The American Churchman: Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?

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Welcome to the American Churchmen podcast. Once again, I'm your host, John Harris and my co -host,

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Matthew Pearson. Hey Matthew, how you doing? I'm doing good, John. Hope you're doing well as well. Yeah, well, enjoying the

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Christmas season and all the busyness it entails, but also just, it's a special time of year.

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I can't put my finger on it. And I think having a child for the first time and seeing it through her eyes is also pretty cool.

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Yeah, it's always fun. I'm definitely relaxing because I just finished my last class yesterday. So now all my fall classes are cleared.

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So now I'm free. Winter semester starts when? I'm not gonna be doing any winter semester classes this time around.

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I'm gonna be, we're gonna be job hunting the whole time. So that's what we're gonna be doing. We're gonna be locking in.

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Great for Matthew. He's on the job hunt. He's got a girlfriend. He needs your prayers. So we have a big show today.

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We're gonna talk about Christmas actually. And the debate that's been around for a long time on whether or not

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Christmas should be celebrated by Christians. But before we get to that, the American Church and Podcast is brought to you by TruthScript.

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And our mission is to encourage men in the church to fulfill their biblical, godly responsibilities and to do so in gentleness and also courage.

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And so in that spirit, we bring you the material we're gonna talk about today on the attributes of God, as well as this discussion of Christmas.

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And if you want to make it possible for us to continue doing this and expand the operation, you can go to truthscript .com,

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scroll down to the bottom and the little donate area there. If you want to subscribe to the American Churchmen Podcast by audio, or if you wanna just see our library of videos that we've done, you can go to theamericanchurchmen .com.

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So we have people already correcting the grammar of the podcast, because I guess I use apostrophe in the wrong place.

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I said, should Christians celebrate Christmas? And I put an apostrophe there. I will correct that. My apologies.

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And if man, if Joseph, if that makes you unsubscribe, I don't know what to tell you. Oh man. Just goes to show the idolatry of Christmas that people have and why we should not celebrate it.

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So some would argue maybe. It's a good argument. I'll tell you, some of us are pretty busy. I mean, we do things on the fly a little.

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So I will be sure to make sure that apostrophes are in the right place moving forward. Oh goodness.

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Oh, we can't throw this one into it. Should we celebrate Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, to make sure we don't fall into kinism?

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Oh my goodness. I don't see how a kinist can't in good faith celebrate those because you would see those as like, you know, holding things and you know, they're distinct places.

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So I don't know what charge that would get against them. What if you're a Jewish or a black kinist? Exactly.

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Come on. And wouldn't you be obligated to celebrate? I don't know. I mean, Kwanzaa is not even a real holiday, but Hanukkah is real.

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Have you ever, I've never celebrated Hanukkah. No, I'm a Christian. I'm not a Jew. So I have no purpose to celebrate

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Hanukkah. Well, I mean, sometimes you might have Jewish friends, right? I don't know what they do. I really don't. Cause I've never been invited.

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I guess I don't have enough Jewish friends. I don't know. No one's ever invited me to a dreidel. That's what they do, right?

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They go spin dreidels around, right? That's my - You know, now I think about it. My kindergarten teacher, when I was, she was

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Jewish actually. And during like the holiday season, we like, I like spun a dreidel around and all that stuff.

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So you're Jewish? So yeah, I am Jewish. So the Gropers are right. Matthew Pearson is

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Jewish or something. I don't know. I can, I'll post my 23andMe and you guys can judge. Oh goodness.

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I was thinking today of the Elizabeth Warren and how she was, what was it? 116th or something.

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Yeah, something like that. Trump called her Pocahontas and it was like a big stroke. And it's funny because there are guys out there who are, that's how they are about your

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DNA. It's like, oh my goodness, you found one drop of blood of this. You must be that or whatever. But let me just make it, let me make an overture towards all of God's people, all of his children who are in him, as well as those who have yet to become his children, but they should be.

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Christmas is a wonderful universal holiday and all are welcome to celebrate Christmas. Not in my home necessarily.

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We only have so much capacity, but find a church near you that preaches the Bible and go sing some

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Christmas carols. I don't care who you are. That's my welcoming, magnanimous overture.

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Well, there we go. So with that, let's talk about some attributes of the Lord before we get into the discussion on Christmas.

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Today, we're gonna be talking a little bit about omniscience or the knowledge of God and how he knows everything.

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And we don't, and we're limited. This is one of his attributes that cannot be communicated to man.

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We can't follow Christ in being omniscient, but he, maybe you can explain this as you get into it, but Christ or God, the

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Godhead is omniscient, but some have challenged that by saying, well,

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Christ in human form didn't know certain things, right? Cause he said he didn't know the time he was coming back.

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So maybe we'll address that as we get into it. Yeah, no, that's a good one. And I actually have not thought about that one just yet today.

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So my brain may be a bit grumpy. Luckily I went to seminary, so. Well, there you go. Yeah, seminary is what teaches you.

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Seminary is what teaches you everything. If you don't go to seminary, you'll never be able to truly understand the Bible, apparently.

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Anyways, so yes, the divine omniscience. So today for divine omniscience, I decided to take a little break from Bob Inc.

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I had to use him on an essay, so I kind of got tired of him. So we're just gonna, we're gonna have some fun with Richard Muller.

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So my primary sources that I pulled from is his dictionary of Latin and Greek theological terms and his post -reformation reform dogmatic, specifically the volume on the divine essence and attributes.

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So whatever you hear from me, it's not really original. I basically just, it's not really plagiarism because I'm credited to him.

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So yeah, this will mostly be pulled from that. But divine omniscience. To begin with, I'm just going to read one verse, which

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I, for some reason, did not cite. So let me put that in Google real quick. Psalm 139.

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We will be reading from Psalm 139 verses one through six, just to kind of get us started before we talk about divine omniscience.

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The text reads, "'Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. "'You know when I sit down and when

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I rise up. "'You discern my thoughts from afar. "'You search out my path and my lying down "'and are acquainted with all my ways.

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"'Even before a word is on my tongue, "'behold, oh Lord, you know it altogether. "'You hem me in behind and before "'and lay your hand upon me.

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"'Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. "'It is high, I cannot attain it.'"

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So that kind of gives us a little insight into God's knowledge right there about how before David even speaks a word,

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God knows what it is. So if we're gonna define omniscience, this is a very succinct way that Richard Muller defines it according to some of the medieval and reform scholastics and Lutheran scholastics, we can't leave them out.

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But omniscience essentially is the attribute of God by which God knows all things, all events and all circumstances of things and events perfectly and immediately in his timeless eternity.

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So just to repeat that one more time, because that was a lot. It's the attribute of God by which God knows all things, all events and all circumstances of things and events perfectly and immediately in his timeless eternity.

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So basically God knows all things and he knows all things according in an immediate sense.

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It's not like God knows all things, but his knowledge of those things is sort of unfolding.

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Like he has access to all knowledge and he learns it over time. No, he just knows all things in an immediate and perfect sense.

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So God's knowledge of all things, there are certain traits that this knowledge that he has possesses.

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So God's knowledge of all things is absolutely true in all it perceives because it is all encompassing, complete and without defect.

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God's knowledge is absolutely clear because it lacks no detail, either concerning things possible or things actual, things to be or things to come.

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All possible things in worlds are entirely and perfectly clear to God. God's knowledge is absolutely simultaneous because God who is eternal is free from temporal succession, not only in being, but also in knowing.

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And therefore he knows all things at once, which includes the order and temporal succession of all things.

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So when I say like temporal succession, there's a difference between like a logical succession and a temporal succession.

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So for example, logical succession, we would say that regeneration precedes faith when in reality, it's not like first you're regenerated and then you have faith, but those things are more like simultaneous.

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They almost seem to happen at the same time. Like when you have faith, you're regenerated. But in like the logical ordering of things, because regeneration gives you the supernatural virtues, one of which being the supernatural gift of faith, it thus precedes in a logical sense.

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And so when I say a temporal succession, I mean that God doesn't sit there and go, huh, this happened, therefore this happened.

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Oh, that's how I know that. No, God is free from knowledge that he gains by a temporal succession because it's simultaneous knowledge.

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And that leads into the other attribute or not attribute, the other like trait of God's knowledge is that it is immediate because it knows things by immediate apprehensions rather than by discourse or demonstration.

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So like I just said, God doesn't have to look at how things play out and then he knows, God simply immediately knows.

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Something important to note about speaking about divine knowledge essentially is that when we speak about divine knowledge, scripture speaks of its vastness, its extent to all things and its freedom from all deceptions essentially.

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And so there's like a lot of different places you can go to in scripture to learn about divine knowledge.

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So this is a little bit different than divine simplicity and that divine simplicity, there's not gonna be like, you sort of, you get to divine simplicity by good and necessary consequences of how

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God reveals himself and who he is and things like that. It's not as explicitly, there's not a verse that says

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God is simple necessarily. In the same way, there's not a verse that says God is a Trinity, you put it together by good and necessary consequences.

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Omniscience is a bit different. You can kind of go to very clear verses which talk about that. Like Job 28, 24, 1

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Samuel 2, 3, 1 Samuel 16, 7, 1 Kings 8, 39, Psalm 94, 9, Psalm 94, 11,

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Psalm 139 verses one through six, which is what I just read. Matthew 7, 23, Acts 15, 18.

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There's a lot of places. I'll just say one more. 1 John 3, 20. So if you're ever re -watching this, you wanna do a little study on omniscience, go to those verses.

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But all that to say, just to end, one of our attributes that we covered a few weeks back was that God is a spirit.

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And not only that, but God is infinite. God is an infinite spirit. So God, the attribute of divine omniscience is actually directly tied with his nature as an infinite spirit.

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Because God is infinite, because he's an infinite spirit, his understanding must also be infinite.

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And if his understanding is infinite, it must be able to contain all things. In order to contain all things, he must know all things via immediate perception.

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So that's part of something I love doing about these divine attributes is just seeing how all of them connect with one another and how all of them, because all that is in God is

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God, they all are coterminous with the divine essence. But it's really neat to see how some, based off our human perception, connect and are so obvious.

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When you grant one attribute to God, this other attribute must necessarily follow. And we see that with God being an infinite spirit.

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So that is a divine omniscience in a nutshell. Thank you, Richard Muller, for helping me out with that.

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Yeah, thanks, Richard. So back to the question of Christ.

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And I mean, the way I reconcile that is Christ grew in wisdom and stature. And that was not in his capacity as the second person of the

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Trinity, but in his capacity as someone who is the

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Jesus, the God -man, the incarnate Son of God who lived, who gave up temporarily, put on hold in his earthly identity, those certain traits that he still kept that are still part of the second person of the

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Trinity. But they, and this is the mystery of the, of course, the hypostatic union, but these are attributes that he could honestly tell his disciples,

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I am, I do not know the day or the hour, but he wasn't making a statement about his role in the

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Godhead. His capacity is as the second person of the Trinity. So the rest has to be given up to mystery.

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And that's the whole mystery of the hypostatic union. And of course, the Trinity is also mysterious in some ways too. So it is, it does not necessarily have to be, how do you figure

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Christ being an infant? I mean, wouldn't he have been limited? How does he grow in wisdom? That's what I was just thinking about.

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Because when you read through the gospel of Luke, there's numerous instances where it speaks of Christ growing in wisdom and knowledge.

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And one of the Cappadocians, one of the Gregory Cappadocians, I can't remember if it's Nazianzus or Nyssa, someone in chat may know, but one of them basically says that Christ assumed all things in order to redeem all things.

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So Christ had to take on a human mind in order to redeem our minds, because our minds are also fallen into sin.

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We have sinful inclinations. We have a concupiscence. We have all these things that impact our mind.

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There are bodily things that we do, which are sinful, but those proceed from the mind, which informs what our body does.

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And so in order to redeem all things, Christ through his incarnation has to assume all things and live a perfect life.

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And part of that is growing in wisdom and knowledge of things. And so part of that is also could have like a temporary, like,

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I don't wanna fall into some sort of heresy by accidentally saying the wrong thing, but you do need to affirm that Christ did grow in wisdom and stature, and he assumes all things to redeem all things.

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And thus there's a sense in which for our sake, he learned. For our sake, there were things he didn't know, which he then received knowledge of.

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And so, yeah, that's kind of how I would take that passage as well. Yeah, yeah, there's a number of issues like that.

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How could Christ be tested in all points and yet God's not tempted? And how could, right, there are these things that take place in the incarnation of Christ that are different than the way that the second person of the

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Trinity operated for eternity past. And so, all right, so all that to say, now that everyone's been deeply drinking from some good theology here, let's move this into the incarnation itself and the celebration of Christmas.

