00:04:47.960And, you know, it's within a few days of Christmas.
00:04:51.360And it's thought that Christmas may have been placed at this date to highlight Jesus as the light of the world entering into the darkest time of the year, right?
00:05:01.900So that's kind of, again, we don't know for sure, but that's the thought.
00:05:06.560Now, is it really the date of Jesus' birth? Is December 25th really the date of Jesus' birth?
00:05:12.000Most modern scholars don't think so, but that's not the point.
00:05:16.180The point of Christmas was memorialization.
00:05:20.320For example, my wife and I were married on February 14th.
00:05:42.300So it's not necessarily about the date, in my opinion.
00:05:45.080It's about the memorialization of what happened.
00:05:47.900Now, the way that the church has celebrated Christmas historically is not how we celebrate Christmas in our modern Western culture.
00:05:59.780Historically, Christians participated in what's called Advent, and the Latin word Adventus was the translation of the Greek word parousia.
00:06:09.920And that word was, I should say, that's the word that we use in Scripture to explain the coming of Christ as a baby and the coming of Christ as a reigning king in his second return.
00:06:24.800So this is important because historically, Advent is not just about the baby in the manger.
00:06:30.680It's also about the final return and reign of Christ over his kingdom.
00:06:36.420So meaning that, you know, when we participate in Advent, we shouldn't simply act as people
00:06:42.480who look back to the first coming, but also as people who look forward to the second coming.
00:06:49.040Now, there are lots of Advent books that you can get that go, some of them go 25 days,
00:06:55.200some of them go 30 days over the Advent season for the birth of Christ.
00:07:00.400And you read a certain, you know, passage or a certain, you know, devotional for the
00:07:04.780day and talk about it with your kids. So there's lots of things there you guys can do. We shared
00:07:08.880about it on our Instagram account, a whole list of really great Advent devotionals that you can
00:07:14.280do during this time of year, some by John Piper, there's one by Paul Tripp, and a handful of others.
00:07:20.600Now, is celebrating Jesus's birth or the Advent a biblical thing? No, meaning that it's not in
00:07:30.180the Bible. But is it an extra biblical thing? Yes. But so is, you know, Resurrection Sunday or Easter
00:07:38.460and Good Friday and Reformation Day, right? Is celebrating these days sinful? No. If your0.60
00:07:45.940celebration, you know, is genuine memorialization and not idolatry, then these holidays could be
00:07:53.720great compliments to your annual family traditions. And they can teach your family and they have
00:07:59.860great opportunity for tradition and repetitiveness in your home to teach your children about core
00:08:05.540truths of the Christian faith. So they're very helpful if they're done right. They can be very
00:08:09.780hurtful if they're done wrong. So that's my preface into the Santa Claus conversation.
00:08:16.460Hopefully that was helpful. But now let's hit the Santa Claus issue because this is the root
00:08:21.180of your question. Okay, so should Christian families include Santa Claus in their Christmas
00:08:27.400or Advent celebration? Well, I don't think so, and here's why. God commands his people1.00
00:08:36.820not to lie, specifically to not bear false witness. That's the eighth commandment.
00:08:42.940Ephesians 4.25 also says, therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you
00:08:50.260with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. So at a very base level, I believe
00:08:56.720teaching your children that Santa Claus is a real person who brings gifts to your home
00:09:02.720at night, you know, buy a sleigh and a reindeer, all that stuff. I believe that is the very
00:09:10.040definition of lying to your children. On top of that, Santa Claus becomes a major distraction
00:09:18.420from the true reason for Christmas. In fact, I believe Santa is the culture's replacement figure
00:09:25.220or counterfeit for Christ during this season.
00:09:29.620Secular culture has, I would say, even decorated Santa with Christ-like characteristics.0.71
00:09:36.140Think of the song, he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake,
00:09:39.860he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake, right?
00:09:43.180In other words, it's implying that he's omniscient and that he's the judge of morality.
00:09:49.000Santa is told that he's all over the world and in 24 hours, you know, he can be these places,
00:09:54.400is implying that he's, again, somehow omnipresent.
