Confused by this protestant

  • Thread starter Thread starter KendraDZ1902
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
K

KendraDZ1902

Guest
Ok, so today I posted on my Facebook that I am feeling much anxiety about deciding what to give people as Christmas gifts. I didn’t think this would cause an argument, but it did. :eek:

This person commented that I should “read about Christmas in the Bible” That this person’s family has decided not to celebrate Christmas. I let her know that I can’t just overlook Christmas, it being a Holy Day of Obligation for me and that I have read that giving gifts can represent the gifts given to Christ at his birth. That it wasn’t wrong to give gifts. Anyway, this is where it got kind of weird. I have family of different protestant back grounds and I’ve never heard the things she was saying.

Here goes:
“I’m just as devoted to Jesus/Yeshua and God/Yah too.” I’ve never heard of God and Jesus being called differently. She said that since Jesus was Jewish she doesn’t celebrate man made holidays like Christmas and Easter. That they celebrate Passover.

With her saying that she is devoted to Jesus, I assume that she is a Christian. I have just never heard of a Christian deciding to forgo Christian holidays and celebrating Jewish ones.

Anyone can shed some light on this for me? Thanks!
 
KendraDZ1902 said:
Ok, so today I posted on my Facebook that I am feeling much anxiety about deciding what to give people as Christmas gifts. I didn’t think this would cause an argument, but it did. :eek:

This person commented that I should “read about Christmas in the Bible” That this person’s family has decided not to celebrate Christmas. I let her know that I can’t just overlook Christmas, it being a Holy Day of Obligation for me and that I have read that giving gifts can represent the gifts given to Christ at his birth. That it wasn’t wrong to give gifts. Anyway, this is where it got kind of weird. I have family of different protestant back grounds and I’ve never heard the things she was saying.

Here goes:
“I’m just as devoted to Jesus/Yeshua and God/Yah too.” I’ve never heard of God and Jesus being called differently. She said that since Jesus was Jewish she doesn’t celebrate man made holidays like Christmas and Easter. That they celebrate Passover.

With her saying that she is devoted to Jesus, I assume that she is a Christian. I have just never heard of a Christian deciding to forgo Christian holidays and celebrating Jewish ones.

Anyone can shed some light on this for me? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Wow, the lack of logic-
-Jesus was Jewish so no Christmas or Easter, but Passover is perfectly ok
-The birth and death of Jesus (i.e. God) are **man-made **holidays
 
KendraDZ1902 said:
Ok, so today I posted on my Facebook that I am feeling much anxiety about deciding what to give people as Christmas gifts. I didn’t think this would cause an argument, but it did. :eek:

This person commented that I should “read about Christmas in the Bible” That this person’s family has decided not to celebrate Christmas. I let her know that I can’t just overlook Christmas, it being a Holy Day of Obligation for me and that I have read that giving gifts can represent the gifts given to Christ at his birth. That it wasn’t wrong to give gifts. Anyway, this is where it got kind of weird. I have family of different protestant back grounds and I’ve never heard the things she was saying.

Here goes:
“I’m just as devoted to Jesus/Yeshua and God/Yah too.” I’ve never heard of God and Jesus being called differently. She said that since Jesus was Jewish she doesn’t celebrate man made holidays like Christmas and Easter. That they celebrate Passover.

With her saying that she is devoted to Jesus, I assume that she is a Christian. I have just never heard of a Christian deciding to forgo Christian holidays and celebrating Jewish ones.

Anyone can shed some light on this for me? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Sounds like you need to stop assuming and ask her what her faith tradition is.

Peace
James
 
There are groups of what I understand to be Christians, but they follow Jewish Kosher laws and so one. Essentially people living a Jewish lifestyle, but recognizing Jesus as the messiah. This is essentially what people like Peter and some other Apostles were advocating. That said, I have met some leaders from one such church and talking with them is a little bit of an experience.
 
Do a quick forum search for Noahides. Dollars to donuts, that’s it.
 
KendraDZ1902 said:
“I’m just as devoted to Jesus/Yeshua and God/Yah too.” I’ve never heard of God and Jesus being called differently. She said that since Jesus was Jewish she doesn’t celebrate man made holidays like Christmas and Easter. That they celebrate Passover.
Click to expand...
Some people insist on using only Jesus’ ‘real name’ not the Greek version of it. There may be many such groups like this but I seem to recall a movement of late that to use only the ‘real name’ of Jesus and to celebrate only Jewish customs and traditions.

There have been many groups throughout history that reject Christmas and Easter celebrations. The Puritans in the northern US made celebrating Christmas illegal. Modern Seventh Day Adventists do not celebrate Easter.
 