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And I'm assuming, Matthew, you celebrated this holiday, even though you haven't done

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Kwanzaa or Hanukkah. I'm assuming you celebrated Christmas. No, believe it or not,

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I have never celebrated Kwanzaa. I've never partook in Hanukkah, even when

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I went through like a little stupid messianic Jewish phase in middle school, but never -

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You've got a lot of phases. I always find out about these on the podcast. Yeah, yeah, no, one of my favorites was my

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King James only phase, that was fun. But no, I never celebrated Hanukkah, but yes, I do partake in Christmas.

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One of my favorite holidays, I think it's just the season, because look, I live in Florida and Florida's hot.

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And there's only a very brief stint of time where it actually gets a little chilly. And because of that, it feels like a special occasion, because even after winter months, it doesn't like stay that chilly for long.

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And so I always just, I feel cold in the air and I'm in the swamps and it feels cold. And I'm like, wow,

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Christmas must be coming up. Jesus is born. So yes, Christmas is great. Yeah, it reminds me of Kenny Chesney's all

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I want for Christmas is a real good tan. So true. Probably before you were born, before you were born.

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I need a good tan, I'm looking pasty. I mean, today it was like 55 degrees, which is crazy.

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It snowed the day before. So it's like, the weather's a little erratic, but usually Christmas, it's like in the 30s at least.

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It's probably falling into the 20s at night. It's supposed to be in the 30s coming up soon, like the week of the 20th.

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Oh. Yeah. In Florida? In Florida, yes. So that's going to be pretty wild. It hasn't, in like the central

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Florida to Tampa area, it hasn't snowed since 1977. So we'll see what happens. I don't think we're expecting snow, but that would be pretty wild if it did happen.

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Interesting, 77, that was the same year we had this huge blizzard in New York. So anyway, all right.

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Well, whenever you talk about this, it's like when you talk about the Lord's day, there's always that person in your comments, who's like,

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Constantine set that up and you're worshiping a demonic day. I don't know if you've seen those comments.

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I see. Oh, I have. I don't know why. I usually chuckle and I don't even engage.

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But Christmas is kind of like that. You're going to have, I don't know how big of a group it is, but there are

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Christians who do not celebrate it. And I bet some of them, some of them have reversed course on that.

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They used to be in that. Oftentimes it seems to, I don't know if you've noticed this, it goes along with like, usually they're reformed.

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Usually they're very influenced by the Puritans. There's probably some family integration at work and just Sabbatarians.

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Like there's a bunch of things that usually go together when someone says that they're not going to celebrate Christmas. But I think primarily it's in our circles, at least, that's something, because we're not

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Jehovah's witness. They don't celebrate that either, or birthdays or any holiday. But I think in our circles, it's primarily like a

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Puritan type influence. And my understanding of that history is that it was more of the things associated with the

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Christmas celebration that Puritans objected to in New England, that they thought that this was an opportunity for debauchery and in England, there had been a corruption of the celebration.

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And so they just decided to eradicate the whole thing. We're not going to do it. I haven't dug deeply into that.

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Maybe you've dug deeper than I have. But as far as I know, that was the main motivation behind, we're not going to celebrate this because it becomes a drunken brawl.

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I'm glad we're past that. I don't want to cancel Christmas. I want to celebrate Christmas. But there are

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Christians who still won't participate. And sometimes that level of non -participation could be something like, they will set aside the day, but they will not do a

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Christmas tree. I don't know if you've ever met families like that, but I've known some. They'll say it's part of Saturnalia or something, and they will bring in a manger scene instead or do something else.

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And this strikes me as, it's like you watch the fringe kind of joke of a atheist video online that tells you that everything in our

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Christian religion came from a pagan source, and then you just believe it. And then you try to cut it out. I think that's where,

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I mean, I know that that makes me probably sound condescending, but I really do think that's probably what's at play more than anything else.

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Because the Christmas tree developed in Germany in the 1600s. One legend attributes it to Martin Luther himself, that he brought it in to his house, a tree, and he had admired it as he was walking and saw stars through it, and thought this was a good reminder.

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That's why he put a star at the top of the star that led the wise men or the shepherds, and the wise men,

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I'm sorry, to see Christ. And so it then was Queen Victoria, who

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I believe had German ancestry, who brought it into the English -speaking world, and that was in the 19th century. So it's fairly new,

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I suppose you could say. It's not, it doesn't go back to 1 ,000 or 2 ,000 years, but you have to stretch to try to say it's part of Saturnalia or some pagan festival.

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Because trees have been used in lots of pagan festivals. Like it's not uniquely. But the

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Christmas tree, the one that we know that we decorate and stuff, that is unique to Christmas, right?

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This wasn't an ashtraw pole, which is what I've heard some Christians say. It's ridiculous. So that's my rant at first.

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I have a Christmas tree, cost me way too much, but I do have one in my, it's a real live one.

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We decorate it, we feel no guilt about it, and I hope that my children continue to practice. So we, my apartment, we have a little

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Christmas tree out there. My roommates, I live with a good friend of mine, his wife and their one -year -old daughter.

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And so my, like a week and a half ago, my girlfriend and his wife decorated a little, a cute little

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Christmas tree out there, rearranged the room a little bit, so it's nice. But yeah, I guess something important before we really get into it is,

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I'd say that there's two types of people that don't celebrate Christmas. And I think that one of them is, despite my disagreement, is like I can respect their reasoning more than others.

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So the first type is like what you said, where they think it's pagan, they think it came from pagan practices or whatever.

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And I think that's just historically very inaccurate. And if you wanna get good resources on that, the

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Apologetics YouTube channel, Inspiring Philosophy, he has a pretty old series on debunking like myths about holidays and things like that, where he looks into the claims about like pagan origins and demonstrates why those are false.

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So that's like the first group that you have. The second group that you have will largely be reformed people, because believe it or not,

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I say this as a Presbyterian who does like Christmas, I do deviate from the historic norm here in that Presbyterians, Scottish, English, whatever ones you wanna talk about, did not celebrate

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Christmas. When you look at the Westminster Directory, they discouraged the celebration of these feast days actually.

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And now that's not to say that the reformed never celebrated Christmas. When you look at like the more like Dutch reformed and the continental reformed as a whole, they are okay with evangelical feast days, which would include

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Christmas and Easter. But at least among like the Presbyterian tradition, especially in Scotland, they would not celebrate those holidays.

