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Thursday, 19 November 2009

Was Jesus Christ Really Born on Dec. 25th?

This holiday season, many people around the world will celebrate December 25th as the birthday of Jesus Christ. Many have come to ask whether Jesus Christ was born on this date. While the Bible doesn't give us the exact date of Jesus Christ's birth, we can use evidence from the Bible to determine a general time of the year when Jesus was born.

First we'll turn to Luke chapter 2. Verse 8 tells us that shepherds were in the field at night, watching over their flock at the time Jesus was born. This is our first clue that Jesus may not have been born in December. Since Judean Decembers were cold and rainy, with temperatures typically below freezing. Shepherds would likely have sought shelter for their livestock.

Second, Luke 2:1-5 shows us that Joseph and Mary were traveling to their hometown to be counted among their family in a census called by Cesar. Again, Judean Decembers were cold, rainy, and often had below freezing temperatures. Roads would have been frozen, and nearly impossible to travel. Any self-respecting governor would not have called for a census in the winter, when such conditions would have rendered such an endeavor entirely self-defeating. Again, the Bible shows that a December birthdate is very unlikely for Jesus Christ.

Can we know the general time that Jesus Christ was born? We know that John the Baptist was born six months separate from Jesus Christ. Therefore, we can know approximately when Jesus Christ was born if we can know when John was born.

Luke 1:26-38 tells us that Mary was visited by an angel, who confirmed that Elizabeth was in her sixth month of bearing a child. Mary then conceived. This shows that John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus.

Luke 1:5 tells us that Zacharias was a priest in the temple in Jerusalem serving in the course of Abia. This course is shown to have occurred from June 13-19 in that year. It was during his service that he learned that his wife Elizabeth would bear a child (Luke 1:11-13). When he completed this service and returned home, Elizabeth conceived (vs 23-24). Assuming that this all took place at the end of June, adding nine months would take us to the end of March next year as the time John was born. Jesus was born six months after him, so Jesus was most likely to be born at the end of September.

If Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, why do we celebrate that day as His birth? The answer is "syncretism". It was a custom of the Romans to celebrate December 25th as "Dies Invicti Solis", the Day of the Invincible Sun. This custom came to the Romans from Persia, who celebrated the same day as the birthday as Mithra, the Persian god of light, who was said to be born from a rock.

No one has determined when Christmas was first celebrated, though historians agree that it had to have been around the fourth century. Up until his conversion to Christianity, Constantine was an adherent to Mithraism, so he may have been instrumental to the origin of the Christmas celebration.

For a holiday that is supposedly so important to Christianity today, it's amazing that Christmas was not celebrated by the early church, and did not come to exist as a celebration until about 300 years after Christ's death. Because we have evidence that Jesus was not born anywhere near December 25th, we now know Christmas to represent a departure from the faith of the saints.

Saturday, 07 November 2009

I recieved the latest copy of The Good News in the mail today, and as always, I intend to read every word.

This month's issue tackles the theory of evolution in modern biology. In fact, it doesn't just tackle the subject, it completely smashes it. Eighteen pages take the subject, and includes obvious flaws in this theory, the moral consequences of its acceptance, an interview with Dr. Wells, the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism, and much more. Clyde Kilough nails it in the introduction when he says: "Evolution does not merely dismiss a Creator. It rejects any spiritual meaning for our existence."

Speaking of origins, this issue also touches upon the pre-Christian origins of Christmas. It's true, most Christmas customs accepted today predate Christ! I'll touch on this subject some more on another date.

I'm going to get to reading.

Friday, 23 October 2009

Halloween... Why?

This should be really obvious, but I still have to ask: Why Halloween? Why would a Christian celebrate this?

It's a simple Biblical principle that the holy days we elect to keep mirror the character of the God that we serve. So then, why should we keep Halloween, a blatant celebration of darkness? In some areas, churches even hold Halloween themed events and services. So I ask why. Does it make any sense to keep a holiday so obviously dark and misguided?

It's a fact that most people don't know why they do the things that they do. They accept that their parents did them and their peers do the same thing, and that in doing so, they would be no worse off than they are.

