Did Christmas Begin as a Pagan Holiday?
You’ve probably heard the old saw that December 25, Christmas, began as a pagan holiday. The most commonly cited connections are that it began as the Greco-Roman festival of Saturnalia, or else that it began as the Roman feast of the sun (Sol, or Greek Helios) at the winter solstice. The truth is, neither of these is correct. Saturnalia was a Roman festival in honor of the god Saturn. It had origins in the Greek holiday of Kronia, which celebrated the god Kronos. However, Saturnalia was never held on December 25. The......
Advent of the Messiah
Christmas is traditionally a celebration of the first coming of Jesus the Messiah, when he came as a baby in Bethlehem. This coming was to deal with our sin, and it led to the the Messiah’s death on the cross as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. It is good, however, not to ignore the promise of his second coming. The second coming of the Messiah will be very different than the first. It will not be to deal with sin (Heb 9:28), but to rule the world in righteousness. This second......
Born in Bethlehem
Jesus fulfilled many prophecies during his lifetime, and some have accused him of doing so in order to try and appear as the Messiah even when he was not. However, several of the prophecies he fulfilled were fulfilled at his birth, something he could not have manipulated were he not the true Messiah. These include his lineage (a descendant of David, 2 Sam 7:12-16), the time of his birth (prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70, Dan 9:26), and the place of his birth (in Bethlehem, Micah......
