Need to Christians Ever Celebrate Holiday?

Should Christians celebrate Holiday? It sounds like a ridiculous question to the average person, but it is an important one to those who seek to obey God's Word. We may easily find the birth of Christ recorded in the webpages of the New Legs of the Bible. We are able to find the message of the angel who makes announcement it and the words of praise from a multitude of heavenly host who celebrate it available of Luke. We can find prophecies about his birth recorded in the Old Testament of the Bible. What we cannot find anywhere in the term of God is the holiday we call Christmas.

Let's commence our discussion about Holiday by looking at the early Church as described in the New Testament. Many Bible-believing Christians base their present worship model about how the original Believers in the early years following the death and resurrection of Jesus gathered and worshiped God. They did not celebrate Christmas. Why? To be able to find that answer, we must look at the history of this getaway which actually predates the birth of Jesus.

Historical past teaches us that the earliest known observance of almost any Christmas celebration occurred over two hundred years after the birthday of Christ. This particular celebration took place in Dec. It sought to merge the ancient Pagan activities known as Saturnalia (a Roman festival which took place each December 17th to 24th, celebrated winter months solstice and honored Saturn, the Roman god of sowing), the birth of Mithra (the Iranian sun god of righteousness created on December 25th) and a Roman feast dedicated to the birth of the Sun (which happened around the same time as Saturnalia) with the idea of honoring or celebrating the birth of Jesus.

The celebration of Saturnalia was formerly opposed by early Christians because it was a questionnable holiday that involved the exchanging of gifts and was filled with a myriad of exaggerated behaviors involving food and drink, as well as rampant immorality. That was not until after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire that a Roman Emperor known as Justinian created the holiday known as Christmas. In doing so he replaced the worship of Saturn and the celebration of the birth of the Sun with the worship of the birthday of Jesus.

It's important to understand that when Christianity became the established religion of the Both roman Empire, it was not the Biblical Christianity that most Bible Believers take today. It was an unholy marriage between many pagan beliefs and procedures, and what the earlier church taught. This marriage produced a brand new religion. That was a perversion of Christianity which lead to many traditions and extra-Biblical practices that are not found in the phrase of God being honored and accepted equally with Scripture. Bible Believers have always turned down this creation by the Roman Empire and continue to do so today.

Sometime after 500 A new. D., the celebration now known as Christmas was mandated by the Both roman Empire. People had to celebrate this holiday. The particular excesses of Saturnalia were retained and Bible Believers of that time were often shocked at the socially and morally depraved way that Romans recognized the Celebrity Christmas Strictly Come Dancing birth of the Savior. By this time additional pagan elements got been added to the vacation. These include various celebration celebrations formerly tied to the early days of The month of january. This is why people celebrate Christmas and Brand new Year's so closely collectively today.

January 1st was the Roman New Yr. The celebrations surrounding this festival included the designing of houses with wax lights, green plants and small trees. Gifts were given to children and the poor. Again, these event traditions slowly became a part of the Both roman Christmas celebration so that the festivals of Xmas and New Years merged. December 25th became the focal point of most these celebrations because the Roman Emperor Aurelian had much earlier declared that the pagan festival of natalis solis invicti (or delivery of the un-conquered sun) should occur on that date beginning in the year 274 A. Deb. It was a favorite festival and seemed to present a fairly easy transition from partying the birth of the sun to celebrating the birth of God's Boy.

Additional elements were added to the Roman Christmas after Germanic tribes infiltrated Rome, overran the disposition and moved on into Gaul and Britain. Numerous in these tribes readily accepted and gravitated toward the Druid and Celtic practices they encountered. German, Druid and Celtic traditions became intermingled and the party known as Yule was born. Components of the Yuletide festivals were later extra to the Roman Christmas celebration. Yule rites integrated the setting up of decorated celebration trees in your home, the yule log, and the exchanging of presents.