Do Santa, Christmas Trees etc. Bother You?

[Deeje]

How do you know he was baptized on his 30th birthday? and how do you know his ministry lasted exactly 3 1/2 years?

Luke 3:23...
"When Jesus began his work, he was about 30 years old, being the son, as the opinion was, of Joseph..."

How do we determine a three and half year ministry?
One line of reasoning is Daniel 9:27 which speaks of Jesus as the Messiah, the prince, making firm the Abrahamic covenant with many of the Jewish remnant for a period of one week of seven years. This indicates that at the start of Jesus’ ministry in the autumn, A.D. 29, the exclusive opportunity to become part of the seed of Abraham according to the Abrahamic promise made by Jehovah fell to the Jews alone. Such singular opportunity expired seven years later, A.D. 36, when the calling was extended to the Gentiles, inviting them also to become part of this Kingdom seed. (Gal. 3:28, 29) Then, significantly, Daniel goes on to say that in the “midst of the week” or in the middle of this seven years, hence after three and a half years, Jesus would cause the Law sacrifices to cease officially.

At Colossians 2:14 the apostle Paul shows that God used Jesus’ death to take away or legally cancel the Law covenant with its sacrifices “by nailing it to the torture stake.” This obviously occurred in the spring A.D. 33.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Luke 3:23...
"When Jesus began his work, he was about 30 years old, being the son, as the opinion was, of Joseph..."

How do we determine a three and half year ministry?
One line of reasoning is Daniel 9:27 which speaks of Jesus as the Messiah, the prince, making firm the Abrahamic covenant with many of the Jewish remnant for a period of one week of seven years. This indicates that at the start of Jesus’ ministry in the autumn, A.D. 29, the exclusive opportunity to become part of the seed of Abraham according to the Abrahamic promise made by Jehovah fell to the Jews alone. Such singular opportunity expired seven years later, A.D. 36, when the calling was extended to the Gentiles, inviting them also to become part of this Kingdom seed. (Gal. 3:28, 29) Then, significantly, Daniel goes on to say that in the “midst of the week” or in the middle of this seven years, hence after three and a half years, Jesus would cause the Law sacrifices to cease officially.

At Colossians 2:14 the apostle Paul shows that God used Jesus’ death to take away or legally cancel the Law covenant with its sacrifices “by nailing it to the torture stake.” This obviously occurred in the spring A.D. 33.

So, really, Jesus' ministry could have started when he was 29 1/2, or when he was 30 1/2.

None of the rest of your reasoning works for more than one reason.

1. You don't know the year Jesus was born. Scholars have been trying to figure this for ages and have never come to a consensus.

2. Trying to figure out the weeks according to Daniel is a lost cause because you don't know what date to start counting from, there are more than one possibility. Indeed, you don't know if the weeks are literal or figurative.

 

[Deeje]

When I mentioned captives and collective judgement, I was talking about the Midianites. Rahab was almost executed because of collective judgement. The Bible doesn't say that she was a temple prostitute, but similar to Daniel being captive because of the sins of his nation, she was almost affected by the consequences of their mistakes.

Rahab earned her pardon because she risked her own life to conceal the spies sent in to Jericho by Joshua.
She was instructed to put a red cord out of the window of her home (which she did) and when the city fell, Rahab and her household survived. So, yes community accountability has always applied even in Israel, as was demonstrated with Daniel. But please do not forget that God is the rightful authority over life and death. He created life and only he can authorize the taking of it. Not only that, but he can also restore life which he has promised to do in the scriptures. By means of Jesus God will raise the dead.....all who are sleeping at present will rise in a new world of righteousness. ( 2Peter 3:13: John 5:28-29)

The rapture is an example of collective judgement, because it doesn't occur during the age of grace. I think the Moabites being banned from worship till the tenth generation is an example of people being punished for the sins of their forefathers. The same with the Midianites and the rapture.

Revelation 20:12-13....

"And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. But another scroll was opened; it is the scroll of life. The dead were judged out of those things written in the scrolls according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead in it, and death and the Grave gave up the dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds."

The only people to perish at the judgment are those who have ignored the preaching of "the good news of God's Kingdom" that has been preached "in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations" (Matthew 24:14)
Only then, when all have had an opportunity to respond to that message will God bring down the curtain on this old world, and bring back the paradise conditions that Adam lost for all his children. He will raise the dead to take their place in it.