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And part of that was this theological understanding of the regulative principle of worship, that whatever God does not command is not to be practiced.

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And because God has only instituted one holy day under the new covenant, that being the Lord's day, that is the only day to be celebrated.

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So I think it's important when we... We probably won't even be tackling those points a lot. And this is, it'll probably be more inclined towards the former than the latter grill.

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We have like nine points to go over. I think that actually is one of them. Oh, really? Yeah. Exposing that I haven't even read the article yet.

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I'm a terrible podcast host. But no, no, no. But yeah, no. So like that is a respectable position, which

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I do respect despite my disagreement. But I think it's important that we're able to differentiate that one group is a little crazier than the other.

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And that's what I would say. But I guess some of the more, yeah. I went into a, I wouldn't recommend this, but I went into a pagan witchcraft shop years ago to share the gospel, of course.

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Oh, good, good. Yeah, no, I wasn't doing it. I wasn't up to any funny business. Wait, John, you're woke, right?

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Woke, right? Don't share the gospel. That's right, right. Yeah, we just believe in using the sword to spread

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Christianity and the force of the government. And that's it. We don't believe in - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what a

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Christian is, right? So anyway, we should get off this. Oh, Christmas. So we went in and my friend wanted to witness.

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He said, they need the Christ more than anyone else. I said, sure. Probably not a wise thing to do. I'm not recommending it.

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But we did at this time. This was over a decade ago. We went in. And I remember the folks behind the counter.

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There was a guy behind the counter. He got so nervous. And then he couldn't even talk to us. He was stuttering so bad.

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And it was after we told him we were Christians. I mean, he just lost it. He couldn't even communicate. So he goes in the back, finds this witch to come out.

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And I say that not in a condescending way. She actually would have told you she's a witch and she came out. And she, you know what her whole argument was?

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The whole thing, the entire disagreement between us in her mind came down to this.

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Her religion was older than ours. Satan was misunderstood. It was like everything in our religion was sourced in some kind of pagan tradition because Christianity is only 2000 years old in her mind.

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And the Yule log, Yule was in Saturnalia where the Christmas holidays, but we just stole from them.

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We ripped off everything from paganism. And so we're not authentic. That was the whole entire argument, which

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I thought was interesting. Like she didn't have any compelling reason for us to believe in paganism other than like you guys ripped us off.

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That's what, and at the time I didn't really know a lot about those things. I just thought it was a dumb argument in general.

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That doesn't really get to the, it's just a misunderstanding. Like our religion didn't start 2000 years ago. It's, we believe that it started on day one.

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It was what God instituted from the beginning. So anyway, I just wanted to tell that story because I think it's floating around out there.

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A lot of people are persuaded by that. They think, you know, Yule was a celebration in,

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I think, Germany that, you know, predated Christmas, I guess, or at least the Christianization of Germany.

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And there's a lot of these harvest type of festivals in the pagan world and stuff. But, you know, what did we, what did we gain from Yule?

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What did we gain from, I guess, you know, we have a Yule log maybe on, like nothing really that significant.

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The main things that we celebrate and used to celebrate Christmas, and I'm not talking about just the season.

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I'm talking about the day, Christmas, are unique to Christianity. Christmas is a

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Christian holiday. Even the date of the 25th, which he was trying to tell me is some, I don't know if it's

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Horace or some God, you know. That was something from the early church period that people like John Chrysostom and Augustine, Jerome, they all said that was the day,

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December 25th. This isn't something that we stole from a pagan source. This was something from the beginning, from very early period that Christians said, this is the day that Christ was born.

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So anyway, I want to say that. All right, well, let's get to the article and we'll talk about it some. So if you go to truescript .com,

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you can check it out and follow along with us. Nine reasons to celebrate Christmas. All right, reason one, it's the church's responsibility.

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The church has been given, oh, I should say who this is written by. Joseph Spurgeon wrote this. So this is the

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Spurgeon official view, Spurgeon's view on this. I think I can say that. Charles Spurgeon.

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Well, it's Joseph. Not that one though, not that one. He is related. So even though he's, this is a funny thing because he's

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Presbyterian and he's related to Joseph, Charles Spurgeon. Good, he perfected that which was lacking.

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That's great. Well, my name is not Knox, you know, but I am a direct descendant of John Knox, even though I'm a,

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I'm baptistic. So it's - You need to return. I, well, I told him he should thank me, but he said he,

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I should thank him. So whatever. So the church has been given the responsibility to teach that all that Christ commands, the church must teach the whole counsel of God.

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Seeing how this is impossible to do all at one time, the church also has the authority to decide what parts of scripture and where those parts may be taught.

28:43

Reform Christians practice this weekly as elders decide what will be preached. There is no biblical reason why the church should be forbidden to teach a certain truth at the same time of year.

28:54

And so this is, falls under the authority and prudence of the church according to this first point. So it's not really a positive,

29:00

I would say argument, but it's more of like a defensive, like you can't say that this is wrong.

29:06

There's nothing in scripture that would tell you it's wrong, I guess, unless you hold to a regular principle, right? Well, even then it would get to, it would fall under like, what is the ministerial authority of the church?

29:17

So the church does, because sometimes as Protestants, we can be a little bit weary about talking about church authority, because you want to make sure that scripture alone is the only formally a material infallible, like, you know, authority.

29:31

And so, but what you have to understand is that no, God is still giving the church a ministerial authority for the purpose of proclaiming the faith.

29:39

That's why we have the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Chalcedonian definition. That's why we have confessions of faith, because the church is building on the rule of faith, which they have received in the apostolic deposit, which summarizes what scripture teaches.

29:54

And so I think that just kind of off the dome here, I don't think that it would necessarily fall outside of the bounds of the church's ministerial authority to say, let's use this time to celebrate.

30:05

Now that would come into another discussion. It's like, oh, are you in sin if you don't celebrate it? That's where things get a little more dicey, where we'd probably say, no, it wouldn't be sinful to abstain from that, unless you're coming from a more

30:17

Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox perspective, or any of the other churches of like the first millennium.

30:23

But yeah, no, so I totally would think that it's within the church's ministerial bounds to be able to say, let's focus in on this today, or during this period of time.

30:33

The second point is basically the same thing. It says you have the freedom to gather, because look, churches will have Wednesday night meetings.

