{"id":1906,"date":"2015-12-25T16:40:41","date_gmt":"2015-12-26T00:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/?p=1906"},"modified":"2017-12-25T11:56:42","modified_gmt":"2017-12-25T19:56:42","slug":"exposing-the-most-common-myths-about-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/exposing-the-most-common-myths-about-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Exposing the Most Common Myths about Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/h1>\n

\"Bible<\/a><\/h1>\n

Exposing the Most Common Myths about Christmas<\/strong><\/h1>\n

By Scott Rohter, December 2015<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here are two of the most common myths about Christmas exposed. They illustrate the enormous power of peer pressure, tradition, and social conditioning on our lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Was Jesus\u00a0born on December 25th<\/sup>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Was Jesus born on December 25th<\/sup>?\u00a0 In all probability he was not.\u00a0 The odds that Jesus was\u00a0born on December 25th are about 365 to 1. There is no Biblical evidence that Jesus was born on December 25th<\/sup>. The Bible doesn\u2019t say when Jesus was born. The important thing to know is that He WAS born, not WHEN He was born. There is\u00a0no one alive today who knows either the exact date or the time of his birth.<\/p>\n

So why do we in the West celebrate the birth of the Lord on December 25th \u00a0if there is no\u00a0evidence that\u00a0Jesus was actually born on December 25th? That is a good question… The answer is\u00a0that the overwhelming influence\u00a0the Roman Catholic Church on western civilization has made it so. The Catholic Church established December 25th, just a few days after the Winter Solstice occurs on December 21st as the day to celebrate Christ\u2019s birth. December 21st is the shortest day of the year, and it was just a few days later when ancient people\u00a0first began to\u00a0notice that the days were actually getting longer again, and that was a cause for a celebration.\u00a0 To the early Catholic Church\u00a0December 25th seemed like a logical day to remember that God brought light back into the world in the person of his son, Jesus Christ. It is a day that symbolizes both the return of Spring, and the hope of\u00a0new life as well as the promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

There was\u00a0another important reason that the Catholic Church decided to make December 25th the day to celebrate Christ\u2019s birth. The pre-Christian world\u00a0observed\u00a0a popular pagan festival called Saturnalia to mark the Winter Solstice. The roots of Saturnalia\u00a0date back even farther in time to the ancient Persian cult of Mithraism<\/a>. The early Catholic Church being eager to\u00a0find converts\u00a0co-opted this pagan festival and\u00a0merged it with a holiday of their own making at approximately the same time..\u00a0 They thought it would make their attempts to proselytize the heathen\u00a0a lot\u00a0easier. Unfortunately their efforts have\u00a0proved to be\u00a0a mixed blessing\u2026<\/p>\n

There is an old saying that only the names and the faces keep changing, while everything else remains the same.\u00a0Instead of pagans\u00a0becoming more Christianized\u2026 the Catholic and Protestant Churches keep getting more and more paganized over the years\u2026\u00a0 That’s what happens when you mix the truth with lies. Everything gets confused. The Bible says, “What fellowship hath light with darkness?”<\/em> While the early Church fathers may have had nothing but good intentions, their decision to celebrate Jesus’ birth at the same\u00a0time as the Saturnalia has had rather mixed results. Some of them have\u00a0 actually been quite bad for the Church.<\/p>\n

So why do we keep perpetuating this myth that Jesus was born on Christmas Day? This is a\u00a0tough question to answer and it gives us a good\u00a0glimpse into our own souls. It has a lot to do with our stubborn\u00a0desire to cling\u00a0to social and cultural customs\u00a0we are familiar with and the tremendous power of peer pressure. That is why we insist on following false doctrines. The Bible says that \u201cGod brought light into the world but the people preferred to walk in darkness.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The fact that we still\u00a0listen to\u00a0songs about reindeer pulling sleighs through the snow long after we have moved to Southern California, or about Santa Claus riding in\u00a0a heavenly sleigh\u00a0in the sky while being tracked by NORAD are\u00a0good examples of just how long after the relevance of something has ceased to exist that we as a society can\u2019t seem to rid ourselves of these irrelevant vestiges of our cultural heritage which no longer have any real meaning in our lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is Christmas\u00a0a Time for Us to Give Gifts to Each Other?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is the celebration of\u00a0the Savior’s\u00a0birth an occasion for us to exchange gifts with each another? While there is certainly nothing wrong with giving gifts to each other on Christmas Day it is\u00a0actually a secular diversion, and there is no reason to associate this custom of exchanging gifts with the\u00a0birth of Jesus. The wise men gave gifts to\u00a0Jesus, not to each other. \u00a0The custom of\u00a0giving gifts to each other during the month of December is also associated with the gift giving that occurred in December during the pre-Christian observance of\u00a0 Saturnalia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The birth of Jesus should be a time to remember that God\u2019s gift to us is eternal life through the shed blood of his Son on the cross, and that no gift of our own is\u00a0able to redeem our souls nor to make atonement for our sins.\u00a0The celebration of Jesus’ birth\u00a0is a day to remember that nothing we can do or provide to ourselves or each other can ever redeem our souls from the power of sin and death.<\/p>\n

There are many symbols that we are all familiar with\u00a0which make their presence felt around this time of the year. All of them are cultural in nature rather than spiritual or religious and they generally have nothing at all to do with the birth of Jesus Christ. They include Christmas trees, holly, wreaths, yule logs, and mistletoe.<\/p>\n

Some of the annual Christmas customs\u00a0we are all acquainted with include decorating the Christmas tree, decking the halls, hanging stockings over the fireplace, stringing lights along the eaves of our houses,\u00a0the\u00a0annual watching of \u00a0IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE\u00a0 on television, the\u00a0traditional Christmas Day baked ham, and the making of gingerbread cookies.<\/p>\n

Is there anything wrong with celebrating Christmas? Well, that depends on you, and it is a question\u00a0that every individual decides for themselves\u2026 As long as we honor Jesus in our hearts and minds I don’t personally see anything wrong with it. God wants us to know the truth, and the truth shall make us free.. If you learn the truth and you lift up the name of Jesus Christ then God can use anything for good, even a confusing day like\u00a0Christmas.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

\u00a0 Exposing the Most Common Myths about Christmas By Scott Rohter, December 2015   Here are two of the most common myths about Christmas exposed. They illustrate the enormous power of peer pressure, tradition, and social conditioning on our lives.   Was Jesus\u00a0born on December 25th? Was Jesus born on December 25th?\u00a0 In all probability […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[284,285,286],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1941,"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions\/1941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/gps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}