 

[oldbadger]

I recall when I was a Christian and even as a kid, I never really liked or understood the whole Santa thing. I found it a bit odd and thought it took away from the religious meaning of the holiday by way of overshadowing it. Things like Christmas trees also bothered me and I recall mentioning that to one of our Jewish users on here when I was a Christian.

Are there any Christians here who are also bothered by this? Do you think it's too childish or otherwise takes from the message/meaning?

Hi....
I'm not a Christian but can I answer anyway?
The feast which we now call Christmas existed thousands of years before Jesus.
Many of the 'things' that we remember and do are from much earlier times.

And so Christmas TIME is just as much a part of secular culture as it is part of Christianity.

Folks should select the parts of Christmas which they favour and discard the other, I think.

 

[Deeje]

So, really, Jesus' ministry could have started when he was 29 1/2, or when he was 30 1/2.

None of the rest of your reasoning works for more than one reason.

1. You don't know the year Jesus was born. Scholars have been trying to figure this for ages and have never come to a consensus.

2. Trying to figure out the weeks according to Daniel is a lost cause because you don't know what date to start counting from, there are more than one possibility. Indeed, you don't know if the weeks are literal or figurative.

Going by scripture, he was about 30 years old.
Scholars are uncertain about the year of Jesus birth because Jews did not celebrate birthdays and so there are none recorded in the Hebrew scriptures. We figure it was about the beginning of October 2BCE.

Since Daniel was the source of this prophesy, the Jews in the first century were in expectation of the Messiah at that time.
"Jewish historian Luke states that “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar [29 C.E.],” “the people were in expectation and all were reasoning in their hearts about John [the Baptizer]: ‘May he perhaps be the Christ [Hebrew, Ma·shiʹach, Messiah]?’” (Luke 3:1, 15)

Does secular history bear out this statement by Luke? The new English edition of Emil Schürer’s History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ asks: “Did this hope [Messianic expectation] remain constantly alive among the people?” In reply, it states: “In the last pre-Christian centuries, and especially in the first century A.D., it became once more very lively, as the Pseudepigrapha [Jewish apocalyptic literature], Qumran [Dead Sea community’s writings], Josephus and the Gospels show so decisively. . . . The visions of the book of Daniel . . . exercised a profound influence on the formation of the messianic idea.”

The Jews were anxiously looking for the coming of the Messiah. By computing the time mentioned by Daniel (chap. ix. vss 25-27), they knew that the period was approaching when the Messiah should appear.” It can also be stated that Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus, as well as Jewish historians Josephus and Philo, mention this state of expectation. The French Manuel Biblique, by Bacuez and Vigouroux (Volume 3, page 191), confirms this, and states: “People knew that the seventy weeks of years fixed by Daniel were drawing to a close; nobody was surprised to hear John the Baptist announce that the kingdom of God had drawn near.”
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1984882?q=in+expectation+that+time&p=par

 

[Kenny]

It has to do with your comment about we are engrafted into the tribe of Judah. Is it in the ethno religious cultural sense? Jewish religious aspects and ethnicity came from the tribe of Judah, but the culture of the Hebrews existed before Moses.

Ok - gotcha now. In that we were "born-again" - spiritually - and we engrafted into the tribe of Judah. As it was said in the TaNaKh Deut 30:6 "Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heartand with all your soul, so that you may live.

and repeated by the Pharisee Saul/Paul

Romans 2:29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

 

[Kenny]

Ummm....Noah lived a good while before Israel (Jacob) was even born. Noah was the only righteous man alive at that time and God chose him to preserve alive his own family and all of the animals kinds on the ark when he destroyed the world of that time. God then used the circumstances of the pre-flood world to instruct us about the time of the end when Christ was to make his second appearance. (Matthew 24:37-39)

One does not need to be an Israelite to hear God's voice before he even formed his people into a nation. But once he did form them into a nation, he covenanted with them to obey the laws he gave only to them. They agreed to the terms of their own free will. But they never kept them.

The Patriarchs were the heads of their own clans and they acted as priests and instructed their families in God's ways. Abraham and Job were also Patriarchs. Israel was still a couple of generations away.