Do I have to go out of the way to label Halloween with it's obvious traits? We teach our kids to dress themselves up as monsters, go door-to-door demanding candy by threatening retaliation (asking "trick or treat?"), while movies play on television encouraging the occult. Why do so many people do something that makes no sense?

The truth is surprising. While no one should have to be told that Halloween did not originate in the Bible, for all most people know, this holiday appeared out of nowhere, and we decided to roll along with it, just for kicks. It's common sense that everything has a cause, and there's a reason that we do everything that we do. The same goes for Halloween.

Halloween originated in Europe as the "Day of the Dead". The adherents of this cult practice maintain, just as many still do today, that this Day of the Dead is a day in which the disembodied spirits of relatives return from the grave to spend the day haunting the homes of their families. It's customary for adherents of this tradition to make their deceased relatives their favorite foods, and that their disembodied spirits partake in a feast with them.

For true students of the Bible, the idea of disembodied spirits roaming the earth after death is entirely ridiculous, and to maintain such a notion, one would have to be entirely ignorant of God's plan for the resurrection of the entire human race. God's plan doesn't call for the disembodied spirits of humans to walk the earth. However, this doesn't mean that demons don't mess with the heads of especially impressionable people, just as they've always done.

This Day of the Dead is one of many pagan traditions that was cannibalized by the spreading Catholic church in an effort to make their religion more palatable for pagan Europeans. Their willingness to compromise with the basic tenets of their faith was, at that time, nothing new to the spreading Catholic church. By the middle ages, it was tradition to assign a day out of the year of the calender to individuals that the Catholic church has given the title of sainthood (the real, Biblical definition of a saint is anyone who follows it's true teachings). In time, about every day in the calender was dedicated to Catholicism's saints. Something about the Day of the Dead made it attractive to make into an "All Saints Day", as it's called today, to commemorate all of Catholicism's saints in an all-inclusive, convenient package.

However, just because Catholicism compromised for the umpteen millionth time doesn't mean that the Day of the Dead was any less attractive for pagans of all kinds to channel spirits that they think are their relatives. And in time, a ghoulish message was attached to it. There are even groups that openly tack a satanic message onto it.

My point is this: Halloween is not a Christian holiday. No amount of coloring it over will make it so. Why celebrate a holiday that indoctrinates our children by enticing them with candy to entertain their dark sides? Why are many churches apparently encouraging this? Why celebrate a holiday that is an affront to God, who is truth and light?

Monday, 05 October 2009

Church on Wednesday? Here's a Better Idea.

I recently got a local paper which featured a front-page article with a big photo of a group of people standing in front of a church holding a sign that says:
Church on Wednesday?
www.WednesdayChurch.com
I admit that I haven't visited the website, nor am I interested because it is likely run by some cult determined to litigiously undermine God's Word, the Bible, by twisting His verses around to derive a meaning from them that He does not intend.

Here is a novel idea:
CHURCH ON SATURDAY!
That's right, church services held on the seventh day of the week, just as God intended. Not on the first day, which was the manner of pagan Europeans like Constantine who would later substitute his own day of worship in a budding Christian church. Not on the fourth day, for some odd reason. Weird cults. But on the seventh day.

You may be asking: "Can you support this position Biblically?" Absolutely. To do so, let's allow God's Word, the Bible, to speak for itself.

So important is God's Sabbath Rest to God, that he made it one of the Ten Commandments, one of the principle points of human behavior, and the eternal standard by which all human beings will be judged. However, The fourth commandment in particular can stir up a bit of controversy among the nominal church. To clear up any misunderstandings, let's allow the fourth commandment, as written in Exodus 20:8-11 to speak for itself:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God, in it you shall do no work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and sanctified it." (Exodus 20:8-11)

Out of the Ten Commandments, the fourth one is the longest one to read, but it's still as clear as a bell, if we allow it to speak for itself. Let's consider what it says:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."
God's chosen people, the Israelites, have already been keeping God's Sabbath rest, which is why He is telling them to "remember" it. This is shown just four chapters earlier (Exodus 16), when God tests His people by raining bread from heaven for his people to collect and eat on six days of the week. God provided a double portion of bread on the sixth day, but provided none on the seventh day, when they should have been resting. When God saw people going out to collect bread on the seventh day, He was very disappointed. This also illustrates the important point that God's Sabbath rest predates the Sinai covenant, and like the rest of the Ten Commandments, is by no means intended only for a temporary physical nation.

