What an evening. I spent most of the day with Rachel's family in Warrenton. She's a Christmas baby so I doubled up her gift so she'd get one really big one rather than two smaller, lesser ones. I got her a 4GB iPod Nano, and we ended up watching Superman Returns. A good, relaxing Christmas Eve if I do say so myself. I'm glad that I went there even though it made it nigh impossible for me to go to church today. Some people might think that's a sign of taking the holiday less seriously, but then holidays carry a different meaning in the New Testament than they do in popular culture. We aren't required to do holidays one way or another. To paraphrase Paul, we can celebrate any godly holiday we want to, and no one is to judge us for which ones we do or don't do. If a gentile Christian wants to do Chanukah instead of Christmas, more power to them because it doesn't matter to God either way. If they want to celebrate Christmas near Passover to make it more historically accurate to Jesus' birth, again, it doesn't really matter.
I've taken up writing fiction again, this time I've gotten a decent bit of new content ready. I'll probably start allowing people who want access to start reading it. Right now I've taken a sort of detour to write a quick short story piece to illustrate some philosophical points in a way that I think a long-winded essay couldn't do justice. The point that is so hard to get across about morality, that it doesn't really exist without God, is what I really want to push through it. I think I've said clearly enough here that before I became a Christian I was an agnostic whose intellectual views on morality were generically based on a nietzschean worldview. Most people can't relate to this, which is why I'm trying to write a short story to make it more obvious how this mindset works.
After New Years, hopefully when I get my raise and all, I may actually end up getting a XBox 360. I'll probably still get most of my entertainment from the trusty old Playstation 2, which has by far the best RPGs out there right now. That and there are so many good games for it that are now down to $15-$25 that it'd be insane for me to ignore them, since by focusing on them, I delay having to buy a lot of XBox 360 games up front, which means that when I do go get them, they'll be cheaper.
And lastly it has come to my attention that a certain password-protected entry is no longer accessible. One ought to not attribute to a surreptitiousness and/or malice what can easily be attributed to a bad memory or technical errors. Might I suggest that I had forgotten that given the nature of the content protected, I endeavored to change the password and consequently forgot? It is the name of a certain furball that was adopted when I was a few years old.
Your short story sounds interesting. It's stunning how so many atheists never actually question the absoluteness of their moral convictions.
Have a great holiday season!
I've only got a few hundred words written so far, but I think it's coming along at a nice little clip. I'm hoping to be able to work on it some today and really start getting it fleshed out by tonight.
Read Jer. 10, and then Deut. 7, 12, and a bunch of other places before saying "it doesn't matter to God" if we "mix" His worship with the pagan stuff, Mike.
(After all, how would you feel if someone baked you a birthday cake, but filled it with sh_t, and told you it was how they thought you should celebrate your 'special day'?)
Milk first, then meat. But His prophets ALWAYS had hard words for those who "failed to teach the difference between the set-apart and the profane", or called 'evil', good.
Mark...
That's not what I am referring to. I'm saying that if a gentile Christian wants to celebrate either holiday or no holiday at all, all of the above are fine. I don't celebrate Christmas with a yuletide log for example. My celebration is not pagan unless you consider a Christmas tree to be inherently pagan :-P All I am saying is that if we choose to make up our own religious holidays or observe only the ones we want to, God doesn't care. Paul said that quite clearly.
A Christian shouldn't celebrate yul or a typical winter solstace, but we are under no obligation to celebrate Christmas, Chanukah or any other religious holiday that's Jewish or Christian. That's all I'm getting at...
Merry Holiday Season!
I bought one of my boys an XBOX 360 - he's lovin it!
The other three got coal - KIDDING!
Happy Days Young One,
WW
Happy days to you too and yours, Wonder Woman! Did your man start saving up for your upgrade to a platinum lasso?
"we are under no obligation to celebrate Christmas, Chanukah or any other religious holiday that's Jewish or Christian."
As stated there, Mike, I'll go along. Yeshua evidently 'celebrated' Hanukkah, but there is no Biblical mandate for those. However, that is not true for His seven set-apart times, which He said we (those of us who included in His covenant, or "grafted in") were to keep "forever". Don't believe me, check it out for yourself.
As for the tree, I haven't wanted to bring it "into my house" since reading Jer. 10. It's one thing to say, "I didn't know any better", and still another to honor our traditions in preference to His Word, after having been brought out of bondage...
Even Paul, I contend, was talking about judgement of others, as opposed to honest efforts at pleasing God.
"But shall we sin more, that grace might abound? Heaven forbid!"
I suppose I see no harm in the tree if your heart isn't pagan. I'm not going to tell my soon to be fiance that she can't decorate a tree every year, especially since she does it so well and she's about the least pagan-influenced gentile Christian I've ever met. Personally, I don't see any big deal about continuing what is at this point nothing more than a cultural tradition.
What are these seven set apart times that you speak of?
"What are these seven set apart times that you speak of?"
They are the essence of what Yeshua did, and will do. The Seven include the Spring Feasts (Pesach, First Fruits; all of which Yeshua fulfilled perfectly on His first coming, as "Meshiach ben Yosef", the 'suffering servant') and the Fall, (including "trumpets, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot, or "tabernacles", which is likened to a wedding feast) that He will fulfill "next time", prophecied as Meshiach ben David, the King with a sword.
(I have been convinced that the point of 'keeping them forever' is, at least for now, so that we'll be ready for Him.) [Lev 23, Ex. 12, and others]
See Michael Rood's site (among many excellent alternatives) for a good set of teachings. Eddie Chumney's "Seven Festivals of Messiah" is a good text as well.
As for Jer. 10 and the tree - just read it and show it to her. Take a look at Deut. chapters 4, 7, all of 12, and 18:9-14, as well as a bunch of places in the prophets. God equates idolatry with adultery, and indicates a hatred of the "mixing" of His worship with the pagan that should put the "fear of God" in all of us.
Again, I don't "condemn" others, or judge them for their practices, but do believe that pointing out what Scripture says is sufficient for "reproof", "instruction", and perhaps even "chastening". But I also know there are certain things that I choose now not to bring "into my house".
Blessings,
PS, Mike - if you think there's any real meaning in a celebration of His birth (at the wrong time ;) just wait until you really see what is prophecied the Feasts He actually commanded us to keep!
No platinum lasso nor gold belt of honour...
I did get hardwood flooring ;)
Made me smile too!
The band of courage and committment "comes" very soon, very soon indeed.
I'll keep ya posted.