Is Christmas Really a Pagan Holiday? || An RTTB Topical Study

Discover the origins of Christmas as we unwrap (pun intended) the holiday's rich history and address the long-debated question: Did Christmas begin as a pagan festival? Our festive foray cuts through the tinsel to provide clarity on how December 25th became the cornerstone of Christian celebration.  We share how scriptural verses about bringing trees into a home are misinterpreted and set the record straight on Martin Luther's influence, which transformed this evergreen into a symbol of celebrating Jesus' birth. Join us for an episode that not only offers historical insights but also a heartwarming reminder to keep the Lord Jesus at the center of our Christmas festivities.

Chapters

• 0:14 The Origins and Appropriateness of Christmas
• 9:09 The Origins and Controversies of Christmas
• 18:15 Christmas Trees
• 24:22 Legalism and Holiday Celebrations

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:14

Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible Today. As we record this, it's coming up on Christmas, steve. I thought we'd do a Christmas special. I guess we'd call it Only the Reasoning Through the Bible Christmas special. There's not going to be any songs or dancing, thank goodness, but what I didn't think we ought to do is to and to our guest welcome. What I think would be wise to do coming up on Christmas is to talk a little bit about the holiday Christmas and, as is normal in our ministry, tradition here is that let's reason through it.

Speaker 2: 0:51

There's been some accusations out there across the land that Christmas started out as a pagan holiday. There's people in some corners of Christianity that claim that we have no business celebrating Christmas because it started out as a pagan holiday and we don't want to give support to that. There's other Christians that no problem at all celebrating Christmas. There's many people out there that don't even really understand what the holiday is In our culture. We don't even really. There's a lot of people running around that will Santa Clause and lights and decorations, and that's about as far as it goes. Well, what I thought we'd do today is to really get into what about the holiday December 25th? Was it originally pagan? What about a Christmas tree? Is it okay for a Christian to celebrate Christmas, steve? Any thoughts before?

Speaker 1: 1:42

we jump right in. Yeah, I was thinking here the same thing as you were talking about. It is that there's those three categories of and the last one there of people that are they don't really know anything about what the real meaning is. All they know is you go out and buy gifts and you celebrate Santa Clause. You don't actually celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. One of the things I think we'll relay today is that we should Christians should make sure that we take it as an opportunity to spread the gospel news, because it is, after all, the celebration of Jesus' birth.

Speaker 2: 2:13

The holiday, as Christians have set it up, is exactly that it's the celebration of the birth of the Lord Jesus and of course there's gift giving and things like that, many of the traditions. Of course there was the Magi, the wise men in the gospels that came and brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Some of that started the gift giving traditions. There's also been just holidays in general where people give gifts. We can't draw necessarily one-to-one relationship between the Magi and the gift giving necessarily, but we do find a good excuse to give gifts and a lot of us have this really positive feeling about Christmas. I know when I was a kid, steve, there's two Christmases in particular. I remember one of them was when I was small. I wanted this toy gun, this plastic toy gun, and I wanted it really bad because all the advertising said I was, I needed it and I really, really wanted this. I get up Christmas morning bright and early and there it is under the Christmas tree. I managed to break it in about 30 seconds.

Speaker 1: 3:14

It didn't last very long Did your mom tell you that you couldn't have it for a while because you'd shoot your eye out. Well, that was the BB gun, the.

Speaker 2: 3:21

BB gun. I couldn't have for many years because you might shoot your eye out. The other Christmas present I remember is one time my dad bought an electric model train. You know, when you a lot of traditions have, let's buy a train for the boy. Well, my dad buys this train and he didn't know how to hook it up right and he burns out the transformer and it wouldn't work. So I had a train with a track and it wouldn't run and he didn't have the money to go buy another one. So I had a train that wouldn't run and that was my Christmas present one year.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Yeah, I have similar things, good memories of Christmas. One of the things I have there's a picture where I was given a, where I was given one of these electric football games and this was the one from back where it would just vibrate and you would set them in up and you turn it on and it would vibrate and deal. Well, the picture is is that my dad and my brother are hovered over it. It was my gift, but they're hovering over it and I'm kind of standing off in the background and so we look at that and laugh at that so often because that was a gift that was given to me, but yet they played with it a lot that morning.

