Hi Tom,

There is nothing wrong with preaching about the incarnation in December or thinking about the incarnation, and so on. However, sanctifying a date on the calendar without any biblical warrant to do so is wrong. (See the end of the Westminster Directory for Publick Worship). Christmas is a celebration overflowing with pagan and Roman Catholic elements, and origin.

Here is a brief article about that, but at the link you will find more information relating to Christmas and the RPW specifically. The Puritans wanted nothing to do with Christmas. Only one reformed confession (the Helvetic) approves of special days to celebrate the incarnation, but it assumes a Christian-state, and a day nothing like the popular worldly and Roman Catholic Christmas known in the world today. Here is the link:

http://www.fpchurch.org.uk/2018/12/the-pagan-origin-of-christmas-a-reminder/

The prophet Jeremiah said, "Learn not the way of the heathen ... for the customs of the people are vain" Jeremiah 10

Christmas as it stands today (the observance of the 25th December) is a festivity originally plucked from heathen idolatry, thinly veiled with Christianity, has become one of the biggest Roman Catholic religious observances in the world, and the rest about Santa and elves is just vanity and worldliness; all which has no basis in the word of God, and runs directly contrary to it. In fact part of the duties enjoined under the 2nd commandment is the destroying of all "monuments of idolatry". George Gillespie (a Scottish minister who was one of the commisioners to the Westminster Assembly) should come up in a Google search with a persuasive biblical argument on the subject of monuments of idolatry.


Why would any sober-minded godly person want anything to do with it?


For these reasons, it seems to me that distancing oneself completely from what is known today as Christmas is what the Lord requires.

Kind regards
Alex

Last edited by AlexM; Mon Dec 31, 2018 6:53 PM.