Caller: My question concerns Jeremiah chapter 10 verses 3 and 4. I'm sure It wasn't called that back then, but are they talking about a Christmas tree?
Pastor Doug: Good question. The answer is no. Let me read this for my friends. 'For the customs of the people [this is Jeremiah 10:3] are vain: one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands are the workman with an axe. They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, it doesn't move. They're upright like a palm tree but they don't speak. They need to be carried about....'
Now see, obviously you don't carry a Christmas tree around. People used to make idols out of wood and they would overlay the wood with gold. No idols were solid gold back then - they'd be too heavy to carry. So they'd take wood, they'd cut it out, they'd deck it with silver and gold, they'd make an idol out and carry it around and pray to it. It's not talking about Christmas trees. It's talking about idolatry.
Now there are people I'm sure who can make idols out of their Christmas trees. I sure hope nobody is bowing to their Christmas tree. But, you know if you have a flower arrangement in your house and you put apples under it, it's not that different from having a Christmas tree and putting presents under it. If someone is going to worship it, then that's a different issue.
Caller: Ok. That helps a lot because I think a cross-reference or two referred to that very thing, about sending their children out to cut a tree down and then they would carve out of that.
Pastor Doug: Yes in Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 18. And you look that up and it talks about the same thing. It's a graven, molten image and they're just dumb idols. There are so many references to these dumb idols as cross-references. Someone would like to build a case that these are Christmas trees. And I'd tell anybody, if you've got convictions you shouldn't have a Christmas tree, then don't have one. There's no Bible mandate that you have to. Someone might call you Scrooge. I've been called Scrooge before.
But that's up to you. There's no mandate that we have to celebrate these holidays. That's where you'd use Romans chapter 14 where it says, 'one man regards one day above another another man regards ever day alike and let everyone be persuaded in his own mind.' Good question Gary. We've had that a couple of times before and it's appropriate for the season right now.
Co-Host: Pastor Doug, we're out of time.
Pastor Doug: I've got to run home and put some new presents under the tree!