're fallible. And there's times we get in our own way.

I'm not trying to paint some picture of sinless perfection. But what I am trying to say is that the way that we combat the world's view of Christmas, which is the commercialization of this holiday season.

Right. That's what you hear all the time, is to worship God in it and to teach our children to do the same.

Let's teach our children. I mean, the way I approached it, and I'm going to throw a disclaimer out there.

If there's children watching that you are teaching your children about the large man in the red suit,

I give you an opportunity to cover their ears. We never taught our children about Santa Claus.

And this is before I was a Christian. I didn't want my children to be lied to. I never wanted to set a precedent of when it's okay to lie.

So this is pre -salvation. Me and my wife talking. I said, we're not going to do

Santa Claus in the Jones house. And she said, well, I want the kids to have presents. So I said, we'll buy them presents.

We'll buy them presents. I don't care. Buy them all the presents you want. Wrap them, put them under the trees, put their name on it. And so that's what we did.

And we never told them who they were from. We just wrote who they were to. And that, you know what? They couldn't have cared less where they came from.

Right. I never seen one time them saying, who am I supposed to thank for this? They haven't presently said, Hey, thank you. Thank you, daddy. Thank you, mom.

I said, you're welcome, baby. And that's, and that's it. And it didn't, it didn't bring it up. Now they heard about Santa Claus from television and from their friends and stuff like that, you know, but whenever they come home, they're like, what's up with us?

I got some people stupid. Maybe just, just roll with that. Roll off your back. You know, she said, okay. And they, I, you only make things that way.

If you give them the power to be that way. If you spend time running around, trying to supersede every, everything the world does, you're going to be running around being known by what you're against instead of what you're for.

If you just tell them what Christmas is, this is when we celebrate the birth of our Lord. Do we know if he was born today?

Nope. But since the rest of the world is going to take this time to observe Jesus's birth, let's teach you about Jesus's birth and what it means and why we celebrate.

So we celebrate because we needed a savior because of our sin, because of, because of the death sentence that was on all man,

God had to step in and God stepped in. So let's praise him in it, right?

Let's tell the story. Let's make sure that we don't forget what happened. Let's not, let's go ahead and give, uh, give, uh, praise and, and, and honor words do.

And let's, let's talk about Mary and Joseph in this time about how Joseph decided to be a godly man and listen to the, to the unctions of the

Lord. Let's talk about how Mary was supposed to be favored among other women, according to Elizabeth's testimony.

While we're at it, talk about Elizabeth. Let's talk about John the Baptist, right? You don't have to talk about elves at the

North pole. There's so much other stuff that you can, that you can spend your time talking about and find such wisdom in it and find such growth in it that.

And when they're, when the kids are little truthfully, they don't really care what you're going to say to something. You can't get so much information in their little minds before they're full anyway, and 15 or 20 minutes.

And then it's like, all right, let's open presents, you know, let's see some breakfast. Let's open some presents.

Let's play with it. Let's play with whatever it was. I spent all night putting together. Yeah. That's a lot.

I'm sorry. I have a question for you guys. Is it wrong to, you know, you kind of brought it up already,

John. So I know where you stand, but Hey, you said before you were a believer. So maybe you've changed your mind.

Is it wrong to tell children that Santa is real.

In the, in the sense that Hollywood has made him real or, you know, just in general.

Well, there was a fella that was, that was, they called St. Nicholas, right? Oh man.

You stole my punchline. See, I was hoping you guys would say, I was hoping you guys say yes. White lies are still lies.

That's wrong. I mean, yeah. You're talking about Hollywood version of Santa Tim, Tim, the tool man,

Taylor, you know what I mean? Getting a beard and getting fat and running around squeezing through Santa Claus. Yeah.

Then that's, that's entirely, yeah. That's entirely fictitious and entirely wrong to try to instill lies in your children.

Well, I was hoping you'd say that. Right. And Rob would say something similar. And then I was going to say, oh, I tell my children is

Santa's real all the time. Okay. Because he was real because he was, you know, St. Nick who punched areas in the face.

And there you go. Yes. Go for it. Yes. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Thanks a lot. Thanks big, John. You know what,

I'm out. Now what do we do?

I don't know. I got much less to say. I don't I've said all I needed to say.

Tell the story first. I want you to tell the story.

Why punched him? Well, who he punched cause it's it's kind of awesome. Okay. there.

So, St. Nicholas was a,

I guess you could say a saint in the church, right? A church father. And so, you have,

I guess you had a, I'm blanking on the word.