30:39

They'll do things outside the Lord's day. So why not also gather during Christmas or Christmas Eve is what my church does.

30:49

I would say that's the same argument. It's just that, you know, there's nothing prohibiting you from doing this. Times of Thanksgiving and fasting.

30:56

So this is kind of similar too, but it just wants to make the point that the Westminster Confession of Faith says that days of fasting or Thanksgiving are permitted.

31:05

One of the proof texts was the celebration of Purim, a feast created by Mordecai after the Jews were delivered from their enemies in the

31:12

Book of Esther. This was not part of the feast and festivals given in the law through Moses. There's no description of Mordecai being told directly by God to establish this feast.

31:21

That's actually a good argument. I never thought of that. So, I mean, this says that you can go outside the days that God specifically has ordained to worship

31:30

God on another day, if you choose to do so. So, and he talks about, let's see.

31:40

We have an example of a non -law yearly celebration that finds its origin not in scripture, but it was celebrated in the time of Christ, John 10, 22 through 23.

31:48

At that time, the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter and Jesus was walking in the temple at the portico of Solomon.

31:56

And so this was, I think this is Hanukkah is what they're describing here,

32:01

I guess. Hanukkah was created in response to events that happened during the intertestamental period.

32:07

So Jesus didn't like create a stir about it.

32:12

He didn't raise a stink about it. So it seems like that should be okay. Yeah, there you go.

32:21

There's your regulative principle. I guess that pokes a hole. Holidays versus holy days.

32:27

Part of the argument against celebrating Christmas is that only the Lord can make a day holy. Another part is against the

32:33

Roman Catholic system of merit. As a reformed Christian, I wholeheartedly agree, says Joseph Spurgeon, God has established the

32:39

Lord's day, the Christian Sabbath as the holy day for the church. I oppose any idea of meriting righteousness by keeping a certain day created by the church.

32:46

I don't know of any Protestant Christian who celebrates Christmas that holds to Roman Catholic view. Francis Turretin, a reformed scholastic, pointed out how these charging their reformed brothers who celebrate the evangelical feast days by using attacks against holy days are out of line and were attacking a straw man.

33:04

Okay, well - There you go, Francis Turretin, name drop. You recruit Francis Turretin to your side, then you're in good company.

33:12

I never thought about that with the RCC, though. I guess for Christmas, they do have some, like you go to confession, right?

33:21

Christmas day. Well, essentially, it's that you need to, so there are services which you're required to go to or you're outside of a state of grace, and that would include every

33:31

Lord's day, essentially, but for them, it would also include particular feast days, and so if you miss those feast days, you would be detracting from your, you would be outside of a state of righteousness.

33:43

You need to be restored to that state of righteousness through confession and through partaking of the

33:48

Eucharist, so that's what he's referring to there. Interesting, do you have a Catholic background, right, or?

33:55

I never grew up Catholic. My mother actually grew up Roman Catholic, and my father converted to marry her, but they became

34:03

Southern Baptists like some years before I was born, so by God's providence, I was not raised in a Romanist household.

34:09

Gotcha. All right, the practice, oh, sorry. Our highest standard is Scripture. The truth of Christmas, that is the truth of Christ's birth in a manger to the

34:18

Virgin Mary is from Scripture. It is integral to our Christian faith. The great creeds of the faith which summarize biblical teaching all highlight

34:26

Christ's conception by the Holy Spirit and birth to the Virgin Mary, so the Scripture commands the church to teach these truths, so sure,

34:34

I mean, I don't think any, even the people who don't celebrate Christmas would not argue the church should not teach these truths.

34:40

They're just saying that day that they don't want. It's for the sake of good order that some of these holidays be there because it can, you know, maybe every once in a while you wanna talk about the incarnation, but you're definitely going to speak of it during Christmas time.

34:55

You're gonna always mention the atonement, but you're especially going to speak of it during Easter, so it kinda helps to like,

35:02

I guess, structure for the sake of good order being able to speak of particular articles of the faith. Yes. He actually cites

35:10

Calvin's Geneva. I didn't realize this, but he says that the Protestant reformers celebrated Christmas.

35:16

He says that there were those who objected to abuses of the church and did not keep

35:23

Christmas, but, and they have good warnings. I think that's, he's talking about like the, maybe it predated the

35:29

Puritans, but that concern about getting too riled up that day, but he says in Calvin's Geneva, I guess they did, so that's interesting.

35:40

So if you wanna be a true Calvinist, you should celebrate Christmas. He talks about Christian charity, how, you know, you shouldn't, this is the thing

35:48

I think I have the biggest problem with, Matthew, is the guys who sometimes do not wanna celebrate

35:55

Christmas will hound you for your celebration of it. They will tell you that this is a, you're almost in sin.

36:05

Some probably think you are. You're celebrating a pagan holiday to celebrate Christmas. And I think this is what

36:11

Joseph Spurgeon's arguing against. He said, you should have Christian charity. There's nothing prohibiting folks like us who celebrate

36:17

Christmas from doing so. And this does not mean that the one with the weaker conscience can exercise tyranny over the church and demand that it not teach unbiblical truths at a certain times of year, nor should they demand that their church cancel

36:30

Christmas, sing -alongs or other events they may schedule. So don't create a disturbance in your church over this matter.

36:38

If you have a conviction that you don't wanna celebrate in your family, fine. Don't, just cancel, try to cancel the celebration of the incarnation with other believers.

36:50

This is actually a strong, I think this is a stronger point than some of the others, to be honest with you. Our culture celebrates

36:56

Christmas. You may think that's like, actually, this is the shortest one too. He says, I don't believe that the church should pass up the opportunity afforded us to preach the gospel during these times.

37:06

Christians should use the time of year to be beacons of light. And so, this is something,

37:13

I don't know if you have this at your church, but if you have a children's choir or something special, people will come in that time of year to observe that.

37:24

And it is, I mean, to forego that and say, we're just not going to have services when it is literally the time of year when people are most likely to come to your church, seems like kind of a dumb move in my opinion.

37:34

But - Yeah, I think that is like where you can really take advantage of, if you're concerned about cultural

37:40

Christianity or skeptical, you can use cultural Christianity as your instrument of truly

37:47

Christianizing, not just in the external sense, but in the sense of having people hear the word of God preached, having the incarnation preached, and people could have their heart changed.