Speaker 1: 4:28

And then the other memory I have is going out and getting the Christmas tree. There was a place there in town that had, would always have, christmas trees. We'd go down as a family and we would pick out the Christmas tree and you had the thing of, well, there's a hole on this side and there's branches missing, and but we'd come to an agreement as a family that this is the tree we're going to get. We take it, put it on top of the car, take it home, and then we'd have that whole thing of decorating the tree, setting it up and all of that. Those are two fond memories that I have of Christmas altogether, but I think there's something about this pagan holiday and there's even things that are talking about whether or not the Christmas tree itself is something that's pagan in there, glenn.

Speaker 2: 5:12

One of the reasons why I think people care so much is because we have all these positive at least a lot of people have these positive remembrances of the Christmas traditions. We have these fond memories of the holiday. Then along comes somebody from church that says wait a minute, christmas is a pagan holiday that had pagan origins and the Christians were trying to take over and Christianize as something pagan, say these people, and they say a true Christian shouldn't have anything to do with Christmas. Let's deal with that for a minute. The answer to the question first is Christmas pagan Is December 25th a pagan holiday. Was it originally a pagan holiday that was commandeered by the church to try to make this pagan thing Christian? The quick answer is no, and we'll get to that in a minute. But let's first answer the question. Let's just for argument's sake, say that it was. Let's say, just for a sake of argument, that originally, thousands of years ago, there was this pagan holiday and now we're celebrating Christmas on the same day and maybe there's even a few of the same elements. Does that necessarily mean that we are giving support to an ancient pagan religion? To me that logic is flawed, simply because I don't know anybody running around that still celebrates the pagan holiday from 2000 years ago.

Speaker 2: 6:43

The one that gets mentioned more often than not is there was a Roman holiday called Saturnalia that was in the middle of the winter. The argument goes that, okay, saturnalia was on December 25th and the Christians tried to Christianize that and it's pagan from the core. We don't need to support that. My response is if your neighbor is celebrating Saturnalia at midnight under full moon on December 25th and doing some pagan ritual out in their yard, then no, you don't need to celebrate that.

Speaker 2: 7:16

But I don't know anybody that ever heard of Saturnalia other than geeky theologians and a few historians, and nobody even knows what it is or what it was for. I mean, the average person never heard of it before. You're having to bring it up to us, or we would have never heard of it. The logic is wrong. It's not a sin to celebrate a Christian idea that just happens to be on the same day as something that and again we'll show in a minute it's not on the same day, but the whole logic is flawed. We're told in the New Testament that we have freedom in Christ, and we have freedom. We're not held to these legalistic ideas. Steve, what would your response be, before we get into kind of the detail.

Speaker 1: 8:00

What is the reason why that you're celebrating Christmas? And if you're celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, then it doesn't matter if it's a pagan holiday or not? That would be my quick response. It was never presented to me and my youth, for my parents, as being anything other than celebrating the birth of Christ. It was passed down through our ancestors as always being a celebration of the birth of Christ. That was always the focus of the holiday itself and there was nothing ever else. Now, yes, it's been commercialized through the years and I think that it could be classified as a pagan holiday to those pagans that are out there that don't want to have anything to do with Jesus Christ and don't want to acknowledge that Jesus Christ was born. But as far as us, as Christians celebrating it, if we're celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, then it's not a pagan holiday.

Speaker 2: 8:55

If the argument goes that it was originally pagan, therefore we can't do anything with it, then first of all, anybody says that is inconsistent and secondly, the logic is just flawed. Here's my example. Our calendar was built around pagan gods. The days of the week, many of the days of, in fact I think all the days of the week and many of the months are named after pagan gods. Saturday was Saturn's day. Saturn was an ancient pagan god. Sunday was Sun Day, the day you worship the sun. Monday was Moon Day, the day you worship the moon.

