The Mainline churches including the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran all follow much the same calendar. The people and events they celebrate are all Christian based.
To be sure, they all follow much the same calendar....the question must be asked then....why are they all still divided? If they claim to follow the same Lord, yet cannot agree except in observances and teachings that were adopted from paganism in the early centuries, when Jesus comes again, who will he recognise as his own faithful disciples "doing the will of the Father? Who are those he identifies as "workers of lawlessness" whilst claiming him as their Lord? (Matt 7:21-23)
They may share similar times to ancient events and religions, but that is inevitable, as the days of the year are few and they have each recorded innumerable happenings since time immemorial.
Do you realise that God's ancient people were not free to take it upon themselves to invent their own celebrations? Regardless of the significance of any event, (and there were many) they were not free to hold an annual celebration to memorialise it. Every festival they celebrated was orchestrated by God and each had their own significance and practices. Everything they had to do was prescribed and the details and preparation for the celebration were given by God himself.
Can you tell me where in the Bible we find any command to celebrate Christ's birth or his resurrection, or Lent? There is a clear command to memorialise his death, but nothing more. Only this one commemorative event is incumbent on Christ's followers. Anything over and above this memorial is of human invention. The only appeal to hold all the other celebrations is not scriptural, it is emotional.
I find it very arrogant for the JW's to set themselves up as arbiters and interpretors of the Christian faith.
Is it arrogant to tell the truth?
What is arrogant, is to hear the truth and be determined to hang onto practices that the Bible demonstrates to be of pagan origin and therefore unacceptable to God. Emotional attachment to something that God condemns is a course of spiritual suicide.
Is it arrogant to inform the uninformed that the practices they hold dear are not dear to God? This was Jesus' message to the practicers of Judaism in the first century who were misled by their leaders to follow "the traditions of men". He received the same response. :ignore:
If people choose to keep celebrating these festivals, that is entirely their choice but no one can claim that they were ignorant of the facts.
When the writings in the Bible and and the faith that has been passed down to us by the church fathers are so open to interpretation.
Don't you have to wonder, in a world ruled by the devil, that there are so many interpretations of one single work of scripture? Whose MO is confusion? God's or the devil's? Who is preventing people from 'seeing' the truth? (2 Cor 4:3, 4)
The Bible itself has one message and if it had been observed by the early "church fathers" to the letter, we would have no additions and this conversation would not be taking place. There would be one Christianity and one united body of Christ's disciples preaching one truth in all the world....that is clearly not the case, so decisions have to be made. "Wheat" must be separate from the "weeds".
Of course there are errors, however the true essence is more important than any misunderstandings in the detail.
If that was the case, then Jehovah would not have put the golden calf worshippers to death. They were holding a festival to 'the God who brought them out of Egypt'...it was "a festival to Jehovah" so the "essence" was there....it was the 'practice' borrowed from the false worship of the Egyptians that was unacceptable. God demonstrated his hot displeasure and so did Moses.
It is not as if the JW's subscribe to Jesus as either part of the Godhead or the son of God. Which is fundamental to Christian belief.
This is the sort of ignorant statement we have come to expect of those who oppose our message. Where do you get the notion that JW's reject Jesus as the son of God? This is what Jesus called himself. What Jesus never claimed to be was "God the Son"....huge difference. There is not one single statement from Jesus that he is anything but "the son" of the God who sent him. His Father is also his God. Does one part of God worship another equal part of himself?
Even after his return to heaven, the Father was still his God. (Rev 3:12)
Jesus did not have to be Almighty God in order to fulfill his role as Messiah. All he needed to be was a perfect human specimen to give his life to cancel out the sin of Adam and rescue his children.
He was first and foremost a preacher and teacher but not many of his own people accepted him because their leaders had made Messiah's role into a political solution to their plight under the yoke of Rome. Jesus did nothing to liberate the Jews from Roman oppression but offered them a spiritual liberation grounded in the coming of his kingdom.....yet future.
The story of motes and beams comes to mind.
There are two sides to that story. :yes:
