Should Christians celebrate Christmas? Isn't Christmas a pagan holiday? Why are Christians
against Halloween but they are pro-christmas? Aren't Christmas trees demonic? What about
Santa Claus? We will try to answer some of these questions in this video. So let's dive in first,
I'm gonna present five reasons why you might not consider celebrating Christmas and I'm gonna try
to bring an explanation of why I think that you can also use the same reasons to celebrate
Christmas. Now, the first one is that Christmas has pagan origins. There's a lot of paganism that
is involved in holidays that were celebrated around the time of Christmas. For example,
Roman culture celebrated the God Saturn from December 17 through 24th and later on, they
had this unconquered sun they were celebrating that, after that holiday and there were certain
sinful customs that were associated with this holiday, that the church cleaned up and some of
the customs were absorbed into the celebration of Christmas and since the 4th century,
Christians redeemed it and celebrated Christ's birth. Now, some of you may argue and say,
Vlad, I watched your video about not celebrating Halloween because of the pagan origins and now
you're saying that we should celebrate Christmas. First of all, I'm not saying you should celebrate
Christmas. What I'm saying is that when it comes to Halloween, the difference between Halloween and
Christmas is that Halloween is evil in origin but also its current usage of darkness, demons, death
or witchcraft makes it part of the kingdom of darkness that Christians shouldn't take a part of.
And sometimes, the meaning of words and symbols and traditions is determined more by its current
usage than its origin. For example, like swastika was a symbol that was used for thousands of years
as a symbol of Good Fortune. It will be foolish today to put that symbol on your door because of
what it became in our culture. You can't stand and say well, our origins were good. Therefore,
it must be good. We have to look at also what does it represent today and so when it comes
to Halloween, it still represents honestly darkness. It still represents witchcraft. It
still represents darkness and death and all of this stuff. When it comes to Christmas,
it's different. Christmas doesn't represent Satan. It presents the birth of Jesus Christ. At least,
that's what we celebrate during the time of Christmas. If Christians celebrating Christmas is
Pagan, so is gathering on Sunday to worship. You know that Sunday is actually named after a pagan
god. It's a day of the Sun. Wednesday is named after the Norse, god of wood and so is every day
during the week and so we don't gather on Sunday to worship pagan god nor do we gather on Wednesday
to worship a pagan god and it's been so many years and thousands of years already, that these pagan
origins of names for these days have nothing to do with our current activities. Like if we take for
example, Nike, it's a brand of athletic shoes and clothing and wearing. It doesn't mean that you're
worshiping the Greek goddess of victory for whom actually the company is named. So while we don't
ignore the origins, we look at what did they come to represent plus Christmas was not originally a
pagan holiday. There were pagan holidays that Christians just simply redeemed or I would
say repackaged and instead of worshiping this unconquerable sun, they worshiped Jesus Christ,
the Son of God and so, therefore you can't say that we can't celebrate Christmas because of his
pagan origins or you can say that we can celebrate Christmas because of what it represents today,
the birth of Christ. The second reason that I see where people say, we don't celebrate
Christmas or you shouldn't celebrate Christmas is because actual Christians for first four
centuries did not celebrate Christmas until Christianity became a state religion. Now
there's few things you need to keep in mind. In the early centuries Christians were more likely
to celebrate a day of somebody's death than the person's birthday. Very early in its history,
the church actually celebrated Jesus's death. They remembered His death not His birth. Even
Jesus told us to remember His death but we don't see no mention about remembering His birth. Now,
one of the reasons that I believe that Christians allowed the birth of Jesus Christ to be taken off
and spread like wildfire Christmas was because in the 4th century, there was a controversy over the
nature of Christ whether He was truly God or was a created being. It led to the increased emphasis
on the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ. The affirmation that the word became flesh and
it's likely that the urgency to proclaim Jesus and adding humanity and being born by a virgin
as testified by the Old Testament, witnessed by the shepherds, endorsed by angels, that is what
most likely was one of the factors in spreading the celebration of Christmas. Now, the third
reason why people say that we shouldn't celebrate Christmas is that Jesus actually was not born on
December 25th and it's true, He was not born on December 25th. But His birth is a very special
event for Christians and honestly for the world. The actual birth of Jesus is unknown. Many people
have asserted that it's probably around March or early spring. Because the Bible tells us that when
Jesus was born the shepherds were watching their flocks by night and shepherds don't really spend
time in the fields with their sheep during the cold winters. So Jesus's birth was a virgin birth.
It was announced by angels, attended by shepherds, acknowledged by wise men. It is a fulfillment of
Old Testament prophecies. Jesus came to live among us, to tabernacle among us and He brought
the salvation and the Redemption of that God prophesied and predicted and was looking forward
to it by the coming of Jesus. Therefore, while we know Jesus wasn't born on December 25th but we
also know that the birth of Jesus Christ is a very special event and it's something that is worthy of
Celebration. If you celebrate your birthday, I think you should celebrate His birthday as well.
Number four reason why you might say Christians shouldn't celebrate Christmas was that there is no
command in the Bible to celebrate Jesus's birth. It's actually true. There's not one commandment
and there's not one mention of disciples or apostles or the early church celebrating His
birth. I know that Christmas is such a big deal in our culture. But it was actually not mentioned
at all in the Bible. But the Bible also doesn't prohibit us from celebrating His birth. Therefore
Christmas is not a pagan holiday, words mean Christ, Mas. Christmas - Christ mas and just
because the Romans holidays were there, they were celebrating these 12 days and then they
were celebrating this unconquerable son. But these were not the same holidays. They were
not identical. Even those two holidays in Roman culture were not identical and so yes, there were
certain elements of Christmas celebrations like bells and candles and decorations are mentioned
in the history of pagan worship. The use of such items in one's home in no way indicate a return
to paganism. In the Bible, we do see words like in Romans chapter 14 verses 5 through 8,
In 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 31 it says,
So, if you're one of those people who are like, I'm
not celebrating Christmas it's not in the Bible. Jesus was not born on Christmas. The Bible doesn't
give us recommendation to celebrate Christmas. It used to be a pagan holiday. Honestly, praise God.
Whatever you do, do unto the glory of God. Follow your conscience. Follow your
conviction. If you're one of those people who will say, you know what, yeah it was a
pagan holiday but Christians repackaged it and I do believe that Jesus is fully God and fully
man. He took my sins upon Himself and He was born. It brought Joy to the World and I choose
to celebrate not just on Christmas. I choose to celebrate it every day and then He gave me my
new birth because He came into this earth and He came into my heart by His spirit and today,
I am a new creation and I celebrate that, gather with my family and I honor the Lord. That's also
you do it to the glory of God. It gives God glory. The fifth reason that you may say we
shouldn't celebrate Christmas is that the world celebrates Christmas, which makes some
Christians hesitant. Now, it's true that for many in the world Christmas is an excuse to get drunk,
to get a party, to get something, give a little leave work, get out of school, spend money,
over eat and do all of these things. For us as Christians, it's an excuse to exalt Jesus,
in the face of the world that is at least tuned to His name. You know, when I walk in the mall
around this time right now that I'm recording this video and I hear Christian Christmas carols and
I hear about Jesus's Glory, I hear songs about Him you know, Mary did you know you know, Fall
on your knees and I mean, even as I speak about it, I get goosebumps. It gives me this you know
really good feeling that at least one time in the year, our culture gets a chance to hear about the
beautiful name of Jesus and so, yes it could make me hesitant that the world is using it to you know
market and to sell stuff and people are using it for different selfish reasons and it's all about
reindeer now, it's all about Santas and everything but we still get a chance to hear about the name
of Jesus Christ on the larger scale and I think that's a good thing. Modern world has hijacked
our sacred holiday and made it a commercial nightmare. But in Philippians 1:18, Paul says,
Now, when it comes to celebrating Christmas, it's your personal conviction. I think as a church,
you can use that as an Outreach to bring people to Christ and to bring people to the reality of the
hope that is found in Jesus. If you choose not to do that, actually you're not breaking any of
God's Commandments and you're not going against the scripture. You're actually probably more in
line with the scripture because that is not something that is mentioned, encouraged and
Jesus wasn't even born on Christmas. But there are certain traditions we all have,
they're not anti-biblical. I call them they're extra biblical and they're not bad,
they will serve us and help us to maybe advance the mission of Jesus Christ, if they are not
in conflict with the core principles of the Bible. Now, when it comes to Christmas trees,
Are they demonic? There is an evidence of trees, at least evergreen branches associated in pagan
worship. I will not go into all the details of where they started because there's so much
actually controversy about who actually started that, which culture actually embraced that,
which Pagan culture actually begun that. But the tradition of actual Christmas trees really
begun with the Protestant Christians in Germany around 16th century. The star
in the tree was used to remember the star followed by the wise men and in some cases,
trees were topped by an angel to remember the angel who appeared to the shepherds on the night
of Jesus's birth. And some people say, well the idea of cutting down trees is clearly prohibited
in the Bible. Because Jeremiah chapter 10 verses 1 through 16 and Isaiah 44 they talk about,
you know forbidding of cutting down of trees and decorating trees as people do during Christmas.
And Isaiah 44 notes the futility of cutting down the tree and turning it into an idol. But you must
understand is both of these verses actually are before the birth of Jesus Christ and they have
nothing to do with Christmas trees. They all have to do with idolatry. When the person puts a couch
or when the person puts a fireplace or when the person puts a tree or I have a lot of things,
decorations in my house like paintings and other stuff. I am not worshiping these things and they
in themselves do not draw attention to themselves as much as they're just simply a decoration. So I
don't see anything wrong with putting a Christmas tree. If you that's what you want to do, do that.
If you don't want to do that and you're hardcore against Christmas trees, yeah don't put them
on. Don't waste your money. Give that money to something else. What about Santa Claus? Now, the
idea of Santa has existed for very long. Actually the belief that Santa enters through the house,
into the house through the chimney developed from an old Norse legend. They believe that the goddess
Heathrow appeared in the fireplace and brought good luck to the home. Now Santa Claus in the
United States was really developed cleverly around 19th century by Coca-Cola and American cartoonist,
Thomas Nast fashion sent us image as we kind of see today on the pages of
weekly. But there was actually a person and who was around the 4th century,
he was actually a bishop. Bishop Nicholas of Myra which is the present day of Turkey.
Saint Nicholas was a really kind Christian who was incredibly generous, who used his wealth
and inheritance to help the poor as a reflection of his faith in Christ Jesus. And a lot of where
the Santa idea actually originated from I believe was from this Bishop, from this pastor. Now, who
Santa became today of course, it got added on each generation and marketing came in and especially in
the United States and the reindeer and through the chimney and all of this stuff and nice and
naughty list and all of that of course that most of it is not from this story. But there was a guy,
the bishop Nicholas who was a generous guy and there's a lot of stories circulating online. One
of them is that there was a poor man who had three daughters and the man was so poor that he did not
have enough money for dowry for his daughters to get married. Now a dowry was a sum of money
paid to the bridegroom by the bride's parents on the wedding day and that still happens to some
countries today and one night, this bishop Nicholas, he secretly dropped a bag of gold
down the chimney into the house. This meant that the oldest daughter was able to get married. The
bag fell into the stockings that had been hung by the fire to dry and this was repeated later
for the second daughter and finally determined to discover who this person who has given them
that money. Her father secretly hid by the fire every evening until he caught Nicholas dropping
a bag of gold. Now Nicholas begged this father not to tell anybody what he had done. Because he
didn't want anybody to know so that he couldn't draw attention to himself. But soon the news got
out that when anybody received a secret gift, it was thought that maybe it came from Nicholas. Now,
Nicholas eventually was exiled from his city and later put into prison during the persecution of
Christians and then he was later on released by the emperor Constantine who became a Christian
and actually Nicholas attended the Council of Nicea in 325, where things about Christianity
were discussed and so when it comes to Santa Claus, you know, you can tell your children is
actually the story of Bishop Nicholas of how he was generous, of how he was persecuted and of how
he served God. Now what Santa Claus morphed into today of course, it's a big deviation from where
it all I believe started. But at the same time it's still a good opportunity for us to teach
children and to teach other people about both the birth of Christ and amazing characteristics
of Christians before us who lived generous, sacrificial and persecuted lives for the cause
of Jesus Christ. So will I be celebrating Christmas? You bet I will. Because to me,
it's a joyful time and I know Jesus wasn't born on December 25th. But we will gather with our family,
we will praise God for His birth and I'm going to enjoy some Christmas carols and as well as having
a wonderful time remembering that God has sent His son to save me and to save us. Merry Christmas.
Thank you.