You missed the point that he wasn't an Israelite (because they didn't exist) and yet God spoke to him. We can't put God in a box and tell Him who He can speak to and who He can't speak to. God sent an angel to speak to Cornelius and he wasn't an Israelite. Melchizedek wasn't an Israelite but God spoke through Him.

Birthdays are the traditions of men, so I believe you have that a bit backwards.... but your comment there works in reverse.....
"don't teach traditions of men (birthdays) as commandments of God".....is God using you to tell the truth against your will. LOL.

The people Jesus had the most problem with were those who were immovably stuck in their man made traditions and who stubbornly refused to give them up when he exposed the truth about them.

No, I have it right. It IS a tradition of man... but you teach it as a commandment of God. Not a spiritual act of worship to a god - that Deut forbids - but a simply rejoicing that we have someone we love with us.

 

[Skywalker]

Rahab earned her pardon because she risked her own life to conceal the spies sent in to Jericho by Joshua.
She was instructed to put a red cord out of the window of her home (which she did) and when the city fell, Rahab and her household survived. So, yes community accountability has always applied even in Israel, as was demonstrated with Daniel. But please do not forget that God is the rightful authority over life and death. He created life and only he can authorize the taking of it. Not only that, but he can also restore life which he has promised to do in the scriptures. By means of Jesus God will raise the dead.....all who are sleeping at present will rise in a new world of righteousness. ( 2Peter 3:13: John 5:28-29)



Revelation 20:12-13....

"And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. But another scroll was opened; it is the scroll of life. The dead were judged out of those things written in the scrolls according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead in it, and death and the Grave gave up the dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds."

The only people to perish at the judgment are those who have ignored the preaching of "the good news of God's Kingdom" that has been preached "in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations" (Matthew 24:14)
Only then, when all have had an opportunity to respond to that message will God bring down the curtain on this old world, and bring back the paradise conditions that Adam lost for all his children. He will raise the dead to take their place in it.

If the Caananites had the option to flee, what was she pardoned from? Was it judgement akin to the Rapture which isnt in the age of grace? I think it wouldnt be fair to everyone else if she was spared, because God is no respector of persons. Why were the animals killed too?

 

[Skywalker]

The pre-flood world of Noah's day merited God's anger and he took drastic action to rid the world of wickedness at that time.

What about Nineveh? Jonah was sent to this non-Israelite city that was renown for its violence, being called "the bloody city" in Nahum 3:1. It was built by Nimrod who was the first rebel after the Noachian flood. (Genesis 10:11)

God's judgment was that he was going to destroy it because of its gross wickedness and he sent Jonah to tell them what God was going to do about them......much to Jonah's shock, the whole city repented and it was spared, but it wasn't long before it reverted to its old ways and God ended up carrying out his original plan.

You can read about it here...
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1960165?q=nineveh&p=par

Sodom and Gomorrah were another two cities which were so immoral that God could not tolerate them.

These places and God's response to them, set up a pattern that the apostle Peter referred to....
2 Peter 2:4-10...
"Certainly God did not refrain from punishing the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tarʹta·rus, putting them in chains of dense darkness to be reserved for judgment. 5 And he did not refrain from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a flood upon a world of ungodly people. 6 And by reducing the cities of Sodʹom and Go·morʹrah to ashes, he condemned them, setting a pattern for ungodly people of things to come. 7 And he rescued righteous Lot, who was greatly distressed by the brazen conduct of the lawless people— 8 for day after day that righteous man was tormenting his righteous soul over the lawless deeds that he saw and heard while dwelling among them. 9 So, then, Jehovah knows how to rescue people of godly devotion out of trial, but to reserve unrighteous people to be destroyed on the day of judgment, 10 especially those who seek to defile the flesh of others and who despise authority."

These are pictorial example that help us to see where this world is going....and what God will do to rid the whole world of wickedness and those who practice it.

In this time of the end, God is separating mankind into "sheep and goats" in order to bring his purpose to a finish.

Sodom and Gommorah weren't just judged because of homosexuality but because of living together before marriage.

God punishes because God's infinite justice demands that he punishes sin. But because of his infinite love, God wants to find a way to avoid punishing us.

 

[Zaha Torte]

What Christian principles?....you mean greed, selfishness and gluttony? No to mention drunkenness....

