{"id":1002,"date":"2012-12-25T08:41:36","date_gmt":"2012-12-25T13:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/?p=1002"},"modified":"2016-08-28T07:48:25","modified_gmt":"2016-08-28T11:48:25","slug":"merry-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/?p=1002","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Each year I have the privilege to write several articles focusing on the birth of Christ–the Light of the world.<\/p><\/div>\n

Merry Christmas! Once again I have had the opportunity to write several Christmas articles for Answers in Genesis. So in case you missed some of those, I decided to write a brief post to share them with you.<\/p>\n

Drawn to the Savior<\/strong><\/p>\n

My first Christmas article<\/a> this year used the magi as an example of people that God drew to worship His Son. He used a “star” to direct the wise men, and He can use numerous means to direct people to the Savior, but the message of the gospel does not change. During this Christmas season, I would ask you to consider the following paragraph from my article:<\/p>\n

Of course, Jesus didn\u2019t come to earth just to inspire heartwarming stories about Joseph, Mary, and the baby in the manger. Among other things, He came to live a sinless life, reveal to man who God is, die a sacrificial death on the Cross for our sins, and conquer death by rising from the dead. The question you must ask yourself is this: what have I done with Jesus Christ?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is Jesus your Lord and Savior, or have you just treated Him as the baby in the manger? He is God Incarnate, the Creator of the universe, who will one day return to judge this world.<\/p>\n

A Pagan Celebration?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you’ve followed this blog for a couple of years, you may recall that I’ve written several posts dealing with misconceptions people have about Christmas. There are some Christians who are convinced that Christmas is a pagan holiday so they adamantly insist that no believer should have anything to do with this celebration. While there are certainly pagan elements that have been worked into Christmas traditions, it does not follow that Christians must refuse to celebrate the birth of Christ at this time of year. My recent article<\/a> hit some of these objections, but focused on the fact that we have the liberty to celebrate Christmas or not to celebrate it, but whichever we choose, we must seek to honor God. What we don’t have the liberty to do is tell a fellow Christian what he or she must do regarding Christmas (see Romans 14 where Paul explicitly states that we have liberty to celebrate or not celebrate any day.)<\/p>\n

Fulfilled Prophecies<\/strong><\/p>\n

My Christmas Eve article<\/a> focused on the first two chapters of Matthew. Throughout his Gospel, Matthew uses a statement indicating that something was done to fulfill the words of the prophet ______. I wanted to zero in on his use of this phrase in the first two chapters to highlight some of the many prophecies fulfilled in the life of Christ. Christians can not only celebrate the entrance of the Son of God into this world at this time of year, but we can also rejoice in the fact that our God–and only our God–has perfect knowledge of the future, and He has repeatedly demonstrated His infinite knowledge.<\/p>\n

Christmas Town at the Creation Museum<\/strong><\/p>\n

This particular article wasn’t so much about Christmas as it was about Christmas Town–the annual Christmas celebration at the Creation Museum<\/a>. My colleagues at Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum do a fantastic job every year of putting together this outreach event. With dramas, a special planetarium show, the Garden of Lights, and so much more, you won’t want to miss out on this wonderful free event. There are still two days left this year (12\/28 and 12\/29), so if you’re anywhere near northern Kentucky\/Cincinnati, OH, come on out and experience Christmas Town at the Creation Museum.<\/p>\n

Birthday at the End of the World<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the articles I wrote this month was not about Christmas, but about the alleged Doomsday of December 21, 2012<\/a>, which just happens to be my birthday (yep, one of the tallest guys around was born on the shortest day of the year). The point of this article was to emphasize that God alone knows the future. Christians should never get caught up in setting dates for Christ’s return since He told us that no man knows the day or the hour of that event (Matthew 24:36), and that doesn’t mean that you can figure out the month or year, either. But He did give us signs by which we could recognize that His return is near. Would you be ready if He decided to return today?<\/p>\n

I mentioned that I had previously written numerous posts dealing with misconceptions people have about Christmas. If you are interested in those, here are some links:<\/p>\n

Christmas Misconceptions: Legalism or Liberty?<\/a><\/p>\n

Common Misconceptions about Christmas<\/a><\/p>\n

More Christmas Misconceptions\u2014Part 1<\/a><\/p>\n

More Christmas Misconceptions\u2014Part 2<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks for stopping by. Have a blessed Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Merry Christmas! Once again I have had the opportunity to write several Christmas articles for Answers in Genesis. So in case you missed some of those, I decided to write a brief post to share them with you. Drawn to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,21],"tags":[42,54,7,28,37],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-living","category-reflections","tag-christmas","tag-church","tag-creation-museum","tag-jesus-christ","tag-new-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1601,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/1601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}