What Paul said about holy days, the Christmas tree verse that is not about trees, the Puritans who said no, and where Sound of Heaven lands.
Should Christians celebrate Christmas? They are free to, and no believer should be pressured either way. The Bible never commands a feast for the birth of Jesus and never forbids one. Paul treats special days as a matter of conscience in Romans 14:5-6, where each person should be fully convinced in their own mind.
At Sound of Heaven we celebrate the birth of Jesus gladly. We do not judge believers who sit it out, and we will not let the shopping swallow the Savior.
The history of the date is covered in our study on the origin of Christmas. This page asks the question underneath: is it right for a follower of Jesus to keep the day?
Some held certain days sacred, some treated every day alike. Paul tells both to act for the Lord and stop judging.
Believers were judged for skipping festivals and Sabbaths. Paul says those were a shadow of Christ.
Gentile converts were pushed to take on the law's calendar to be accepted. Paul calls that slavery.
All three are about Christians judging other Christians over the calendar. None is about Christmas, which did not exist yet. So we ask what Paul was correcting first.
The church in Rome mixed Jewish and Gentile believers. Some kept the food laws and holy days they grew up with, others felt free of them, and each side was tempted to look down on the other. Paul tells them to accept one another “without quarreling over disputable matters” (Romans 14:1).
“One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.”
Romans 14:5-6Read verse 6 slowly. The one who keeps the day does it to the Lord, the one who does not also does it to the Lord, and both give thanks. Paul declares no winner. He asks, “Who are you to judge someone else's servant?” (Romans 14:4). A day kept in honor of Jesus is not sin, and skipping it out of devotion to Jesus is not sin either.
Romans 14 makes Christmas neither required nor forbidden. It makes it a question you answer before the Lord, with thanks, and without contempt for the believer who answers differently.
These two get quoted most by believers who think Christmas is off limits. In their setting, they point the other way.
“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”
Colossians 2:16-17In Colossae someone was judging believers who did not keep the festivals, new moons and Sabbaths of the old covenant calendar. Paul says do not let anyone do that to you. Those days were shadows cast ahead of Jesus, and once He came the shadow had done its job. We walk through how that applies to the weekly day of rest in what the Sabbath is in the Bible.
Notice who Paul corrects: the person doing the judging. That protects the believer who keeps a festival as much as the one who does not.
“You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!” Alone, it sounds like a verdict on every Christian calendar. In context, Gentile believers were being told they had to take on circumcision and the law to belong to God's people (Galatians 5:2-4). Paul calls that turning back to “those weak and miserable forces” (Galatians 4:9). The problem was making a calendar a condition of standing with God. Turning the verse into a rule that real Christians must never keep Christmas repeats the same mistake with the sign flipped.
Judging a fellow believer over days. Treating any calendar as a requirement for acceptance with God.
A church or family freely choosing a day to thank God for the birth of Jesus. Paul himself hurried to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost (Acts 20:16).
Every December someone posts Jeremiah 10 next to a decorated tree. It looks like a match.
“For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.”
Jeremiah 10:3-5Keep reading past verse 4. The wood is shaped with a chisel, covered in silver and gold, nailed so it will not fall, and carried because it cannot walk. Verse 5 names it: an idol. Jeremiah is mocking the carved gods of Judah's neighbors.
Jeremiah wrote about six hundred years before Jesus, and more than two thousand years before decorated evergreens show up in German homes. Nobody carves the tree in your living room into a god or prays to it. Using Jeremiah 10 against Christmas trees is proof-texting: lifting words that look similar and ignoring what they mean.
The real lesson still lands. Anything given the place that belongs to God becomes an idol, carved or bought on credit. Our study on idolatry goes further.
In Jeremiah 10:3-5, what is the tree that gets cut down and decorated?
Verse 5 calls it an idol that cannot speak or walk. Jeremiah is mocking carved gods, centuries before any Christmas custom existed.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Some serious Christians refused to keep Christmas. They deserve a fair hearing, not a punchline.
The worship guide drawn up by the Westminster Assembly put it plainly: “Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued.”
Parliament abolished Christmas, Easter and Whitsun. The National Army Museum notes soldiers seized food cooked for the day, and most people celebrated anyway.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony fined anyone keeping Christmas. The law called such festivals a “great dishonor of God and offence of others.”
Christmas returned in England with the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660. Massachusetts repealed its ban in 1681.
Their case at its strongest: public worship should include only what God has commanded. God gave the Lord's Day and never commanded a Christmas, so adding a holy day is adding to His word. They also watched Christmas turn into drinking and disorder. That is not a silly argument, and similar convictions are alive today.
Some Reformed and Presbyterian churches still keep only the Lord's Day. They love Jesus and are being consistent with how they read Scripture.
Some are troubled by the Roman festivals near the date. We think that history is overstated, but the concern can be sincere.