Ask the police what they think about Christmas time......domestic (alcohol fueled) violence always goes through the roof at this time of year.....do you know why?
The "happy family" time that Christmas was supposed to represent has been destroyed by divorce as people squabble over whose place the kids will have Christmas dinner....or who can bribe their kids with the most "toys". It can get ugly.



I think God does. He made it pretty clear how he feels about his people adopting false worship.

That whole "put Christ back into Christmas" thing is a joke....he was never "in" Christmas in the first place.

This is like arguing that Christianity is bad because of the Spanish Inquisition.

Christmas was an attempt to unite an Empire through a State religion.

 

[Zaha Torte]

Seems that the Japanese got more into a material Christmas then into Christ.
They were exposed to 'Christendom' ( so-called Christian but in name only ) and that is quite different than 1st-century Christian teachings, biblical teachings.

Then go to Japan and change that.

 

[metis]

Christmas was an attempt to unite an Empire through a State religion.

It's a liturgical celebration of the "mass of Christ".

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

This is like arguing that Christianity is bad because of the Spanish Inquisition.

Christmas was an attempt to unite an Empire through a State religion.

They already had a state religion before Christianity even existed and the Empire fall apart at basically the same time they made it the state religion. Christmas existed before Christianity was made the state religion, anyway. So that's not a very viable theory.

 

[Zaha Torte]

They already had a state religion before Christianity even existed and the Empire fall apart at basically the same time they made it the state religion. Christmas existed before Christianity was made the state religion, anyway. So that's not a very viable theory.

I know the observance of the solstice existed prior to Christianity and a State religion - but they figured that Christianity could potentially make it easier to control the masses. And I believe they were right.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I know the observance of the solstice existed prior to Christianity and a State religion - but they figured that Christianity could potentially make it easier to control the masses. And I believe they were right.

Evidence for the part I bolded?

 

[Zaha Torte]

Evidence for the part I bolded?

I'm sorry. I don't see a bolded portion of you post.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'm sorry. I don't see a bolded portion of you post.

Oops. Fixed.

 

[Zaha Torte]

Oops. Fixed.

No problem.

I don't know how you feel about Wikipedia but my point comes from this idea recorded there,

"Some scholars allege that his main objective was to gain unanimous approval and submission to his authority from all classes, and therefore chose Christianity to conduct his political propaganda, believing that it was the most appropriate religion that could fit with the Imperial cult."

Constantine the Great and Christianity - Wikipedia

It is definitely a theory that has been floating around for a while and one I subscribe to.

 

[Skywalker]

You missed the point that he wasn't an Israelite (because they didn't exist) and yet God spoke to him. We can't put God in a box and tell Him who He can speak to and who He can't speak to. God sent an angel to speak to Cornelius and he wasn't an Israelite. Melchizedek wasn't an Israelite but God spoke through Him.



No, I have it right. It IS a tradition of man... but you teach it as a commandment of God. Not a spiritual act of worship to a god - that Deut forbids - but a simply rejoicing that we have someone we love with us.

Do you believe that Melchizedek is Jesus?

 

[Deeje]

This is like arguing that Christianity is bad because of the Spanish Inquisition.

Well I hate to have to break it to you, but that is actually true...except that it wasn't "Christianity" that went bad...it was "the church". It was foretold though....did you know that?

Shouldn't the fact that the Gregorian calendar, (that we use to this day) which was issued by Pope Gregory and carries the names of false gods for all the months and days of the week, have raised some red flags somewhere?

'Christian is as Christian does'.....you can't call yourself a "Christian" and then do all the things that the Father condemned. Everything Jesus taught was from his God and Father. The first of the Ten Commandments was "thou shalt have no other gods but me". When you adopt the worship of false gods, (regardless of what you call it) you are putting another god in place of the Father. Christmas was originally a festival honoring the god Mithra. All the customs associated with Christmas comes from that, mixed in with other pagan traditions borrowed from the Norse gods.

Christmas was an attempt to unite an Empire through a State religion.

LOL....the apostle Paul said that if we "touch" what is spiritually "unclean" (like the trappings of false worship) we will not be accepted as God's "sons and daughters". (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)
There is no such thing as a "state religion" in Christianity, just as there is no nation that can collectively call themselves "Christian" either. Christianity was to be chosen on an individual basis after accepting Christ's teachings...it cannot be mandated.

Israel was punished time and time again for their excursions into false worship, incurring God's anger and punishment. What makes Christendom think she can get away with it?