You don’t need to defend or discuss anything. Simply say:
Since in my faith, Jesus is the ultimate Gift from God, I honor that Gift by presenting those who are dear to me with a gift in His honor.
I believe it pleases God.
So…any ideas everyone?

If she fights with you, simply state that you’re looking for cute, easy, economical, touching, meaningful etc. gift ideas, not a theological debate, BUT THANKS!

you just have to cut some folks off at the pass…Since the advent (you should pardon the expression) of Facebook, all semblance of cordial dialog has been thrown out the window. 🤷
 
It was only very recently that some Reformed Christians began to celebrate Christmas.

Personally, I do not celebrate it in a religious sense. That doesn’t mean I am a grouch, I don’t run around telling kids that Santa doesn’t exist and forbidding the giving of presents. I just prefer to leave it as a secular holiday.
 
There person sounds like they are either some kind of extreme fundamentalists who believe that Christmas is based on a pagan holiday due to junky research. They are also often people who are much closer to messianic jews than to main line Christians.

Here are a number of articles, etc. regarding this on Catholic Answers: catholic.com/search/content/christmas%20pagan

Because there used to be a Pagan holidays on Dec 21st and March 21; they assume that Christmas was based on one or both of these pagan holidays. Also, since Christmas isn’t discussed in the Bible, they assume that it was created by us “Pagan Catholics.”

Finally, a lot of these people do not celebrate birthdays either, simply because the ancient Jews didn’t celebrate birthdays (but no one did).

The Church as never declared that December 25th is the day Christ was born. We use the date to celebrate His Nativity. The date was picked due to a number of “educated guesses” based on some evidence and oral tradition."

The point is, Christmas is to celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ into the world; not the day of his birth. Unfortunately, these people do not understand that.
 
Covenanter said:
It was only very recently that some Reformed Christians began to celebrate Christmas.

Personally, I do not celebrate it in a religious sense. That doesn’t mean I am a grouch, I don’t run around telling kids that Santa doesn’t exist and forbidding the giving of presents. I just prefer to leave it as a secular holiday.
Click to expand...
May I ask why? Why not celebrate the Birth of Our Lord? Whether He was born on Dec 25th, Dec 15th, Jan 3rd or in June; the date doesn’t matter. We are celebrating what the Gospel tells us regarding the Birth of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

What’s so unholy about celebrating the anniversary of His coming into this world?
 
KendraDZ1902 said:
Ok, so today I posted on my Facebook that I am feeling much anxiety about deciding what to give people as Christmas gifts. I didn’t think this would cause an argument, but it did. :eek:

This person commented that I should “read about Christmas in the Bible” That this person’s family has decided not to celebrate Christmas. I let her know that I can’t just overlook Christmas, it being a Holy Day of Obligation for me and that I have read that giving gifts can represent the gifts given to Christ at his birth. That it wasn’t wrong to give gifts. Anyway, this is where it got kind of weird. I have family of different protestant back grounds and I’ve never heard the things she was saying.

Here goes:
“I’m just as devoted to Jesus/Yeshua and God/Yah too.” I’ve never heard of God and Jesus being called differently. She said that since Jesus was Jewish she doesn’t celebrate man made holidays like Christmas and Easter. That they celebrate Passover.

With her saying that she is devoted to Jesus, I assume that she is a Christian. I have just never heard of a Christian deciding to forgo Christian holidays and celebrating Jewish ones.

Anyone can shed some light on this for me? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Well that’s great. Catholics celebrate the Passover and still call it Passover. It’s only in English and German speaking countries that you find the term Easter. You should mention that to them. Also the Nativity was historically connected also with and considered the continuation of the Jewish Festival of Lights (I am the Light of the world). And finally as has been pointed out Yeshua and Jesus are exactly the same name one in Aramaic and one in Greek. Another interesting fact most people don’t realize but in English the name Yesua is translated as Joshua (remember, Joshua fit the battle of Jericho?). So if you name your child Joshua you’re naming them Jesus. 👍
 
KendraDZ1902 said:
Ok, so today I posted on my Facebook that I am feeling much anxiety about deciding what to give people as Christmas gifts. I didn’t think this would cause an argument, but it did. :eek:

This person commented that I should “read about Christmas in the Bible” That this person’s family has decided not to celebrate Christmas. I let her know that I can’t just overlook Christmas, it being a Holy Day of Obligation for me and that I have read that giving gifts can represent the gifts given to Christ at his birth. That it wasn’t wrong to give gifts. Anyway, this is where it got kind of weird. I have family of different protestant back grounds and I’ve never heard the things she was saying.