"Six days shall you labor, and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God, in it you shall do no work,"
Not on the first day, as the post-Constantine nominal church did. Not on the fourth day, as some fad ideology may insist. The first six days are for doing what you have to do. But the seventh day is the day for resting and healing.

There is one more point related to this verse that I have to touch upon. Nominal christianity likes to discourage God's Sabbath Rest, which is held on the seventh day. Among their favorite things to say is that it is only an ancient Israeli civil law, or relates to temple worship. They argue that with no temple existing today, it is not binding on Christians. This is not my position. First, they have no explanation for why God's Sabbath Rest is in the Ten Commandments, which are the principle points of righteousness. For God's Sabbath Rest to be one of the Ten Commandments, it has to be important to Him. Second, notice what God clearly says about this matter in Exodus 20:10, "...the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God,". God isn't saying that the Sabbath Rest is the Sabbath of the Israelites, or of ancient Israel. God calls it His own.

To drive this point home, turn to Exodus 31. Verse 14 makes this sobering statement: "You shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: everyone that defile it shall surely be put to death:" So important is God's Sabbath Rest that anyone who broke it in ancient Israel was to be put to death. While the threat of the death sentence only pertained to that place and time, God's Sabbath Rest remains to always be observed, as chapter 31 concludes: "Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant." (emphasis added)

When God speaks of "a perpetual covenant", he isn't speaking of the Sinai covenant, which was only temporary. The use of the phrase "perpetual covenant" suggests that God was referring to His eternal standard for righteous behavior. To drive the point home, God uses the term "forever" in the next verse, "It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever:" (verse 17, emphasis added) This includes the adopted children of Israel, God's gentile Christians.

It's a shame that most who claim to study the Bible don't allow it to speak for itself. I guess it takes a lot of mental energy to draw one's own pre-conceived notions into God's Word.

"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and sanctified it."
The creation account of Genesis chapter 1 constitutes the most well-known and famous page of the entire Bible, and is the very first page. I think you all know that it does not say that God rested on the first day, and proceeded with the creation of our universe on the remaining six. Nor does it say that God initiated His creation for three days, took a break on the fourth day, and finished His work up on the remaining three days. Rather, God worked to create our universe for six days, and rested on the seventh (Genesis 2:2-3). The original Hebrew in Genesis 2:2-3 is unambiguous in it's intent. The word translated "rest" was "shabboth", which means the very same thing.

The Bible truly, clearly, speaks for itself. Are you willing to listen?

Can the case be made, Biblically, for the transfer of God's Sabbath Rest from Saturday to Sunday? The honest answer is "no", as the verses traditionally used to support this position, when placed in their proper context, allow no such conclusion to be drawn.

At the beginning of Matthew chapter 12, we are told that some Pharisees say Jesus and His disciples pluck ears of corn to eat on the Sabbath day. The Pharisees were a group with an excessively strict interpretation of how a person should obey God. They lived by many additional strict regulations that aren't scriptural. Because Jesus didn't live by their strict interpretations, the Pharisees felt threatened by Him, and sought to discredit Him. They believed that plucking corn constituted work, and prohibited doing so on the Sabbath day. When Jesus responded, he gave scriptural examples of how God's Sabbath Rest was not intended to limit the basics of human behavior. It was intended to be a day of rest, not a day to worry about a ton of regulations (such as whether you can pluck corn or tie your shoes, which are things that the Pharisees did regulate).

Jesus concluded with "the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." It begs appreciation that Jesus Christ, rather than doing away with God's Sabbath Rest, declared himself "Lord of the Sabbath" on a Saturday Sabbath Rest. By calling attention to this fact, Jesus Christ intended to make His critics appreciate that because He is the God that called for the Sabbath to begin with, He knows it's intention better than they do.