37:59

It's for sure, that is one of the benefits of a cultural Christianity is that people will come. And while their hearts may be hardened, because it's like, oh, they hear it all the time, yada, yada, yada, you don't know the work of the spirit in the life of someone.

38:11

Maybe they really need it. Maybe they've lost a loved one around this particular holiday. Just a few days ago,

38:17

I believe it was the 14th, that was the seven -year anniversary of R .C. Sproul passing away. And I think of his family, and would you not think that during this time of mourning, they can always have the remembrance that, but he is in glory right now, all because God decided to become, to quote

38:37

Tim Keller positively, "'God became a wiggling baby in order to get closer to you.'" Isn't that, that's just something that, no,

38:44

I actually really like that. I'm not the biggest Keller guy, but I like that from him.

38:49

It's true, he really did. Yeah, I don't, ugh. Just to, just, it's the word just that I don't like.

38:56

Just to get closer to you wasn't just to get close. Well, there's a lot backed in there. He got to get closer to you by virtue of defeating sin and death and redeeming all things, and all of that is entailed in getting closer to you.

39:08

All right, well, you can be pro -Tim Keller, Matthew. Hey, I go to RTS. I have to be pro -Tim Keller. Come on, man. Mass is a historic term.

39:15

Oh, I think this is against the objection that some say it's Chris Mass. Well, that, you know, Mass was not a term that was unique to the

39:21

Roman Catholic Church. This was something that, it's not like it's a uniquely

39:26

Romanist, Puritans, or sorry. It's not particularly referring to like the sense of like the

39:32

Eucharist being a form of sacrifice, which is itself perpetual.

39:38

Transubstantiation, yeah. That's not what it's like referring to when you hear Mass. Like he just says right here, it's like about departing because in the early church, prior to the partaking of the

39:48

Eucharist, people who were either visiting or catechumens would be dismissed from the service.

39:54

Gotcha. Yeah. So that's what it means. Latin, it was ite misa est.

40:01

So, all right. Well, that's the article from Joseph Spurgeon. So we can take some questions or comments or cries of outrage now,

40:08

I suppose. See what people have to say. So Earl Starbucks says, Merry Christmas. Thank you, Earl.

40:14

Merry Christmas. Appreciate that. And he also says, Puritans bandit. That's cause to love it.

40:21

Earl Starbucks. I like the Puritans. I know John's not the biggest fan, but I like the Puritans. I like some things about them.

40:27

I mean, they're a big group too. So it's hard to like. Yeah, yeah. I, yeah, yeah. More could be said.

40:33

But Earl Starbucks. I mean, you made a whole documentary about it, didn't you? Well, it wasn't about the Puritans.

40:38

That's what. I know, they were involved. They were involved. The Puritan enjoyers hated it though, because they, you know, this has been a line for a long time that Southerners have given is that it's that Puritanical spirit that they were fighting.

40:54

And I saw, I was, okay. So I was reading this book on John Brown, you know, John Brown, the murderer, the killer who led the raid on Harper's Ferry.

41:05

And John Brown, there was this portion of the book where there was just quote after quote after quote of these, and they're probably more like Unitarians at this point.

41:16

And so some of them might be congregational, but pastors and so forth in New England that kept comparing him with Cromwell.

41:22

And he's our new Cromwell. He's our new Cromwell. He's our new Cromwell. And it was those kinds of things that the

41:28

Southerners reacted to. So anyway, I digress, but English Civil War, American Civil War stuff.

41:33

Yeah, there's bad blood there. But the Puritans, like I said, I think they banned it though because of the association.

41:40

It wasn't, as far as I know, we're gonna read some quotes here though. Someone says, oh, this is perfect.

41:45

This is from Increase Mather. Christmas ought to be rather a day of mourning than of rejoicing being the anniversary of so great a sin.

41:53

The nativity of our savior being observed without any warrant from scripture yielded. You still like the

41:58

Puritans, Matthew? I do, I really do. This is from William Prynne in History -O -Maestrics, 1633.

42:08

Christmas so -called is nothing but an invention of men. It is a day that has no warrant in the word of God, but is taken up by the papists from the heathen

42:15

Saturnalia, whereunto are forefathers. Oh, that was it. I guess that's the end of the quote.

42:21

There must be more to this. Oh, look at that. Maybe I was misinformed. Some of the Puritans did believe it had pagan origins.

42:27

Look at that. I was trying to be too charitable. I was too. I thought this was more of a practical thing. Are there other?

42:34

He's actually posting some pretty good quotes. Let me see if he's got other quotes. Yeah. He's got a whole file on stack.

42:41

Yeah, so the feast of Christ's nativity is spent in reveling, dicing, carding, masking, and all licentious liberty.

42:47

Mirth by long eating, by hard drinking, by lewd gaming, by rude reveling, increase mouth.

42:53

You know, that actually, okay, that reminds me of a post that Andrew Isker had today.

43:00

Let me find it. I'll read it out loud. I can't really share my screen or whatever, but he had a pretty important point.

43:06

So there was a very funny Owen Strand tweet, and we know how Owen Strand is. He's very melodramatic.

43:11

That's just, that's how he is, you know. Come what may. That's just, that's Owen Strand tweet.

43:17

He believes in the equality of all people, except the members of the Trinity. That's a good one.

43:24

But Owen Strand had tweeted, friendly reminder, the Puritans did not get everything right. Further, just because the

43:30

Puritans did something, that doesn't mean we must do it too. In England, they banned Christmas, exclamation point, and makeup, yikes.

43:39

So that's what. The dude is going to make me a Puritan enjoyer and not celebrate Christmas.

43:44

Yeah, that's what Owen Strand said. Yikes, they didn't celebrate Christmas or have makeup.

43:50

Or have makeup? That was just thrown in there? Yeah, he said they banned Christmas and makeup, yikes.

43:56

I guess if you walked into church and none of the women had makeup, would that be yikes? I mean, I don't know.

44:02

I mean, so yikes. I should probably stop. Look, I like Christmas. I'm fine with makeup.

44:07

If a girl wants to get real pretty, go ahead, whatever. That's just me. But reading that from Owen Strand made me want to ask him to prove it with a syllogism.

44:17

But anyways, why I brought this up, Andrew Isker. Actually, Pastor Andrew Isker had a great tweet about this, where he said, the

44:24

Puritans banned Christmas, not primarily out of theological concern over the use of the church calendar, though they did make these arguments.

44:30

They did it out of public concern as a celebration had become a debauched orgy that makes today's Mardi Gras look like Sesame Street.

