Please allow me to address some of your comments. You assert that celebrating Christmas is like using the internet because neither is mentioned in Scripture. While similar arguments are often used, I do not believe that this is a fair comparison, but rather a logical fallacy. Let me clarify that this article is about whether Christians should participate in secular Christmas, not as a religious celebration. I said that I believed there is a danger of conforming to the world and setting a bad example for others in that we are showing our approval of a misguided secular holiday with a thin religious veneer. I believe that Christians have a responsibility to be a good example to others (1 Timothy 4:12). Also, we do not need to give any outsider a reason to speak against us through our participation and approval of worldly man-made holidays (Titus 2:7). The internet, however, supports the command to preach and teach the gospel much like a song book supports the command for us to sing. We must ask what is an aid versus an addition. The Christmas holiday is an addition because we were never commanded to celebrate the birth of Christ. Even celebrating it non-religiously shows our approval of the holiday to outsiders.

You then appeal to the fact that there is no prohibition of Christmas so it must be OK. This logic is also flawed and you misunderstand the nature of Scripture. The purpose of Scripture was not provide an exhaustive list of everything we CAN’T do. However, it does give us a list of everything that we are expected to do. If your child was sent to the store with twenty dollars and was only told to bring back a gallon of milk, but returned with both milk and candy, you’d have a similar situation. You would say “I didn’t give you authority to buy the candy.” The child would then reply “I know, but you didn’t tell me NOT to buy candy.” Is the child justified?

Next, you are taking Romans 14 out of context. The jews who were becoming Christians were trying to bind the jewish feast days on their brethren…particularly their gentile brethren. Paul is instructing them that the feast days are not important. I don’t see how you can use this to justify keeping feast days like old covenant jews. Besides, this is a manufactured holiday, not even one commanded feast day to the jews by God in the old covenant.

You then compare the Lord’s Supper to Christmas and argue that we must keep both even if they become corrupted. This too is flawed. The Lord’s Supper was a commanded memorial given by Jesus. Any corruption can be corrected by returning to the teaching in Scripture. Christmas (celebration of Christ’s birth) has no basis in Scripture so cannot be defended or restored from corruption by Scripture.

You say that you are fully convinced that you are not offending the Lord. I’d like to remind you that our feelings cannot always be trusted, but we must rather look to Scripture to determine what pleases God. God has always been specific in the way that He wants to be worshipped. We are not given the authority to worship God in whatever manner seems right in our own eyes.

“There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” –Proverbs 14:12

While there is not a directive to observe or celebrate the birth of Christ, neither is there a prohibition. Perhaps this is the kind of matter that Paul was discussing in Romans 14.

“One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thank to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”

“For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: ‘As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’ So then, each one of us will give an account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:5-12)

Just because the practice might become distorted may not necessarily mean it should be terminated. Christians are able to mess up anything…even the ordinances directly instituted by God. The Apostle Paul had to address the manner in which the Corinthian church was abusing the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11: 17-34). Thankfully the solution was not to do away with the Lord’s Supper but instead was to correct the church and call it to a more disciplined practice.

Personally, I am fully convinced in my own mind that I am not offending the Lord nor leading others astray as I celebrate Emmanuel, the truth that “God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son.” (John 3:16) So I will proclaim without reservation “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people!” (Luke 2:10)

Best of luck in your quest

Ryan P. Walker: Does 1 Peter 3:21 teach that baptism is necessary for salvation? http://www.gotquestions.or​g/baptism-1Peter-3-21.html

Joe Hamm: I like what he says here: “Yet to Peter or any of the first-century Christians, the idea that a person would confess Christ as his Savior and not be baptized as soon as possible would have been unheard of.”

Joe Hamm: It seems that the early Christians thought baptism was necessary…once they believed, they immediately were baptized.

Ryan P. Walker: Unheard of, except for the thief who came to salvation in Christ while nailed to a cross. Good thing for him that baptism isn’t a requirement.

Joe Hamm: Actually, the new covenant (or agreement) wasn’t in effect as long as Christ was still alive. He had to die to seal the deal. So you couldn’t really be baptized into His death until he died:)

Ryan P. Walker: Good point. I don’t think baptism is a ‘requirement’ for salvation. It is an outward sign of an inward change. The inward change is the ‘act’ of salvation. That said, being a disciple of Christ should mean being like Christ and would include the symbolic act of baptism.

Joe Hamm: Well, we both agree that baptism is important. However, our understanding of it seems to differ. I believe the Bible teaches that our agreement with God is signed at the moment of baptism. I might agree to buy a house, but I still have to seal the agreement. And then I have to keep making the payments:) In this case, we are baptized and then obey all that Christ has commanded.

Ryan P. Walker: As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another…
Then what is the time between choosing the salvation of Christ and the act of baptism, a cooling off period? What about true “death-bed conversion?”

Joe Hamm: In the Bible, this period of time seems to be negligible. “in the same hour of the night” and “immediately” are commonly used in these examples.

Joe Hamm: The Bible doesn’t teach about how to handle death bed conversions or other such outside cases. But the Bible does say that God will have mercy on who He chooses. It’s because of those outside cases involving death beds and babies being killed that churches started straying from the Bible. Sprinkling instead of immersion and infant baptisms.