Does Jeremiah 10 Forbid Us from Having Christmas Trees?

This new episode of CORE Christianity was prerecorded.

Does Jeremiah 10 forbid us to have Christmas trees? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi there and Merry Christmas. I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. This is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts, and you can always email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. And Adriel, this Christmas week, here's a great question from one of our listeners named Justin. He says, what does it mean to say that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God?

Yeah, I love that question. It gets us right to the heart of Christology, how we distinguish between the persons of the Trinity. Jesus is referred to as the only begotten or the eternally begotten Son of God. And this is language that we see in the Gospel of John in particular, in John chapter 1, verse 18. No one has ever seen God, the only God.

The word that's used there is monogenes, only begotten, if you will. The only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. Jesus is the eternal Word of the Father. This is what we read at the very beginning of John's Gospel. The beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And that Word, this is what many people are celebrating this time of year, became flesh, was incarnate for us and for our salvation. The divine person, the second person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, the only begotten, assumed humanity so that he might restore it and redeem it, so that he might redeem us. And so it really is the mystery of the incarnation, but the way in which we distinguish between the persons of the Trinity.

Let me give you some theology here. We sometimes talk about the processions that we find in scripture as well. This is how we distinguish God is one in essence, the same substance, equal in power and glory, but the persons are distinct. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is the only begotten, the eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, is sent out from the Father and the Son.

And so oftentimes, the way in which the Church Fathers talked about this is kind of interesting. They said Jesus is the eternal Son of God by nature, but he made us through the incarnation and his redemptive work sons and daughters of God by grace, by the grace of the Holy Spirit and by the grace of adoption. So Jesus has this unique position. He's the second person of the Holy Trinity, but through his work for us, what we celebrate again around this time of year, he has made it possible so that you and I could be adopted into the family of God so that we might be the children of the living God. Great response, Adriel, and that leads me to another question.

There are some, I guess you could call them religions, I might call them cults, that would deny that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, that he is a son of God or unequal with God or simply a good prophet and misleading a lot of people in today's world. Yeah. I mean, you do see this all over the place from the earliest days. I think this is one of Satan's favorite tactics. He goes straight for the jugular. He wants to go for core Christianity, that is who God is and what God has done. So if he can deceive people about the identity of Jesus Christ, he's not equal with the Father, he's less than, eternally subordinate to the Father, that kind of a thing, well, there's a huge problem there, isn't there? Again, this is what John says in 1 John 4 where he talks about the spirit of the Antichrist that's at work in the world today, wanting to deceive people about the identity of Jesus, and so we need to stick with what the scriptures say and what the Orthodox Church, the Christians throughout the last 2,000 years, have affirmed as faithful to the scriptures. We have to be real careful that we don't mess this up because it is really core Christianity.

Amen. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Here's our phone number. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, it's 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Darlena from Springfield, Missouri. Darlena, what's your question for Pastor Adriel?

Good afternoon. My question is, what does the Bible say about body embalming and burial versus cremation and spreading of ashes? Hey, Darlena, thank you for that question.

It is a question we've received on the broadcast before. I think there is liberty for the Christian with this issue. Now, the Bible has a very high view of the body. God made our bodies.

He made this world creation. The material world is good, but it is experienced and is experiencing the effects of sin, brokenness in the world, ever since Adam and Eve did what they did so long ago, but that doesn't mean that our bodies in this world aren't good and that God isn't going to restore them. In fact, Jesus' resurrection from the dead is, among other things, a sign of that great reality that even our bodies are going to be restored, raised up by the Lord. That promise that we have in Christ isn't based upon how we're buried. It's not based on if we were buried in the ground or in a tomb or cremated or lost at sea.

However it is or was, it's faith in Jesus Christ as our union with him by the power of the Holy Spirit that ensures that we are going to be raised from the dead. So I think that there is liberty here for the Christian. Obviously we want to be respectful and demonstrate in whatever we do, I think, that we do have a high view of the body, but I don't think that that means that you couldn't be cremated, for example, that that would be some kind of a desecration or a sin.