Speaker 2: 9:34

If we were to say Christmas was originally pagan, does that mean we can't celebrate Saturday or Sunday or Monday, or can't use those words? January was named after Janus, a Roman god. March was named after Mars, another pagan god. May and June were named after Roman gods. The days of the weeks and months of the year. Are these pagan gods? Does that mean that we can't celebrate Sunday in January because we've got these two pagans? Does that mean I'm worshiping Janus, the Roman god, if I use the word January? No. And the legalists and let's go ahead and call them out the legalists that invent these rules and lay them on other people's shoulders of oh, you can't celebrate Christmas. They're inconsistent. They don't have any problem with the entire Gregorian calendar that we use any of these kind of things. They don't have any issue with all that. It's okay, somebody else is having fun. We're going to not let you do that. I think these people just kind of eat lemons for breakfast or something.

Speaker 1: 10:37

That, and also July and August, was named after two Roman emperors. To your point, is that these things that are brought up and the things that we do today? If we don't celebrate them as Christmas, then it's a moot point. That's really what we're going to get at today. Is that? What do we do with these things? There's pagan stuff all around us. The world is all around us. There's different things that are there. There's cars that are named after gods. There's shoes that are named after Greek gods. All of that stuff. What are you going to do? You're going to sequester yourself completely from the world itself. Scripture tells us we're to be in the world, but not of the world. As long as we don't wear those shoes that are named after a Greek god and worship them in a place that we're worshiping the Greek god, then it's okay to wear those shoes. It does get into some of these ridiculous things that legalists bring up, not only in this but in other things as well, to steal the fun and joy out of being a Christian.

Speaker 2: 11:38

What you said, steve, is exactly right. If your neighbor thinks that you're actually worshiping a god because you bought this car wearing those shoes, then maybe you ought not do that, but I don't know anybody that ever heard of these ancient gods, let alone worship them. Here's the accusation that I've heard more often than not, which is that supposedly, as the argument goes, december 25th was Saturnalia, was this ancient Roman holiday, and there was supposed to be gift giving and things like that. Here's the actual facts. How did Christianity get December 25th to be the holiday? Well, first of all, saturnalia was not on December 25th. That's an urban legend. At this point, it wasn't. There was a holiday. It was in midwinter, it was something that lasted a week. Yes, there was gift giving, but it wasn't on December 25th. Okay, steve, how many holidays around the world where people give gifts? That's as common as having fun or having a meal. It's like, okay, we're having a meal, those other ones had a meal, so that's just flawed logic.

Speaker 1: 12:43

Well, there's other things too. The actual day of Saturnalia was on December 17th, and then it started growing and extended it through to more days because the Romans liked the holiday, and they extended it a week out into December 23rd. So even the day that it started, the day that end was December 25th. But besides going out and exchanging gifts, there was also going out into house to house to singing. People want to make something about that, but there was also debauchery involved. There was rape and sexual immorality that went took place within it. There was gladiator games, fights to the death, there was drunkenness, there was gambling all of those things as well. I don't know very many people that go out and do some of these other things and celebration of Christmas. You so aptly brought out it. Most people don't even know what Saturnalia is, and these people know that. They know that that's the case. Then that should be your first clue that this is somebody, a legalist that's trying to make something out of really nothing.