00:09:57.860Santa is implied that he's ageless in some capacity.
00:12:25.320There's actually a handful more of these kind of weird, paralytic realities between Christ and Santa.
00:12:34.300And so, in many ways, Santa replaces the divine focus or the divine character of Advent with a secular counterfeit.
00:12:46.480The gift of salvation is replaced with the entitlement of materialism.
00:12:50.720The belief in Christ is replaced in belief in Santa Claus.
00:12:54.160Our call to personal holiness as a response to God's saving work in our life is replaced with behavior modification to earn the favor of some gift-giving demigod.
00:13:05.760Okay, ultimately, what this comes down to, parents that are listening here, we need to be very careful not to allow our children's eyes to be diverted from Christ towards something that's less significant, which is Santa Claus.
00:13:22.760Okay, that's just, we have to be careful here.
00:13:25.740We have to realize that these things make a major difference in the development of our children's thinking, trust, spirituality.
00:13:34.280But most importantly, I want to ask you a question.
00:13:37.220Actually, I should say I want you to ask yourself this question.
00:13:40.820If I spend 10 years telling my children that Santa, this man that you can't see, who you must believe in and must behave for, is a real person, and then as they get older, they find out that you were deceiving them,
00:14:00.100Do you expect them to not apply that experience of false witness with your claims that you've made about Jesus, the other man they can't see, who they must believe in, and who they must behave for?
00:14:15.260Okay, John MacArthur actually once said in a sermon delivered in 1990 on this idea of Santa Claus as a counterfeit, it's called the Christmas Intruder, he said,
00:14:28.640is it any wonder that if I believe all that, meaning he believes all that he was talking about
00:14:36.540Santa Claus, the identification and the story of Santa Claus, is it any wonder that if I believe
00:14:42.740all that as a child, when I come to being an adult, I might have a hard time believing in
00:14:48.480the transcendent God who does know everything, who is everywhere, who does have all power,
00:14:53.700who does keep his promises and his threats and who does not save me and give me good gifts on
00:14:59.920the basis of my works, but on the basis of his grace. If Santa has been my understanding of a
00:15:06.140spiritual God, then I'm in trouble. That's why I say hidden in the letters of Santa is Satan.
00:15:12.700So that's a quote from John MacArthur. So he shares obviously the same very skeptical and
00:15:18.600cautious spirit around the idea of Santa Claus. There is a clear counterfeit alternative that the
00:15:26.380culture has created that is spiritually involved in terms of the portrayal of another deity
00:15:33.780that we call children to believe in. So my answer to this question, Julianne, is don't be fooled.
00:15:40.900And I think your conviction is absolutely right.
00:15:44.800Santa Claus, while it may seem fun and harmless, I believe is actually quite dangerous.
00:15:53.020It requires you first to lie and to break down the trust between you and your children.
00:15:59.840Secondly, it causes your child to place sacred belief and faith and trust into a false godlike character.
00:16:11.840And then third, it really distracts our children from the true reason for the season, which is Christ.
00:16:19.300So, you know, yes, I understand the sentimental side, but I don't care how sentimental Santa Claus is for you.
00:16:26.520I really believe he has nothing to do with the coming, the first coming and the second coming of Christ.1.00
00:16:34.060And he should be removed from Christian families in their, I should say, Christian family traditions.1.00
00:16:40.980So hopefully that was a helpful answer for you, Julianne.0.93
00:16:45.140And as always, I'm going to leave you guys with two resources that'll help you further understanding, further your understanding on this topic.
00:16:54.840And you can find them on the post page of this episode at relearn.org.
00:17:00.660And this episode is titled, Should Christian Families Do Santa Claus?
00:17:06.260And there are two articles, and they're actually both by John MacArthur, and it's pretty fascinating.
00:17:11.040He did a sermon early in 1990 about Santa Claus,
00:17:17.300and then he did another one that he's titled, which is kind of similar, called The Christmas Intruder.
00:17:22.580but you can read the transcripts of these
00:17:24.800and I have them linked on the post page