There was a council, right? A church council. I don't, I think it was the

Council of Nicaea, if I'm remembering correctly. And basically there's this guy

Arius, who's a, he's a, he was supposedly a

Christian. He was a member of the church. I think he was, he was an elder, if I recall correctly.

And he basically denied the Trinity, right?

Like he, I don't remember exactly.

I wish I had thought about this a little bit more clearly before I started talking.

Because Arius, what he had was something called, what's called the Arian heresy, right?

And so it was a kind of, well, it was definitely a denial of the

Trinity. And it wasn't, it wasn't modalism, because modalism is when, when somebody says that the three persons of the

Trinity are just three different forms of God. But I can't remember what Arianism was for the life of me.

And normally, I usually remember, but of course, because I'm doing the podcast, I don't want to look like an idiot in front of everybody.

I can't remember. The point is he was denied the Trinity. We'll stick with that. And he was saying so much heresy that St.

Nicholas got basically fed up and punched him in the face. So, you know, that's as best as I can tell.

Rob, maybe you can, you can tell a bit on the Nikon. I don't know. So I think Arianism is the doctrine that Arius was, was propagating, which was that Christ was not eternal.

And that's what it was. And then therefore denying the triune nature of God, being three in one and equally eternal, you know, all persons being 100 %

God. And it was the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. And St.

Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra. There you go. He was, I thought he was from the

Egyptian city, Alexandria, maybe. But it doesn't matter. Sorry. You may be right.

And I fact check. You may be right. The Association of Biblical Science and Archaeology.

I can't tell you whether they're, they know their stuff or not, because it may not be accurate.

I can't, I can only see because I don't know. I'm going with you. I mean, I, I'm doing this stuff of a memory and I haven't read.

I'm impressed. Because this is all I've ever heard about it. Right. So, I mean, and I shared it on Facebook because I was like, this is epic.

This is epic because it says deck the halls and heretics too. So I had to click and, and, and I was like, you know,

Merry Christmas. You filthy animal. It's, it's one of those things. That's awesome.

That's awesome. I don't know that that's, you know, I'm not saying that St. Nick was adhering to that whole tourney of the cheek, but you know what

I am glad to see that the zeal of the Lord was in him, you know. By the way, speaking of that, not really related to the

Christmas discussion, but related to St. Nicholas punching heretics. Did you guys hear about what happened in Iowa where they set up a statue of, of Satan, like the, the, the church of Satan set up a statue in,

I think it was like a, a, a state court or something like that. Well, because the, the, the argument is, well, you know, if you can have statues of religious symbols, then we can have any religious symbols.

And so they basically forced their way in there and set up their statue. And this guy who basically, not basically, he is a

Christian. I think today or yesterday, he, he said, basically, I'm going to destroy this blasphemous thing and basically beheaded

Satan, the state and the Satan statue got arrested. I was like, man, that guy's cool.

Yeah, that is cool. If you're going to go to jail, could you imagine sitting in your bunk? What are you in for? I didn't pay taxes.

What are you in for? Uh, parking tickets. What are you in for? I beheaded Satan. Don't mess with this guy.

He's got that's one guy. Whenever he walks into the commons area in jail, they're like, he cut the devil's head off.

Well, in this conversation, he could be Krampus Krampus. You got to explain this because in our area,

I seen a lot of stuff on Facebook and I had never heard of Krampus.

People are up in arms. Doesn't that sound like a German story or something like that?

And it's, it's just another, just another tradition. Um, it's a tradition that come from Germany.

Um, you had the, the German, uh, form or German tradition of Santa.

And then you had, um, his counterpart was Krampus and he was kind of a goat man, kind of like Hollywood portrays what the devil looks like, uh, the, this goat man.

Um, but Europe had so many other traditions that, that are similar to that, where they used figures to keep their kids in line.

Like you would say, Oh, there's the boogeyman lives out in the woods. So don't go past the wood line, you know?

So Krampus would come before Christmas and get the naughty kids.

And there's all kinds of things that they say he would do to them, uh, but that he would bring them back. Is that why the shooting got invented so they wouldn't bring them back?

That's different. Have you guys watched the office by any chance?

I have not. Okay. Well, do you guys know the character Dwight by any chance? He's like super awkward and weird.

And he's, he's, he's, I think he's like, his family's from Germany or whatever. Um, and he grew up like on a

German farm and Pence in rural Pennsylvania. And so in one episode, um,

I think they're taking care of kids at the office. Cause it's bringing your child to work there or something like that. And he basically, because the kids are misbehaving, he decides to tell them the story of Krampus.