Speaker 2: 13:49

The other holiday that you'll sometimes hear the Christian legalists lay onto Christmas is there was indeed a Roman holiday called Saul Invictus, which just means unconquered sun. It was a pagan holiday that celebrated worship the sun and it was indeed on December 25th. The problem is that we know exactly when Saul and Victus started. It was in 274 AD, was declared by the Roman Caesar and it was when the Roman Empire was beginning to fall apart and he was trying to kind of get some unity and Christians had already had a longstanding tradition of December 25th prior to that. If anybody copied anybody, the Roman leaders commandeered the Christian holiday to try to make it pagan. It wasn't the other way around. So Saul and Victus, yes, was on December 25th, but it came after it had already been a longstanding tradition. The only explanation I've heard of anybody that actually made some sense of why December 25th and it's really just speculation is there's a feast of enunciation in some Christian circles on March 25th and it marks the day that the angel announced, hence enunciation that the angel announced to Mary that she was pregnant in March 25th and they counted exactly nine months to the day from March 25th and came up with December 25th. The only problem with that logic is one not every baby is exactly nine months and two, they didn't know the day was really March 25th either. That was pulled out of a hat is because it should have been around you know that time of the year. So, bottom line, we don't really know when and why. They started the December 25th. It was the first time it's ever mentioned. It's called a longstanding tradition. That's what we have here. Is that it's not the case that the Christians commandeered a pagan holiday and tried to use it as a Christian thing?

Speaker 2: 15:54

The next issue we come up is the tree. One of the things you hear is that, okay, there's commands in the Bible not to bring trees in and decorate them. One of those that we have and I think we actually have this, steve is in Jeremiah. There's a passage here in Jeremiah 10 that talks about bringing in trees. Jeremiah 10, starting in verse two, says this do not learn the way of the nations and do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens, although the nations are terrified by them. Here's where it gets into. What people say might be a tree Christmas tree, verse three for the customs of the peoples are delusion, because it is wood cut from the forest, the work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. They decorate it with silver and with gold, they fasten it with nails and with hammers so that it will not totter, and they go on and they talk about different things. It has to be carried, it can't walk, and things like that. That's the accusation is that it's accusing these pagans back here in Jeremiah, chapter 10, of cutting down trees and bringing them inside and decorating them with gold and silver. Jeremiah was speaking against that. Therefore, we should not come up with Christmas trees, because it's basically idol worship. But I submit to you read the rest of the chapter. You can't just take a couple of verses out. If we look down, starting in verse eight of the same chapter, it says this in their discipline of delusion, their idol is wood beaten silver is brought from Tarshish and gold from Uffas, the work of a craftsman and the hands of a goldsmith. Violin and purple are their clothing. They are all the work of skilled men. What they're talking about is bringing and cutting down a tree and making it an idol. Now, if your Christmas tree is something that you're going to fall down and worship, then I'd say you don't need to have a Christmas tree. You got the concept wrong here. Unless there's any doubt, there's a really clear, somewhat parallel passage over in Isaiah 44. And Isaiah 44 has a few verses there that make it really clear what they're talking about here. And Isaiah 44, starting in verse 13,.

Speaker 2: 18:15

Another shapes wood. He extends a measuring line, he outlines it with red chalk, he works it with planes and outlines it with a compass and makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of a man, so that it may sit in a house, surely. He cuts cedars for himself and takes a cypress or an oak and raises it for himself along the trees of the forest. He plants a fir and the rain makes it grow. Then it becomes something for a man to burn so that he takes one of them and warms himself. And he makes a fire to bake bread. He also makes a God and worships it. He makes a graven image and falls down before of it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over this half he eats meat as he roasts it and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, ah, I'm warm, I've seen the fire. But the rest of it he makes into a God is graven image. He falls down before it and worships it and prays to it and says deliver me, for you're my God.

Speaker 2: 19:13

What are they talking about when they're talking about cutting down trees and bringing them inside and decorating them? They're talking about making idols. It talks specifically in that Isaiah passage about forming it into the shape of a man. Part of it you cook your meal with it and part of it you worship. He's just saying how ridiculous that is. In no way shape or form. Is this ever talking about Christmas trees? It's just not, unless you and your neighbor are actually kneeling down, worshiping and making sacrifices to your Christmas tree, which I would encourage you to not do. Therefore, there's again freedom in Christ. We have the freedom to do these things. Now, steve, the origin of the Christmas tree is entirely Christian. What I understand is it was Martin Luther, was it not?

