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NASB | Colossians 2:16 ¶ Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day-- |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Colossians 2:16 ¶ Therefore let no one judge you in regard to food and drink or in regard to [the observance of] a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. |
Bible Question: I've been a Christian for about 3 years now. In a bible study of ours, some Christian scholars suggested that Jesus was not born on Dec. 25 because of the path Mary and Joseph took--they say it would be unlikely that His birth was in the winter, rather more like Spring. Does anyone has information on this? |
Bible Answer: Greetings Bcollier, There is no doubt that many of our present-day Christmas/New Year customs have little relevance to Biblical Christianity. Such things as the commercialism, the drunkenness, the highway deaths, and the general letdown in morals that have come to be associated with the so-called "Holiday Season" obviously have no basis in New Testament Christianity. The same is true of the Christmas tree, the holly and mistletoe, the Santa Claus myth, and similar more pleasant Christmas traditions. There is also no indication in the New Testament that the early Christians observed Christmas at all. Furthermore, many authorities believe now that Jesus was born, not in the winter, but more probably in the early fall. It is not surprising, therefore, that there have been various groups of Christians, both in the past and in the present, who have reacted against Christmas and New Year celebrations so vigorously as to reject them altogether and to prohibit their members from taking any part in them. On the other hand, there is much in our Christmas observances which, even though not explicitly found in the Bible, makes it a legitimate and wholesome application of the significance of the incarnation to the world. In a society which is becoming increasingly secularized and fragmented, it is surely good to have an annual and universal remembrance of the great historical fact that "in this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" (1 John 4:9). Even rank unbelievers and hardened cynics somehow seem to sense, at Christmastime, that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1:5, KJV), and this makes it a good time for evangelism. As far as the date of Christmas is concerned, this is unimportant in comparison with its message. It is singularly appropriate to observe the entrance of God into man's life at the time of the winter solstice, when the sun is at its farthest retreat and the nights are longest, for "the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10). As noted above, it is unlikely that December 25 is the actual birth date of Christ. Perhaps the most probable date, though no one really knows, is about September 29. This was the first day of the great Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, when thousands of pilgrims from all over Israel went up to Jerusalem to dwell in small "tabernacles" or booths, commemorating their wilderness wanderings and anticipating the coming kingdom, when God Himself would "tabernacle" with them (see Revelation 21:3). This would have been a good time for the Roman census, with the weather still warm and most of the harvest in, and with people traveling anyway. Shepherds would still have their flocks in the field, whereas none of these seems at all likely in the winter time. If one counts back 280 days (the normal peroid of human gestation), he arrives at the previous December 25. And then he realizes that the great miracle of the incarnation was not the birth of Christ, which was a fully normal human birth in every respect, but rather the miraculous conception, when the Holy Spirit placed the "holy thing" in the womb of the virgin Mary (Luke 1:35)! It was on that great day that the eternal Son, the second person of the divine Trinity, left the courts of heaven and "took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:7), knowing that this eventually would take Him to the "death of the cross." Blessings to you, Makarios |