It really is, I think, a matter of personal conscience. And for us, the question that I always pose for people is not how are you going to be buried, but who do you trust in right now? That's the key to our eternal standing, our everlasting standing, if you will. It's who we're united to right now. Do we know Jesus?

Do we have a relationship with him? If we do, whether we're cremated or buried, we're going to be raised on the last day. Amen. Darlena, thanks so much for your question. By the way, we have a wonderful core question on this topic at our website. Can a Christian be cremated?

You can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash questions. And by the way, we have a wonderful resource for this week, for Christmas week, we want to tell you about. There are people who have a kind of a stumbling block when it comes to celebrating Christmas, and many of them, unfortunately, are Christians.

Yeah. You know, Scrooge's, you know, the bah humbug. Every holiday season, we hear the claim that Christmas is a pagan holiday. The early church, in an attempt to appease the pagan culture, you know, mixed pagan festivals with Christian themes, and that's how we got Christmas. But is that the true story of Christmas? Our new resource, five reasons why Christmas isn't a pagan holiday, helps to unravel some of the most common objections and misconceptions about the origins of Christmas.

It will give you an appreciation for the resilience of the church through the ages and explain why Christians can receive and celebrate Christmas with joy. And it's yours for free over at corechristianity.com. You can find that once again by going to our website corechristianity.com forward slash offers, or you can call us for that offer or any one of our offers.

833-843-2673 is the number. And along those lines, Adriel, here is a great question for this week. This is from one of our listeners named Megan. She says, I was reading Jeremiah this year in my devotions, and I came across what it says about trees in pagan worship in chapter 10 verses 1 through 16. This passage really seems to describe what Christmas trees look like around this season. Does this prove that critiques from some people against celebrating Christmas are valid?

Yeah, I hope not, because if you're watching us on YouTube right now, you can see a small decorated Christmas tree to my right, and so this could be really bad for us. No, it doesn't. I mean, we have to understand this passage, Jeremiah chapter 10, and its context. Let me just read starting in verse 1, it says, The word of the Lord, 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 people 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 any good. Really, some echoes here from what we read in the book of Isaiah, and the 40s, Isaiah 46 in particular, related to idolatry, also the Psalms. You know, think of Psalm 115. The idols of the nations are silver and gold.

They have eyes but don't see, ears but don't hear, you know, mouth but they don't speak. The point here is what these people are doing is they're worshiping these wooden creations that they're making. You know, they go, they cut down a tree, they fashion it into this figurine, this thing, they, you know, plaster it with gold and decorations, but really what it is for them is a God that they're worshiping, that they're bowing down to. And God says, look, you got to carry these things. I'm the true and the living God who carries you, my people.

Don't put your hope, your trust in that. Now, if when you go to purchase your Christmas tree, you are, you know, treating it as some sort of deity and you put it up in your house and you're bowing down before it. Well, yeah, that would be a serious problem if you're like me and you know, you go to get your Christmas tree and you bring it home and you decorate it with the family and you have hot chocolate and listen to Mariah Carey's Christmas, you know, album, then I think you're okay. But the reality is what's happening here is idol worship, pagan idol worship. It's what the people around Israel were participating in and to just do a sort of one-to-one correlation between that and, you know, the Christmas tree around this time of year, I think is a stretch. So God bless and Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. That's a great question.

Thank you so much, Megan. This is core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. I don't know. Some people have some pretty scary Christmas tree decorations on, you know, and some pretty tacky ones, too.

So, yeah, we got the tacky ones for sure. Well, let's go to a question that came in from one of our listeners named Calvin. Yes.

Why do a lot of Christian claim Christian nationality? I can't think of any more right now, but where they say let's pray for America and for America's recovery, where the world is going to be ended, God's going to come back and all this is going to be burnt away anyway. Right.