Speaker 1: 19:57

Yeah, the story goes that he was out walking in the woods one evening and he looked up in the forest. And he looked up through the trees and saw the stars, and it started thinking and reminding him of how God had come down from the heavens and lived among us and died for us as a sacrifice. He got the idea of taking a tree and bringing it inside and decorating it with candles to represent the stars. Then he imparted, though, to his children that this was the reason behind it was because it reminded him of Jesus, who came to earth as a man and died for us. That was the purpose behind it, that he made a correlation with that as a celebration with his children. Even from that story itself, it was all a point of honoring God and honoring Jesus through all of it.

Speaker 1: 20:49

It wasn't anything that had to do with idol worship or bringing it in and making an idol out of it and worshiping the tree itself. The tradition of it was not anything close to what was spoken of in Jeremiah, nor spoken of in Isaiah. Both of those talked about bringing a tree inside and forming an idol out of it. Even in Jeremiah, in verse 10, there it says but you, oh God. Oh Lord Yahweh, you are the only living true God. Again, the context of both of those verses talk about idol worship and making an idol and attributing to it and worshiping the tree in reference to a God. Those trees that we went out and got as I was a kid. We didn't bring them into our house because we were worshiping that tree. It was a representation for us to celebrate and decorate the tree and really come together as a family, as we did that for the holiday itself. It was a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2: 21:49

The part of the country, steve, that you and I live in has a lot of evergreen trees. All that stay green all winter. We see a lot of color, but I remember traveling. I went to Kansas one winter and there wasn't a green tree to be seen everywhere. All the fields were brown, the trees were brown, the skies were kind of overcast and there wasn't a lot of sun for extended periods of time. I could easily see somebody, if they found a green tree, cutting it off and bringing it inside just to have some color. It's just a decoration.

Speaker 2: 22:23

Let me quote a verse over in the New Testament in Galatians. Galatians 5.1 says this it was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Specifically what he's talking about in context there is people laying on rules that you have to keep. He's saying that that's slavery. Don't fall for that again. We have freedom in Christ.

Speaker 2: 22:49

Does a Christian have freedom to go celebrate a holiday? Yes, it's not a sin to bring in a Christmas tree and celebrate it and give gifts and we have such fond memories. The beauty of Christmas is that we can. We often get together with family and extended family, many of which are not Christians, and that we maybe only see once or twice a year, we can talk about Jesus and His birth. It gives us a chance, like one of the traditions that we started in my family after I became a Christian was we would pull out every Christmas first thing in the morning with the kids and we'd open the Bible and read Luke, chapter two, the Christmas story, with Mary and Joseph. It's a good way that the culture is still celebrating Christmas and the birth of Jesus and we can use it as a tool to talk to our family and our friends and celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Speaker 1: 23:44

Glenn. To me, that's the key is to celebrate it and use it as a tool, a method to talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ and to keep that to focus. There's no doubt that it's become commercialized and it's been dragged away from the birth of Jesus Christ. We, as Christians, need to bring it back to the birth of Christ and we need to focus on that. Don't be ashamed to talk about it with our friends and family. We should use that time of the year as a great opportunity to talk about Jesus Christ and why we celebrate His birth and what he did for us. That's what we should do.

Speaker 2: 24:22

I remember some of these people being so legalistic. I remember I knew a Jehovah's Witness lady one time and in the fall she put decorations out on her porch of a pumpkin and some Indian corn, and the leaders of the church came knocking on her door. You're celebrating a holiday by putting up holiday decorations, a pumpkin and Indian corn. That's the extent to the legalism the way Jesus described it in the gospels is tying up heavy loads and laying it on men's shoulders. So, steve, merry Christmas, and when you see your family, talk about Jesus with them and I'll do the same. Merry Christmas to you as well, glenn, and Merry Christmas to all of our listeners. We hope that you do indeed have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and this year, as always, we hope that you will have this as a season to focus on the Lord Jesus.

Speaker 1: 25:16

Thank you for watching and listening. May God bless you.