He basically starts telling them that he's going to eat off their fingers and like murder them in the middle of the night or something.

I'm just like, people confront him. They're like, Dwight, don't do that. He's like, what?

This, this teach them, teaches them morals. It teaches them not to misbehave. He's oh my goodness.

Listen, don't watch it for yourselves. If you guys ever, anyway, that's where I learned about Krampus. So fun fact.

Well, so for us in LinkedIn, there was a guy in a parade who dressed up like an old devil in a Santa Claus suit and caused no end of trouble to people in town.

It's, it's a big thing now. Right? So ignorant people like me have now heard of the

Grinch or Krampus or whatever he is. And, uh, the German fellow who undoubtedly is running around stealing children.

He probably fit in the democratic party. Oh boy.

Cancel. We just got canceled. Those spam messages that we're getting, they're probably going to get a real one now, but that's kind of where I draw the line with.

Um, John had already talked about not lying to his kids about Santa Claus. And I took a similar stance with my son.

You know, I didn't want to, I didn't want to lie to him, uh, about anything when it comes to that.

And so, but for me, where I, where I'm drawing the line is these are, these are stories.

These are traditions. That's, that's the part of them that are, that are real. Um, that's what they are.

They're, they're stories and traditions. I mean, we, we have books when we're teaching our kids to learn how to read about Sally, Jim, Jane, and who they're not real people, but we're, we're using those books to help them to learn how to read.

Um, kick back a little bit on that. We do have a history of a guy named St. Nicholas, right? And he did, in my understanding, uh, give money to some people, uh, to keep their children from being sold in the prostitution.

Right. There was the story that I was told like a couple of Sundays ago was that, uh, the same guy,

St. Nicholas fellow had heard about somebody that went to his church that was on hard times. And one of the things that was going to happen was they were going to wind up, his daughters were going to be picked up more or less by debt collector and used as prostitutes to pay off the debt.

And over the course of three nights, three small little sacks of gold got through through the window and it was enough to pay off the debt collectors and nobody ever took credit for it.

And it remains a mystery as to who give them this money. And they said that it was, uh, they figured it was this

Nicholas of Myra guy because that was in line with what he had spent the bulk of his life doing, which was a benevolence ministry.

Right. So yeah, you're exactly right. We do have a real character named St. Nicholas who, who

Santa Claus, I believe we could track or trace our traditions of Santa back to St.

Nicholas and not pagan roots. However, this whole season, uh, of Christmas and also celebrating the birth of Christ throughout time have inner intermingled themselves.

Like I can't see in, in three, what'd you say? Three 26, three something 25, 25 where you had the council of Nicaea.

Yeah. Do we really think that they were putting trees, decorating trees in their homes, putting a

Reese on their door? Um, get giving gifts on Christmas morning.

You know, it was, it was separate and, and they intermingled St. Nicholas.

What does St. Nicholas have to do with the, the birth of Christ? Uh, you know, it's just these two things have just intermingled over time.

And, and so what, what lines are we going to draw? How, like you said, we can be talking about John the

Baptist, Zacharias, the, the, all the characters in scripture, the, these true real life characters in scripture, uh, instead of, you know, make believe

L's and pretend that they're, that they're real. Sure. But on the other hand, we read stories about Winnie the

Pooh to our children and, and show them their, the cartoons. And they're not, they're not real. Yeah.

Star Wars. Star Wars. Yeah. And we differentiate and we make, and we,

I think we can do the same thing with, with Santa Claus. Yeah. Tradition story. Not real.

Yeah. You don't have to ask him or tell him what you want for Christmas. So you're, you're, you're talking about living life in balance.

Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing, I don't see anything wrong with that. And I don't know about the normative versus the regulative principles of worship and how that's applied to, uh, to every aspect of your life.

I assume it can be, uh, as somebody who doesn't know that as a, as a doctrinal discipline, the way that, that I assume this is a more reformed take on worship.

Am I incorrect in that? Um, it comes from reformed theology, but I, it's not, it's not exclusive.

Like there are non -reformed churches who adopt, you know, regular principles of worship and things like that.

Usually when I hear of these, these topics and these terms, it's usually through you guys. Right. Um, and I'm not saying that in any way as a negative.

That's just usually when I hear that, that's, that's where I hear it is in these circles. Uh, I, I suppose if you wanted to, uh, adhere to society's norms, you know, as long as you don't do anything that contradicts scripture, right.