So instead of worshipping and making disciples, why is there a push to save America? Thanks. Bye. Yeah, there's a lot here, brother, and I really appreciate your question. So, one, you're right that the whole world is going to be burned away, if you will. This is something that Peter talks about in 2 Peter when he's referring in particular to the coming of the Lord. He says in chapter 3, verse 11, Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, that is, this world that we live in, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn? But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. In other words, this world, together with its kingdoms, is going to burn away.

Daniel makes this absolutely clear in the visions that we see in the book of Daniel. The kingdoms of this world are ground to dust, if you will, and the kingdom that God has established, ultimately, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, right now expanding through the preaching of the gospel and the church, that's going to cover the face of the whole world. And so there is going to be this cataclysmic event, but your question is, why pray for the nations of this world and seek to do good even when all these things are going to be burned away? Well, we're called to do good.

We're called to be a light in this world, to let our good works shine before men so that they might see them and glorify our Father who is in heaven. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, we're called to pray for civil rulers and civil government, that we might be able to lead peaceable lives, that they might rule justly. I mean, they're accountable still to God. Paul makes this clear in Romans chapter 13, verses 1 and following. These are rulers who have been established by the Lord and they're accountable to him. And one day, as I said, they're temporary, they're not going to be around forever, and of course, we know that, but God's kingdom is going to be covering the face of the whole earth.

And God is already doing that now through the proclamation, as I said, of the gospel. Now, you mentioned the sort of Christian national identity, and that is something I think that concerns me. I think we can be grateful for wherever it is that we are, where we live. We can have a sense of patriotism, joy for the blessings that God has given to us, but our ultimate citizenship as Christians is in heaven. It's in the kingdom that God has established. We are first and foremost citizens of heaven.

When Paul was writing to the Philippians, in Philippians chapter 3, the Philippians were a group that could be very proud of their citizenship, of their Roman citizenship. And he says, Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many of whom I often told you, and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction. Their God is their belly. They glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven. And from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.

So I think that there's a balance that we have to have, and here it is. One, we recognize that our ultimate identity is in Jesus, is we are citizens of heaven. We're a part of this kingdom that is right now expanding through the proclamation of the gospel, and as members of this kingdom we're called to be light in the world, salt and light, to do good to all people, especially those of the household of faith, and to seek to share the love of Christ and the goodness of Christ to the world around us.

So we're not just saying, hey, this world is all going to burn, let's move to the mountains and wait for Jesus to come back. No, we're actually engaged in the world, in society, seeking to love God and our neighbors through the things that we do. And so we have to have that there, and we have to be careful that we're not putting our ultimate hope in the nations of this world, even the one that many people are proud to be a part of.

That's great. We can give thanks to the Lord, as I said, for the blessings that He's given to us, for the freedoms that we have, but let's make sure that we're not thinking that, like America is God's new kingdom on earth, that kind of a thing. We can't confuse the kingdoms of this world with the kingdom of God, our earthly citizenship with our heavenly citizenship. As citizens of heaven, we are engaging the world around us with the hope of the gospel, but we're not putting our hope in that world. Our hope is in Jesus. Thanks for that question.

Great balanced response there, Adriel. Thanks for spelling that out, really appreciate that. This is Core Christianity. We want to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

We have this great free resource available for you. It's Five Reasons Why Christmas Isn't a Pagan Holiday. So if you have a friend or relative who maybe is tending to be anti-Christmas and kind of being a Scrooge this year, you might want to read this and then share some of the information with them. Again, it's called Five Reasons Why Christmas Isn't a Pagan Holiday. You can find that at corechristianity.com forward slash offers.

Well, we do receive Facebook questions here, and here's one from Tom who's visiting our Facebook page. He says, I'm a new Christian and my fiance is not a believer. I just learned about being unequally yoked.

Should I continue to pursue this marriage? Hey, Tom. One, I'm grateful to hear that you are in the Lord, that you're a new believer. I remember back to when I first started walking with the Lord when God called me to Himself.