44:37

This is what happens when particular historical circumstances become universalized principle. As far as makeup goes,

44:43

I cannot say I'm not somewhat sympathetic. There are probably good reasons for women and men to not cover their faces in lead oxide.

44:50

At any rate, they did get it right in their particular circumstances. But what Owen objects to is the use of civil power for public righteousness.

44:57

That's a whole other conversation we can have. But yeah, no, I thought that that little quote that you had read from one of the mathers reminded me of that tweet.

45:06

And so y 'all should go find it and give it a like from at Boniface Option, Pastor Andrew Isker.

45:13

Nice. All right, what else do we have here? Have you ever looked up the history of Kwanzaa?

45:18

It's pretty dark and crappy. Okay, and I have been told by numerous people it needs to go. No, and I don't know -

45:24

What, you're racist? I've never met anyone who celebrates Kwanzaa either. So I just don't even know what kind of sway...

45:33

Where would you go to see Hanukkah celebrated? I don't even know what they do. Hanukkah? New York? You're in New York, aren't you?

45:40

I am in New York. Come to Boca Raton. I have to go to like Harlem, I guess, or parts of Brooklyn to see what they do.

45:47

I don't think they do anything. I think they celebrate Christmas. Reach out to Jewish people or something and like go observe,

45:53

I don't know. Well, they don't do Kwanzaa, they do Hanukkah. Yeah, that's what we were talking about. Oh, no,

45:58

I thought you said Hanukkah. Did I say Hanukkah? Yes, yeah, no. Oh, no, sorry. Kwanzaa, I have no idea where you can go to celebrate that.

46:07

We're two white boys, what are you gonna... I thought we were supposed to celebrate Judeo -Christmas now. Well, if it helps,

46:14

Jesus was born as an Israelite, so. No, that's a reference,

46:20

I think, to the Canon Press newsletter. I know, I know, I'm just ignoring them like I do all the time because I literally...

46:27

When you mute Canon Press and Doug Wilson, your timeline is just beautiful.

46:32

You're getting in all kinds of trouble here, Matthew. I don't get their emails, but I've seen other people post a screenshot and I thought, what in the world is going on?

46:40

What are your favorite Christmas songs, John? I guess they don't care what Matthew thinks. They don't need to know, it's fine.

46:47

I have some weird... So I actually love, I Saw Three Ships. Like the most... Like it's not really that biblically accurate at all.

46:54

Like there weren't ever three ships that carried the mother Mary and Christ and who else?

47:01

I'm trying to think who else is on the ship. I like it though, because it just... My ideal Christmas is a 19th century

47:07

English Christmas, like early 19th century. There's a book by Washington Irving called Old Christmas. I try to read it every year.

47:14

And he talks about what... He was saying in the 1830s, he's like, what happened to the good old days of Christmas?

47:20

We got to go back. So modernity has ruined everything. And I'm like, wow, no, 1830s would be great.

47:27

So anyway, I like that kind of stuff. And I Saw Three Ships reminds me of that. So that's one of my favorite songs.

47:33

And I don't know, there's so many of them I like, but I'll extend it to you in my grace and mercy. Matthew, what's your favorite

47:39

Christmas song? Oh, well, thank you for asking, John. I think actually off the top of my head,

47:46

I love Hark the Herald. Angels sing glory to the newborn king. Just Hark the

47:52

Herald. It's just, it's very theologically profound. Like just when you look at the lyrics and you meditate on it, it's beautiful.

48:01

It's because some of the best hymns are the hymns where everyone can sing it. And you just sneak in there like the richest theology and has such a good theology of the incarnation in there.

48:12

Did the angels sing though? I mean, the angels didn't sing, did they? I mean. Probably. I mean, if I was an angel and I saw

48:19

God becoming man, I'd be singing. That's what I know. Yeah, that's probably true. I don't do nativity scenes in angels, but I want

48:25

Christmas decorations, says Christy in Christmas cards that show I'm a Christian like a Christmas tree or a snowman is vague.

48:31

What do you suggest? So wait, so wait, we can't have any. I don't know why. Why not do nativity?

48:37

Okay. Because those are a second commandment violation because you're depicting a person of the Godhead. Some of them are kind of hidden though.

48:45

I mean, you don't really see Jesus. You see the others, but. What I do sometimes is at home just to bother my mother.

48:52

I will steal the little baby Jesus and hide him somewhere in the house. I'm not even going to follow up on that.

49:01

I'm not even going to follow up on that. I'm an icon of class. What can I say? So I have a solution for Christy.

49:08

I say, find a Christmas card that has a nice New England church on the front of it that has snow and then make that your

49:18

Christmas card. John, would you like to know what I've been considering doing for Christmas decorations actually in my little room?

49:25

You're going to tell me so. No, I'm going to show you. So in my room, okay, let's hope nothing falls over.

49:31

You see that? That's a don't tread on or not. Oh, it's a Christmas tree flag. It's an appeal to heaven flag.

49:37

So I'm considering. Exactly. So I'm considering going on Amazon and spending five bucks on ornament stickers and just putting it on.

49:45

I mean, it's like, it's not like no one's going to see it, but me. I don't, people don't come in my room a lot. I don't, I don't take no one here.

49:50

So, but it'll be for me. And it's just like a little holly jolly spirit. I like that. That's a patriotic Christmas right there.

49:56

Very true. Young people hear hymns at Christmas. It's the only time of year. Many of them hear it. Oh, well, yeah.

50:03

If you're my church, we do a me around, but yeah, a lot of churches, that is true. And they probably hear a botched version of it with a chorus that wasn't intended for it.

50:11

Yep. Cromwell was based and then it all went downhill for the

50:17

Puritans after that. So true. That was the high point of Puritanism. Favorite Christmas movie, gentlemen.

50:25

Ah, man. Oh. I mean, man, what?

50:32

That's a hard, there's so many of them. I mean, Die Hard, right? There's a, that's a Christmas movie, right?

50:38

Oh yeah, sure. That won't entertain that debate too much, but I think it's a Christmas movie. I don't recommend

50:43

Die Hard. I think for me, I like Ben -Hur, even though that's not technically a

50:49

Christmas movie, but it opens with the incarnation. And I love the music and just, but you know, in my home, we've always done that and it's a wonderful life, so.

50:58

That is probably like the best one objectively, but one, there are two that just childhood favorites of mine.