Here goes:
“I’m just as devoted to Jesus/Yeshua and God/Yah too.” I’ve never heard of God and Jesus being called differently. She said that since Jesus was Jewish she doesn’t celebrate man made holidays like Christmas and Easter. That they celebrate Passover.

With her saying that she is devoted to Jesus, I assume that she is a Christian. I have just never heard of a Christian deciding to forgo Christian holidays and celebrating Jewish ones.

Anyone can shed some light on this for me? Thanks!
Click to expand...
I have run into these people in the past few months and they were Christians who do not consider themselves Christians anymore because the Christian Church was corrupted by paganism (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church). Usually they seem to be coming from fundamentalist churches who teach VERY negative untrue propagandas about the Catholic Church and so when they discover scripture which shows that salvation is not a one time event and that once saved always saved is a false teaching from the bible…they begin to question their Christian faith…of course, they don’t move towards the Catholic Church because it is pagan (according to the same teachers that they have listened to before) and so they go backward. They are like the Galatians whom have received the Holy Spirit and then think they need to go back under the “Torah”. The more they listen to the teachings of that movement…the farther they get from Christianity. They believe in the Messiah but not in the Trinity. They believe in One God who basically has 3 offices…which is actually a heresy from the early centuries. Many eventually come to reject the Messiah and only see him as a prophet…it is a matter of time and who they listen too. Very sad if you ask me…as St. Paul said, “You foolish Galatians!”….Their mission now is to pull people out of the Christian churches into these new “Jewish groups”. They celebrate the OT feasts and worship on Saturday and follow the dietary laws. Some actually believe that the “New Covenant” is in the future…when God will set up his temple and the sacrifices will be brought back. Very hard to see the falsehoods they have chosen to follow…
 
This entire argument has always fallen flat with me for another reason. There is a reason so many pagan festivals occurred around certain times of year. The winter solstice, summer solstice and harvest time were important events in creation. God made the world this way and diverse groups in different places and at different times all recognized that, including the Jews by the way. That’s the miracle, people who had never heard of the God of Israel understood this. So it’s not a matter of adopting pagan festivals it’s a matter of celebrating God’s creation.
 
JRKH said:
Sounds like you need to stop assuming and ask her what her faith tradition is.

Peace
James
Click to expand...
She wasn’t very nice with these posts. She expected me to “respect” (start following her ways as the only way) her views, but she didn’t have to respect mine. Letting me know that they were totally wrong. :rolleyes: I got out of that conversation fast and I didn’t want to bring it up again. That’s why I turned to here.
 
Thanks for all the (name removed by moderator)ut. I have learned a lot today. Quite interesting how some people think. 😃
 
Covenanter said:
It was only very recently that some Reformed Christians began to celebrate Christmas.

Personally, I do not celebrate it in a religious sense. That doesn’t mean I am a grouch, I don’t run around telling kids that Santa doesn’t exist and forbidding the giving of presents. I just prefer to leave it as a secular holiday.
Click to expand...
Do you celebrate other birthdays?

Peace!!!
 
I have been many times “If Jesus was Jewish, why aren’t we all Jewish?” I say: Jesus started off as any other young Jewish man. However, he fulfilled the scripture which said that a messiah would come. He began his teachings and his followers were called and still are called “CHRISTians” because they followed Christ. Those that accepted him as the messiah are Christians - those who did not are Jewish. Those followers left their traditional faith behind for the new faith of Christianity. :crossrc:
 
Jewish, Christian, Protestant, Catholic yada yada yada; study the origins of today’s “Christian” holidays for yourself. Then make an informed intelligent decision. If you are willing to set “what it means to me” and “well I think” aside and honestly examine the root of what is called “Christian” in modern day holiday celebration you may be very surprised.
But you have to do that for yourself; my wife and I don’t do Christmas or Easter. We do celebrate Thanksgiving if you would even call it “celebrating”. Valentine’s Day, Birthdays, Reindeer, snowmen, and bunnies are not on our calender though.
 
jimbowanna said:
Jewish, Christian, Protestant, Catholic yada yada yada; study the origins of today’s “Christian” holidays for yourself. Then make an informed intelligent decision. If you are willing to set “what it means to me” and “well I think” aside and honestly examine the root of what is called “Christian” in modern day holiday celebration you may be very surprised.
But you have to do that for yourself; my wife and I don’t do Christmas or Easter. We do celebrate Thanksgiving if you would even call it “celebrating”. Valentine’s Day, Birthdays, Reindeer, snowmen, and bunnies are not on our calender though.
Click to expand...
I’m fine with the way I do things. 🙂
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top