Again, we give, we give our kids Christmas presents on Christmas morning. We, we celebrate, uh,

Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, the following day, but we don't do 12 days of Christmas. And I only know when they supposed to start or when they're supposed to end.

Right. Uh, we, when it comes to what we're talking about Krampus, uh, there's a

German tradition that my understanding only lives in a town called Cherville, North Carolina, and some outskirts of Cherville in places like Vail, where Rob lives, where there's a thing called

New Year's shooting tradition. Have you ever heard of it? Uh, Jay? New Year's shooting?

Um, I might have. Could you, could you? So on the, on New Year's Eve and provided it doesn't fall on a

Sunday, uh, the guy, there's a bunch of guys take black powder rifles and they run around town and they, and they shoot powder in there at the end of a long chant for about 24 hours straight.

And this has its roots in an old Germanic tradition of warding off evil spirits. Now, to, to be completely honest with, with you,

Rob, uh, I've not engaged in this activity since I give my life to the

Lord, not just because I think it's absolutely silly. Right. Uh, but because there's a vast majority of the people that are there that are involved in drinking and stuff like that.

Now I have been to where they shoot and, and stuff like that because colloquially, you know, it's kind of a thing around here where everybody gathers together usually for the first shot or two, and then they go home.

And even I've slacked up on that. And I've only took my kids a couple of times just because part of it was a family tradition.

Aren't my, I traced some of my lineage back through some of the men who started that tradition around here. I think you had, you had actually told me about that after a laborers podcast, uh, maybe a few months ago.

Okay. So, so you, you just reminded me. Yeah. So, so I, I know I've heard of that from you before, uh,

New Year shooters watching, put a musket pitcher in the, in the comment section. That'd be awesome. Basically what you were saying was they're warding off the wrong spirits.

Yeah. So, I mean, we, we both know that there's, there's absolutely no power in a shotgun against the powers of darkness, right?

Or, or a chant or any of this other stuff. And the chant itself has, uh, you know,

Christian undertones all the way through it. Right. It talks about the Lord several times in it. And it's something that's clearly been adapted over the years from what was probably a very secular, if not pagan chant originally.

Right. Because the last words of it are, and for good luck, we'll fire a gun. Right. The chance a whole page long, and I don't remember all of it and you sing it like an old prayer.

Right. So there's just aspects of it that I don't, I did don't sit right with me. So I don't, I don't take my kids anymore.

We don't do that. Right. We don't observe that. Uh, so that, you know, just to be contextually sound and try to be consistent with my teaching.

Uh, I don't, we don't teach Santa Claus, but there's nothing wrong with celebrating

Christ's birth and giving your kids gifts. I do have a problem with gathering together with 50 men, most of them inebriated and then taking an overpack and a muzzle loader with, you know, a thousand and a half gram of powder, too much powder for the thing.

And then setting off a number 11 cap in it and hoping and praying that everybody around you doesn't die when it blows up.

Right. Uh, good luck. That's what I was referring to when

I was saying they're awarding all the wrong spirits. And they're welcoming those spirits there. That's right. Oh, well,

I don't have you guys ever said we we've lost track and we kind of, but that,

I mean, it is, this is a fireside chat and, uh, we're having a good conversation and I appreciate it.

Um, you, you may be, we're talking about German traditions and you made me think about a movie that come out. Have you guys seen the last sin eater?

Last sin, the last sin eater, like a horror movie or something? No, it is.

It's about a German tradition. It's, it's a film based in Appalachia. And it, when the people settled in the mountains and their nearest neighbor was probably about a mile away.

And when I don't want to ruin the movie, it's, it's kind of long and it's, some people would like it. Some people don't like it, but I, I cry at that movie.

Um, because the German tradition was someone in the community had to be designated as the sin eater.

And so they would stay up way up in the mountain in a cave alone. They had to be secluded their whole life.

And when somebody would die, they would ring the bell. Everybody would come. They would cover up the mirrors and, you know, follow all those traditions.

They would finally, they would prepare the body, take it out to the graveyard and turn their backs.

The, the sin eater would hear the bell come off the mountain, come down to the graveyard. The back was turned.

They would have this meal bread and wine or whatever it was and, and lay it there in the graveyard.

And I guess the sin was being transferred because the sin eater would eat the bread and drink the wine and it was the sin eater.

And so eventually this missionary came and brought the gospel and, and the sin eater was freed from not only from, not only from a sin, but from this tradition.

