An excerpt from last year — read the complete column here.
Time for a seasonal issue. Ho, ho, ho! Does the Bible say it’s wrong to have Christmas trees?
Ye have heard that it was said …
It’s wrong to have and decorate a Christmas tree (Jeremiah 10: 1-5).
AKA: Having a Christmas tree could be like having an idol.
What’s the Word?
Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord:
“Learn not the way of the nations,
nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens
because the nations are dismayed at them,
for the customs of the peoples are vanity.
A tree from the forest is cut down
and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman.
They decorate it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so that it cannot move.
Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,
and they cannot speak;
they have to be carried,
for they cannot walk.
Do not be afraid of them,
for they cannot do evil,
neither is it in them to do good.”
Jeremiah 10: 1-5
But who was Jeremiah’s audience? What was their situation and motivation? Are their trees-as-idols really the same as Christmas trees today, and are all Christians who enjoy Christmas trees thus automatically guilty of the same sin? Some solutions …