Some watched the season turn into debt and noise and quietly stepped out. For them that is obedience, not unbelief.
Where we part ways: that principle, pressed this far, would rule out a feast Jesus attended. In winter, at the Festival of Dedication, Jesus was in the temple courts (John 10:22-23). That feast remembered the rededication of the temple under the Maccabees, long after Moses, and no law commanded it. John does not say what Jesus thought of it, so this is an argument from silence. Still, He was there.
We land where we land on Halloween, for the same reason.
Whether a family celebrates Christmas is a matter of conscience between them and the Lord. Keeping it is not compromise, and skipping it is not legalism. Romans 14 settles that.
Sound of Heaven celebrates the birth of Jesus gladly. God became a human being, born to a young mother in an occupied land, and we think that deserves a celebration. So did the angels.
We reject the teaching that Christmas is pagan and that believers who keep it are defiled. It is wrong on the history and wrong on Romans 14, and it gets used to shame new believers over a family dinner. We equally reject the idea that the family without a tree is less Christian.
“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.’”
Luke 2:10-11The first Christmas was already a celebration. The shepherds went back “glorifying and praising God” (Luke 2:20).
That is why we throw ourselves into Christmas Town at the Sound, when our building becomes a winter wonderland for local families and kids hear what Christmas is about. December is when our Long Island neighbors walk into a church without being asked twice.
What we celebrate is the incarnation of Jesus. Emmanuel, God with us, is not seasonal decoration. In Jesus we see what God is actually like.
“Let us stop passing judgment on one another” (Romans 14:13) is addressed to everyone at the table.
Rolling your eyes at the family with no tree, calling them joyless, pressuring them to join in. Paul says the one who abstains does it to the Lord. Leave them to their Master.
Spending money you do not have, measuring love by the pile under the tree, running so hard there is no room to worship. That is an idol, even if nobody carved it.
The second danger is the one most of us face. If the season leaves you in debt and further from God, the answer is not guilt. It is permission to do less and mean it more.
Read Luke 2 aloud before anything gets opened. Bake one of the loaves in bread for Christmas and tell your kids Bethlehem means house of bread. Tell the story of Saint Nicholas as a bishop who gave because Jesus gave. And worship with a church family.
For some this is the hardest month of the year: an empty chair, a strained family, a first Christmas after a loss. You do not have to feel festive to belong to Jesus. He was born into a hard world on purpose. If you want someone to pray with you, send us a prayer request.
Do not judge the believer who says no, and do not let the store take the day you set apart for Jesus.
Strip away the arguments and the question is simple. Does the way you keep December point your family to Jesus? Then celebrate with a clear conscience. If your conscience tells you to step back, step back with thanks and without contempt. Either way you belong to Him.
We do not know the exact day Jesus was born, as we explain in when Jesus was born, and we do not need to. The birth is history. God came close and showed us who the Father is. The reality is found in Christ.
For related reading, see what the Bible says about judging others and what the word pagan really means. And if you are on Long Island this December, come worship with us.
Christmas is a matter of conscience before the Lord, Sound of Heaven celebrates the birth of Jesus gladly, and we will neither judge the believer who abstains nor let spending bury the Savior.
Maybe your family is split on it, or someone told you celebrating is sin and it has stayed with you. Send it in and someone at Sound of Heaven will pray with you and talk it through.
Christians are free to celebrate Christmas, and free not to. The Bible never commands a feast for the birth of Jesus and never forbids one. In Romans 14:5-6 Paul makes special days a matter of conscience: the one who keeps a day and the one who does not both do it to the Lord. At Sound of Heaven we celebrate the birth of Jesus gladly, and we do not judge believers who sit it out.
No. Scripture never calls a feast for the birth of Jesus sin, and Romans 14:6 says the person who regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Sin would be worshiping something other than God, or using the season for drunkenness or greed. Remembering that God became human in Jesus, reading Luke 2, singing and giving gifts are not sin.
No. Jeremiah 10:3-5 describes a tree cut from the forest and shaped by a craftsman with a chisel, covered in silver and gold, fastened so it will not totter, and carried because it cannot walk. Verse 5 calls it an idol. The prophet is mocking carved wooden gods, about six hundred years before Jesus and many centuries before Christmas trees. The passage is about idolatry, not evergreens.
The Puritans believed public worship should include only what God commands, and Scripture commands no Christmas. The 1645 Directory for Public Worship said festival days had no warrant in the word of God and were not to be continued. The English Parliament abolished the feast in 1647, and Massachusetts fined public celebration from 1659 until the law was repealed in 1681.
No. Romans 14:6 says the one who abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. Some believers skip Christmas out of conviction about worship or a need to step away from the spending and stress. That does not make them less devoted to Jesus. What Paul forbids is contempt in either direction, the celebrating believer looking down on the one who abstains, or the abstaining believer judging the one who celebrates.