And oh, it just, it brings tears to my eyes every time. The freedom that Christ brings is so wonderful.

I saw something about not, it wasn't that movie, but I learned about that somewhere within the last two years,

I think, I don't know if it was like a documentary or something. I learned about it, but ironically enough,

I found out that it was a tradition that was being held by Scottish Presbyterians of all things, which is interesting because I don't think, you know, it was by Scottish Presbyterians.

And so it was like people who were going to church and they would bring that sin eater guy or whoever it was into the church itself.

And the pastor would do a whole sermon before he would eat the sin, if you will. So it was this whole thing.

It's like, you know, when I, when I saw that, when I saw the documentary or whatever it was,

I was like, is this how Rome ended up how it is? Right. Like you start mixing, you know,

Christianity with like your own local traditions, because it was crazy to me to think like a pastor is doing a sermon right before the sin eater guy eats the bread and drinks the wine or whatever.

It's just a mixing of paganism with Christianity. That's what Roman Catholicism ended up being. So I'm like, oh, we're doing it all over again.

Great. You know, like it was like Kiefoski would say something about superior theology in this moment, not working out for him.

Right. I mean, I'm just saying it didn't work out for the Presbyterians. These Scottish people, this was probably like in the 1700s.

And by the way, these were, if I remember correctly, these were immigrants from Scotland to the

United States right before the American Revolution. So, you know, it wasn't that far off from the

Reformation that they were practicing these things. Only what, three to 200 years or so, you know, which by today's standards, that's not that far off.

Right. Right. You've never thought about how traditions get started. One of the reasons why

I don't refer to marriage as being a traditional marriage. And I refer to marriage as being biblical.

And I separate the word because most of the time people want to take the word traditional and attach it to marriage and take it like a word.

What's the word we use for other traditional? Somebody help me here. My kids are walking in my train of thought. Cultural, maybe.

I don't know. Modern, maybe. I don't know what the word they would use to be the opposite of tradition.

Oh, the opposite. Progressive? Perhaps. Perhaps. But, you know, the problem with that is if you do something long enough, it becomes a tradition, even if it's bad in the beginning.

Yeah. Right. I know people who, I love them to pieces. They're like, we're not going to have television in our home.

I'm like, great. If you don't have television in your home, don't have television in your home. But they'll watch Andy Griffith and some of the older stuff because it was good enough for dad.

It's good enough for me. Right. Well, I mean, okay. So there's nothing wrong with Andy Griffith either.

I'm just saying that what if pornography would have been good enough for dad? Is that your excuse for what is going to become a family tradition?

New Year's shooting would have been a family tradition. I don't adhere to it anymore. Mennonites and Amish people, yesterday's technology is okay.

Today's technology is a sin. See what I'm saying? It doesn't make any sense to me that things like traditions ever get woven into the gospel in the first place.

I don't follow it. And I think we do have biblical traditions.

I just think that, because now we're getting into like our culture before we came to Christ, right?

Yes, exactly. I do think that whether it's Christmas or whatever else, I had a conversation with Chicano Knox like a few months ago.

And he and I were talking about Christianity and reformation in Latin and Latinos, right?

And we were talking about culture and how Christianity changes your culture.

And we were also talking about how not all cultures are created equal, right? This whole idea of multiculturalism and things like that.

It's not necessarily wrong to adapt other people's traditions and things to an extent, but let's not pretend like all cultures are created equal or traditions are created equal.

Some cultures are better than others. And because they're man -made traditions, all of them are flawed at some capacity.

So when we come to Christ, inevitably, we're going to have to leave some cultures behind, right?

It's kind of like the meme that I brought up at the beginning, right? The human sacrifices will stop, right? Yeah, exactly.

When Christianity comes into your life, sorry, you're going to have to leave some of your traditions behind.

You're going to have to adapt this new tradition, this new culture, which is called Christianity.

And yes, it's a religion, but it's also a culture. That's right. That's exactly right. Whenever we were in the

Dominican, there was this conversation kept being had over and over and over again.

And honestly, it frustrated me because they were like, well, culturally, everybody has to wear this to church tonight.

I was like, I mean, okay, I don't care. If it's culturally acceptable to be modest, yeah, okay.

We're all about being modest, right? We're men of God here. We're talking about you should be covered up all the time, but it become a costume, right?

It's what it becomes. This is really who you are. You're playing church, but you're playing the part whenever you get dressed to go to church, just like he's going to a masquerade ball, right?

Or something like that, which is a little bit ridiculous. It's a lot of bit ridiculous. Either it's part of who you are or it's not.