51:06

Can't let them go. One would be an absolute classic, A Christmas Story.

51:12

I love that. I love that movie so much because of that. When I was in fourth grade,

51:17

I got a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas. That was one of my favorite Christmas. My dad got me a different BB gun.

51:24

It was like, yeah, they were all out. And I was so sad, but I was happy I got a BB gun. And then he's like, look under the couch, look under the couch.

51:30

And I look under the couch and there was another present. It was a Red Rider BB gun. And so, yeah,

51:35

I love that movie. Oh, and then also Elf because I, it's Elf. It's a great

51:41

Christmas movie. Nothing too special about it. It's just classic. Yeah, Elf is a, that's the

51:46

Zoomer Christmas movie I've determined. Like that's a generational milestone right there.

51:51

If you, if Elf is big on your list, you're probably a Zoomer. That I am. John, why do so many worship leaders?

51:58

I can't do, this is a whole podcast topic. I can't answer it in like two minutes. Why do they use new age guitar tracks and classic hymns now?

52:08

They, it would take me too long, I'm sorry. They're, they've caved to modernity. There you go. Die Hard is absolutely, get out of here.

52:15

It's not the best Christmas movie. 1951 Scrooge is my favorite. That's a good one. I don't know if you've seen that.

52:21

There's versions of it. That probably is the best one. The 1951 Scrooge. What are you writing it down?

52:27

I need to, I need to read this because it's the time for it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

52:34

Yeah, it has illustrations and everything, which is good for me. I have a very hard time reading books without illustrations. That's a classic.

52:41

Daddy's Home 2. Get out of here. Get out of here. They're just trolling you at this point. This is great.

52:46

I'm not even gonna entertain some of these. Yeah, they're, now everyone's putting their favorite Christmas movies in the chat.

52:52

So there we go. The Santa Claus. No, the Santa Claus franchise starring

52:57

Tim Allen is not the best. Okay, those are childhood movies for me though. They're so bad, but. Those are millennial.

53:04

Those are, they were the nineties, I think. What was that one really bad

53:09

Christmas movie, but I love it anyways, where it's like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh, Jingle All The Way.

53:15

Yes, yeah. I gotta watch that one this year. It was terrible, but I love it. Why is my mind taken up with so much of this useless information?

53:22

I'm like, oh yeah, like I know that movie. But yeah. It's because you're a real American patriot who celebrates

53:27

Christmas. That's why. I will say that is a funny movie. It's dumb, but it is a funny movie.

53:33

And it's pretty clean as I remember. And it's about this toy and they're both fighting over it the whole time.

53:39

And it's, they destroy like all of New York City. It's great. Yeah. All right. Last comment,

53:44

Zoomers have zero quality Christmas movies. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. Go watch Elf again and tell me that's zero quality.

53:53

Well, what is, I mean, Elf might be the high point. I will, I'll give you Elf. But since then, what have we had?

53:58

I mean, it's been like, they just, there was this one called The Red One that just came out.

54:04

It's in movie theaters right now. And The Rock is in it. And it's got like an all -star cast, but it's really dumb.

54:12

And they bring in Krampus. I ain't watching that. No, don't watch it. They bring in Krampus, the,

54:17

I guess, Santa's brother, supposedly, who's like a demon. And it's just weird.

54:23

Oh, and get this. Go ahead. No, I was gonna say that Charlie Brown's Christmas is also great.

54:29

I was gonna say, get this, in that plot to this new Christmas movie, this is a big

54:34

Christmas movie this year. The whole idea is that there, I don't wanna give it all away in case there's anyone who wants to see it, but there's this witch.

54:40

Have you seen it? Yes, I've seen it. I didn't go to the theater to see it. I won't say how

54:46

I saw it, but I saw it. And I don't want people to think I'm endorsing

54:51

Amazon here because I don't endorse Amazon. But, oh man,

54:57

I just have to say it now because I've gotten myself in hot water now. So my, I was asked by someone dear to me whose name shall be nameless.

55:06

If for one month this year, we could accept a discounted prime rate in order to have some things shipped in time for Christmas.

55:16

Not something I'm proud of, not something I do most of the year. I'm not a prime subscriber.

55:22

I try to get things from other places, but I did hear that Amazon now is contributing a million dollars to Trump's inauguration.

55:29

So I feel a little better about it. There we go. Anyway, of course, when you sign up, they give you prime video and it's free there.

55:36

So that's what I saw. But the whole premise though is that this Krampus guy and this

55:42

Christmas witch person, that they created the naughty list and that the naughty list is something that Santa was always against.

55:49

That Santa thinks everyone's good innately. And so we have to, they have to, yeah, you have to defeat these evil people who want to punish, their whole goal is to punish the evil people on earth.

56:01

That's so, I can't say that word. That's stupid. Yeah, but it's like every Marvel movie. It's like the villains like, oh, humanity's evil.

56:08

And the Avengers are like, no, they're not. So it's a slight at God.

56:15

I mean, I really think, I mean, it's a fantasy, but look, you know, God, God's gonna punish and they want to, you know, ironically the way they solve the problem is by punishing the bad guys in the end, but.

56:26

Let's go. So, oh my John, watching secular movies. I don't know how I got here. So evil, wow.

56:32

I don't, I don't know how I got here. All right. I would never watch secular movies or listen to secular music.

56:37

I'm a good boy. I repent. Everything will be pure flicks from here on out. Does your wife make you watch

56:44

Hallmark movies with her? She doesn't like Hallmark movies. Wow. I know. It's, it's great actually.

56:51

I'm glad that she does. Cause I'm not big into him, but. You're a luckier man than me.

56:57

Does your girlfriend like Hallmark? I will not comment. I'm sorry.

57:03

This is a, this is a hard cross to bear. I don't know if I've ever seen a good, like well -made

57:10

Hallmark movie, but I don't really watch them. So I don't really know what's out there. Maybe there are some anyway.

57:16

All right. Well that's, we can't talk about this cause everyone's pouring in with other suggestions and we're, we're done with the movie thing.

57:21

I've already gotten into trouble here with that. I hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas.

57:26

There will not be a American Churchman podcast next week in honor of Christmas and against the regulative principle, which we are not following.

57:35

I like the regulative principle. I don't think it totally contradicts. Man, John, you're hurting me. As a slight to the

57:41

Puritans, we will be celebrating Christmas next week. So anyway, with that,