In Revelation 1:10, John says "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day,". If he was referring to God's Sabbath Rest, he would have meant Saturday, since it was on the seventh-day Sabbath that Jesus Christ declared Himself "the Lord of the Sabbath" (Matthew 12:8). However, John was referring to a recurring Biblical theme, "the Day of the Lord". There are many, many verses of the Bible that allude to this theme, but a few examples are 1 Corinthians 1:8, Acts 2:20, 1 Thessalonians 5:2, which show that John was speaking of a future time in which God would personally intervene in human matters to establish His Kingdom on earth.

So, the Sunday sabbath (and the Wednesday sabbath, for that matter) cannot be supported Biblically. So why do we do it? Because we judge truly Godly behavior by our own prejudices and preconceived notions. In other words, we were tricked. Paul had prophecised that false apostles would appear to seduce the true Church of Jesus Christ away from their faith (Acts 20:29-30). Since then, many new converts would bring their own prejudices and preconceived notions with them. By the fourth century, nominal christianity had outnumbered the true Church. At that time, Constantine had wanted to settle disputes within the church by putting the basic tenets of their faith to a vote.

Because the misguided masses represented a vast majority, they had succeeded in bringing about a forced Sunday observance. By AD 365, Catholic leaders at the Council of Laodicea had penned: "Christians shall not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather, honoring the Lord's Day (Sunday in this context); and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if they shall be found to be Judaizers, let them be excommunicated from Christ."

Those that "Judaized", God's real Sabbath-keeping Christians, were systematically persecuted by Constantine's powerful new church-state alliance. In the face of forced observance of an unbiblical Sunday observance, God's real Christians went underground, refusing to adhere to tenets of an ancient sun-god religion. As a result, they largely disappeared from sight.

James Cardinal Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore in the last century, wrote in "The Faith of Our Fathers": "Is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." (1917, p. 89) This archbishop bluntly states that worship on Sunday cannot be Biblically authorized. Any idea that we observe any day besides the seventh day had to have come from outside the Bible.

God tells us through the Bible not to be afraid of people who think you are strange because you are different. One must adhere to the Ten Commandments regardless of what others think. Sunday is not a commanded day of observance. And for that matter, neither is Wednesday. If it really matters to you what God thinks, ditch all the replacement theology and observe God's seventh-day Sabbath Rest, as God commanded.

God commanded us to observe a seventh-day Sabbath. The ancient sun-god religion and later misguided nominal christians observed a Sunday rest. Muhammad told Muslims to pray on Friday for whatever reason. Why Wednesday? I don't know. And I don't care to know.

Saturday, 19 September 2009

I just received my latest copy of The Good News in the mail. This is the September-October issue, "Suffering: How It Began, How It Will End". I look forward to each issue of The Good News because it touches on important themes that are relevant to real Christianity, and places current events into the perspective of Bible prophecy.

I've read the introduction so far, which promises that this issue will touch upon God's plan. One of the teaching tools of God's plan is the Biblical festivals. Most who are a part of nominal Christianity today have never heard of these festivals, or (as the introduction says) have assumed that they are only for Jews or for ancient Israel. But God calls these feasts His own (Leviticus 23:2).

I had first heard of these feasts when I was a kid, when a Jewish friend of mine was observing Passover. I did not know what it was about, but I was welcomed to sit at the table and dine on matzo ball soup. Back then, I had assumed that it was a Jewish festival, with no bearing on me. It wasn't until I had grown up that I had learned that Passover was a Biblical festival, and that there were more like it. It was at this time that I had learned from God's Holy Day Plan: The Promise of Hope For All Mankind (a booklet offered by the United Church of God) that not only was it intended for the Jewish people, it was intended for all mankind, as all mankind benefits from the salvation in the message that underlies it. It was then that I begun keeping these festivals to the best of my ability and knowledge, as unusual as it may make me appear to other people.

To answer any curiosity, The Good News is a bi-monthly publication published by the United Church of God. This publication is entirely free for the asking, and the Church itself won't call on anyone. You've probably heard of obnoxious men in suits who go door-to-door selling you their ideology. These are not those people. Free really does mean free. So sign up. I did.

Just a little warning: The Good News is for real Christians. Nominal (name only) Christians will find themselves challenged by the biblical themes discussed within it's pages. Having said that, I do encourage everyone to subscribe and see for themselves what they're missing. The magazine is free, but it discusses a God you cannot afford to be without!