And if you have convictions about how much skin you're showing, then that should be present everywhere.

And all the time, right? And that I'm just using clothes as an example here, but there were several things like that that were culturally appropriated because this is the way we do things here.

And I remember thinking, what happened to all things have passed away and all things have become new whenever we find new life in Christ.

Everything about us is new and different, right? Everything that we find our identity in is supposed to be in Christ.

We're not supposed to be finding our identity in our culture or our traditions or in our lifestyles.

We're supposed to find our life in Christ, and he's supposed to tell us how we live. And it's easy to find.

It's in scripture. It's all over scripture, right? Whether it's normative or whether it's regulative, either one,

I'm going to keep using that word. That's the word of the day. It's right here, right?

If it doesn't say not to, I'm fine with you doing it if it doesn't say not to. And within reason, right?

Within reason, there's some things, obviously, that aren't written down. And then we've got common sense. God gave us a working brain to know that, yeah, we're talking about a sword, but the same can be said about a gun, right?

Let's not take and say, well, I'm not wielding a sword against the world. I'm using a rifle.

Well, let's not be stupid, right? We know we're talking about a weapon. Sure. You know, I think about like Paul, you know, he had a love for his original people, the

Jews, right? Like he was in anguish over the fact that they had rejected Christ. So I don't think that there's necessarily something wrong with loving your culture to an extent, right?

But at the same time, it was Paul who said, you know, as far as it depends on, no,

I'm misquoting that. I think it's Romans or Galatians 6 .10. He basically,

I'm paraphrasing here. He says, as much as you can do good to everyone, especially to those of the household of faith, right?

So there's a priority list there. He's saying, you know, your priority now, because you are in Christ, is the people of God, right?

Which is those who believe in Christ. Now, you can love your culture that you come from, right?

If it's not contrary to scripture, right? Like, you know, I love, you know, you know, like it's a

Puerto Rican thing. It's delicious. It's amazing. But, you know, if like part of my tradition, which

I guess this is more modern tradition, is like listen to absolutely disgusting music in reggaeton, for example,

I'm not going to do that, right? Because that is contrary to my first and most important culture, my

Christian culture. And so I guess tying this back to the topic of Christmas, there's nothing wrong with having,

I guess you could call them like secondary traditions, right? There's nothing wrong with putting up the

Christmas tree. That doesn't harm anybody. If you want to decorate it, that's fine. You want to put up Christmas lights, that's fine.

You want to pretend like, oh, Santa Claus brought us presents. Okay, sure, that's fine. Are we pretending though, right?

But the point is, I would rather, look, if you're going to make it a secular

Christmas, I would honestly say, listen, then don't celebrate Christmas at all. You know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, if we're going to celebrate

Christmas, then let's celebrate Christ. And that's the whole point.

It's like, you can have your little traditions and your things. My wife likes to bake cookies on Christmas.

I'm sure lots of people do. I'm all about cookies. There you go. Me too. But if the focus is not on Christ, then what are you even doing?

What is the point? That's right. I'm in full agreement. That's crazy.

I'm going to write today down. Hang on a second. I'll remember it. If we could set up a list of the essentials,

I think we will find that, I mean, we already know this, that Christians in general, we love to argue, but it's like, my goodness, do we argue about secondary things?

Right. Yeah. Christmas has become so intermingled, like you guys have already been saying, that there's unnecessary tension that we bring in ourselves, in our discussions about Christmas and what we celebrate, what we don't celebrate.

Unnecessary tension, I think. That's what I'm gathering. That's what

I'm learning from this conversation, just unnecessary tension. Because if you get down to brass tacks, all these things that we do at this time of year have nothing to do with Christ's birth and celebrating his coming.

Absolutely nothing. But they become intermingled throughout time because of traditions.

I'm going to try to bring it to a point. When I was looking at different articles, listening to different things on these different traditions that we have, one of the reasons why

I think the conversation is going to just continue to happen is because there's nothing out there that has definitive proof either way.

I mean, like I said before, I've heard good arguments about the Christmas tree having pagan roots, the

Christmas tree, Christian roots. Same with all the other traditions. Santa Claus started with Saint Nicholas.

No, it's pagan. You've got both sides with arguments and good arguments.

With the birth of Christ, Jay, you brought it up. I've heard two different conclusions made from the same argument.

They start with Zacharias and his term of service in the temple, and then he comes home,

Elizabeth gets pregnant, and then Mary and Elizabeth meet, and so they mark out the time of the pregnancy beginning with his terms of service as priest in the temple.