That is an exciting time, and I pray that you're growing and just immersing yourself in the Scriptures and in Christian community. As you do that, you're going to continue to learn, and it sounds like you've just been confronted with this particular passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14 where the Apostle Paul said, Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial, or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? You know, one of the things that Paul makes clear in his previous letter to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 is that as a Christian, we're free to be married only in the Lord. That is, we shouldn't pursue marriage with people who are not in Christ, who don't believe in Jesus or have a personal relationship with Jesus. Now, one of the dangers as I've talked to individuals who want to be married is they'll find someone who doesn't really go to church, and they know that you're a Christian, and they like you. And so they're willing to go along for the ride. If you know they'll go to church, and maybe they'll even become a member of the church and say, Yeah, I believe these things. But really what they want is not Jesus and the gospel.

Really what they want is a relationship with you. And so I think these situations can be really sticky. I would say don't pursue marriage or go through with the marriage with someone who isn't on the same page as you are with regard to faith in Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean that you can't have a friendship or a relationship, but I think it can't progress to marriage if this person doesn't have a relationship with the Lord, if they don't believe in the Lord.

Because this is going to shape the rest of your life, this person that you're with, as you think about maybe starting a family. It's so important that we agree on the most important thing, and that is who Jesus is and what He's done for us. So I would encourage you to hold off on the marriage and to, as difficult as it is, to have the hard conversation of saying, Look, I love you, but the most important thing, I'm learning more and more that the most important thing is Christ, who He is, what He's done for me. And I don't want to manipulate you to Jesus.

I don't want you to feel like you have to become a Christian so that we can get married. And so I want to kind of take a step back and give you freedom and us freedom, not to have the pressure of needing to get married, but the freedom to be able to really examine these things, what it is that we believe, who we're putting our trust in, and then to think about going from there. And so that's what I would say to you on the basis of what Paul says there in 2 Corinthians 6 and also in 1 Corinthians 7. And again, I know that that's a real hard thing, and that's a difficult pill to swallow. But let me just encourage you, brother, in that as we in the Christian life follow the Lord and seek to prioritize our relationship with Jesus, there are difficult decisions that we make.

There are things that we leave behind. And yet, know that as we pursue the Lord, God is going to be with you and to bless you in your pursuit of Him and seeking to be obedient to Him. And pray that the Lord also is at work in your fiancé, that you guys can have good conversations about this, and that ultimately she would come to know Jesus not because she wants to be with you, but because she's captivated by His grace, His glory, the forgiveness of sins that we can have in Him, that the Lord would truly do a work in her heart as well.

And when He does, I would say, go for it. God bless. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

Let's go to a voicemail we received from one of our listeners named David. I have a question regarding something I experienced in the worship service. It was actually an ordination for myself, and the pastor invited a guest preacher, but she did not preach. She got up at the pulpit and began to speak in tongues and doing things that I thought was a little theatrical. I remained patient, waiting for her to preach, because as I know in 1 Corinthians 14, we talk about gifts of tongues are present and are necessary sometimes, but isn't prophecy supposed to be first? And is it necessary to speak in tongues as part of the worship service? I spoke to my pastor about it, and he told me I wasn't correct, that I just needed to learn to be humble and accepted.

I'd like to know your feedback. Thank you. Hi, brother, thank you for that question. Congratulations on your recent ordination. May the Lord bless you as you seek to serve Him. You're going to the right passage of scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 14, and Paul is very clear there that if somebody is speaking in tongues, there needs to be an interpreter, that this is an actual language that brings glory to God, and that there needs to be an interpreter if it's used.

Now, my personal position is that that gift was a gift that was given really during the apostolic era, that God is not ordinarily giving the gift of tongues today. So when you ask the question, is this something that needs to happen in the worship service, I would say no, and typically it doesn't. It's not an ordinary part of the life of the church. What is an ordinary part of the life of the church, as you know, is the proclamation of the word of God. That has to take the priority, the preaching of the Holy Gospel, the preaching of the law of God, and so that's what you want to prioritize in your own ministry. I mean, you just got ordained, and so I would encourage you, brother, hear the exhortation that Paul gave to Timothy, preach the word.

Do that and you'll be good. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.