Two different people said, no, Jesus was born in the fall because of that timeline, and somebody else said, no, he was born in December because of that timeline.

Then I heard a third person say, well, we celebrate December 25th because the annunciation is celebrated

March 25th. Nine months later is in December. You've got all kinds of different arguments, good arguments for all these different things, and nothing's definitive.

All these things, all these traditions have been mingled over time, but one thing that I'm reflecting on is this.

No matter how literally a person says they take scripture, God is a

God of symbols. He uses symbols. He uses symbology to teach us to point to Christ.

Just one clear example, Jesus in the upper room says, this is my blood.

This is my body. God uses symbols. If you want to know my side of things,

I think these things were used probably in pagan traditions, but probably in Christian traditions had

Christian symbolism. You can look up the Christian symbolism in the tree, being an evergreen.

What do you think that stands for? Then the decorations that are used, the candle, the light, light is a

Christian symbol. All the other traditions that we have today have

Christian symbolism in it. Our God is the God of symbolism.

I think you guys are exactly right when you say Christ always should come over culture.

If we're celebrating this in a secular way, we're idolizing

Santa Claus, we're lying to our children, don't celebrate it all. I appreciate what

Jay said there. If we're going to do it that way, don't celebrate it all. If we want to be like Christ, Christ uses symbols to teach lessons, to teach about himself.

I think it's totally appropriate to do that. We don't want to put the flag over the cross.

It applies to all of life, Christ over culture and every aspect of life.

I think it applies here. Amen. By the way, you're going to upset the Lutherans though. How's that?

Because you just said that God uses symbols and you pointed to Christ saying, this is my body, this is my blood.

You know they're not too happy about you saying that that's just a symbol, right? Well, I also don't believe in baptismal regeneration either.

I know. You guys are still brothers in Christ. You guys just don't understand that it was symbolic.

But he is spiritually present in the Eucharist.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into that. I want to start a discussion.

What do we got here? Like five minutes or less? I don't want to start a theological debate five minutes before we wrap it up, so I apologize.

Though I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. Even at the

Lord's Supper. There you go. Yeah, we can wrap it up here.

We went over an hour. Do you guys have any last thoughts? I don't know that we made any conclusive arguments.

I like the fact that if for nothing else, for all the tradition and for all the cultural significance surrounding

Christmas that may not exactly be what we would like for them to be from a Christian's point of view, I like the idea that at least one time in the year that there would be some kind of a focus on preferring your brother and preferring your neighbor over yourself in a moment.

That there'd be some time that we stop and say, you know what, for this little period of time, let's be charitable in what we do.

It doesn't bother me a bit to see the Salvation Army man outside the Walmart in Lincoln or wherever it's at.

It wouldn't bother me if he stayed there 365 days a year, right? It's not like charity needs to stop on December 26th, but I do like the fact that around this time of year, when

I sit in meetings and things like that where people are talking about, well, we've got

X amount of dollars in this fund and we want to give it away and they start looking at homeless shelters and children's homes and places like that that they can send this money to buy beds or feed them or pay the light bill for the next six months or whatever and there seems to be a focus on giving and I like that.

If for no other reason, I like that. I ain't saying it should ever stop, but I'm not expecting the world that's not regenerate to act like Christians, right?

But if for just a day, everybody acts a little bit more like Jesus, I'm totally okay with that.

Any last thoughts, Jay? No, it's like what we said.

If you're going to celebrate Christmas, then celebrate Christmas, but celebrate it for what it's supposed to be celebrated for.

Nothing wrong with giving each other presents, nothing wrong with cookies and hot chocolate and all of that great stuff.

I personally love it, but let's not forget what we're celebrating and I think also, let's take time to appreciate kind of like what

I was saying about when my pastor had told me. It's not just a time for celebration. It's a time for reflection on something that is sad, that it took our sin to get

God Almighty to be with us in a physical sense and die for us.

So we have to remember that component as well.

That's a good word. Well, I want you to hold on to that because after I make these last remarks, I'd like for you to share the gospel,

Jay and John, if you'll close us out, but I think in this conversation, I believe that we exampled what we were preaching, that this conversation was not overwhelmingly about Santa Claus.

We talked about Christ and we talked about Christianity and we talked about our

Father, and so I think we exampled whether we didn't talk about the origins in detail and paganism.

We talked about Christ and I think we exampled what we preached about what

Christmas is all about, so I appreciate that. One thing that I did learn in this little study that I did prior to the podcast is that the word

Kriskringle that we hear a lot of times at Christmas, one of the meanings of that word, of course, again, comes from Germany.

It means Christ child, and at some point in time,

German children believed that baby Jesus brought them presents. That's pretty cool.

So it was, once again, the tradition of Jesus or the story of Jesus made it across the world, maybe not as accurately as it could have been, but they had some form of Jesus in their culture, and they called it

Kriskringle, but Jesus does bring a gift. He doesn't bring us presents on Christmas morning, but that's what

I'd like for you to talk about, Jay, is share with us the gospel, the gift that Jesus does bring. Yeah, absolutely.

He does bring a gift. You know, a lot of people think about Jesus as setting them free, setting them free from, you know, maybe they're in a bad situation, they're in a bad marriage, they have abusive parents, and certainly, absolutely,

Jesus does free the oppressed, does free the fatherless, does free the lowly in spirit, right?

Jesus comes to free people like that. But Jesus doesn't merely come to solve your temporarily earthly problems.

He comes to deal with something that maybe people don't like to acknowledge, but it's the truth, and it's that every single one of us is guilty before a holy

God of sinning and breaking his perfect standards, right? Some people say it's the law, some people say, no, it's just God's moral standards.

Okay, it doesn't matter. The point is that God has an expectation of all men to do what is right, and nobody, if they're being honest, nobody can say,

I've always done what is right. Nobody can say that. At some point in your life, you have lied, you have stolen, you have treated somebody unfairly, you know, you name it, you've done it, right?

Some people have murdered in their heart by hating someone else, as Jesus said, right? That if you hate someone, if you hate your brother, you've committed a murder in your heart.

If you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart. We're all guilty.

If you're honest with yourself, you know you're guilty. But the good news that Jesus brings is that even though you're guilty, and even though there's no way to get out of it on your own, because no matter how much good you do, that will never erase the fact that you are still guilty.

God has provided a way. God has provided a way to make you righteous before him.

And that is through the sacrifices of his son, Jesus Christ. See, Jesus came to die for us.

People don't think about this, though. But he also came to live for us. Jesus lived the perfect life, keeping all of God's moral standards perfectly.

And then he died on a cross. And that's when God's wrath was unleashed upon him.

So that whoever believes in him will not have to be condemned, but have eternal life.

That's the wonderful news of this Jesus Christ that we worship, that we adore. The reason why we love him is because while we were still sinners, he died for us.

When we were doing all of these evil things, when we were spitting in front of this holy

God, even before we were born, him knowing what we were going to do. Christ died for sinners like me, like John, like Rob, like you.

And so what I would encourage you to do is to come before God.

Come before God. God is angry with sinners, but God is also compassionate.

He is merciful. He is loving. And he will forgive anyone who asks him for forgiveness.

Jesus told the story of a man, a Pharisee, who prayed to God and said,

God, thank you that I'm not like this man over here. He was pointing to another man who was clearly a sinner.

He was beating his chest and saying, God have mercy on me, a sinner. Jesus said that the man that was beating his chest, asking for mercy, is the one that received mercy and was justified before God.

That can be you. That can be you. Repent of your sin. Trust in Christ.

Turn away from your sin. Ask him to forgive you. And you will find the greatest joy that you can ever find in your life, which is the promise of eternal life with that holy

God who has adopted you into his family. Amen. Father, I come to you in Jesus' name.

I'm so very thankful for the new life that you've given me. I'm so thankful for the opportunity of salvation that is there because you came on Christmas morning.

Lord, I'm thankful for the opportunity to testify of your goodness and to share your gospel. I pray that you be with those who've heard it.

And if there be any who don't know you, that they'd take these words that my brother has spoken, that they'll hide them in their heart and they'll repent of their sin and put their faith in you.

Lord, I pray that you use this network and use those that are on it. Use this podcast and the means that you've given us to have your cross raised everywhere it can be.

That your name will be lifted up and that your name will be glorified because you're worthy of it. I'm so thankful.

I'm so thankful, Lord. I don't have the words to tell you how thankful I am. Bless these men.

Bless their families. And I praise your holy name. It's in Jesus' name

I pray. Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. I love you guys. And I love my fellow laborers.

And we appreciate you. Thank you for watching. I forgot to say that the comment line is open and it still will be.

It's not closed off. If you have any questions, comments, critiques, if we can pray for you, let us know.

But we hope to see you next time. We hope that you have a very Christ -filled and Merry Christmas.