TODAY’S BIBLE READING CHALLENGE:
Jeremiah 10:1-11:23
Colossians 3:18-4:18
Psalm 78:56-72
Proverbs 24:28-29
Jeremiah 10:3 — Is this passage talking about Christmas trees?
If people were praying to their Christmas trees or worshiping them as deities, these passages would certainly apply. But that is not, nor has it ever been, how Christmas trees are used. Christmas trees were never appealed to for blessings nor incorporated into religious rituals or acts of worship. While the exact origin of the Christmas trees is unknown and highly disputed, the tradition seems to have come into existence as late as the 16th century during the Protestant Reformation in Germany. There is no evidence that Christians ever used them as anything other than home decorations for the holidays. There is nothing in this tradition that is innately idolatrous or in any way contrary to the biblical prohibitions against carving trees into false gods.
https://carm.org/does-jeremiah-10-forbid-christmas-trees
The better argument (in addition to understanding the anachronism) seems to be analyzing Jeremiah 10:6. These trees kept the people in fear because of an association with evil.
Jeremiah 10:13 — This verse may help us identify Psalm 135 as being written by Jeremiah:
[Psalm 135:7] is practically identical with Jeremiah 10:13 and Jeremiah 51:16, suggesting the possibility that the prophet Jeremiah may have written the otherwise anonymous Psalm 135. The two Jeremiah passages do preface this statement with the note that there is “a multitude of waters in the heavens” in connection with the processes described in the verse.
In any case, this thrice-mentioned mechanism beautifully summarized what we now call the hydrologic cycle, and it did so over 2,000 years before the cycle began to be understood by modern scientists. In order to provide rain to water the earth, there must be vapors ascending all over the earth (that is, evaporation from the world’s great oceans), winds then blowing from God’s unseen treasury (actually the global atmospheric circulation), and, finally, lightnings for (or “with”) the rain (electrical discharges associated with the condensation and coalescence of the particles of water vapor in the atmosphere). All of this repeatedly transports purified waters from the ocean back over the lands to fall as rain and snow, there finally to run off back to the oceans after performing their life-sustaining ministries on the lands. “Unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again” (Ecclesiastes 1:7).
http://www.icr.org/article/ascending-vapors/
Jeremiah 11:17 — Good thing that nobody offers incense to Baal today. Do we cast our care upon the LORD (1 Peter 5:7), though, or other people? Do we seek Him early (Psalm 63:1), or do we seek other things?
Colossians 3:24 — Wives, husbands, children, fathers, and servants are all given instructions, and then we’re told that we shall not be rewarded for our work by our spouses, parents, children, or masters, but by the LORD! Never forget, we are serving Him! Remembering who gives the reward will change the way you approach your job!
Colossians 4:5 — Rick Grubbs of “Redeeming The Time Radio” shares many timely truths.
Colossians 4:12 — Ah, for a prayer warrior like Epaphras!
Colossians 4:14 — Poor Demas! In Philemon 1:24 he’s still a fellow laborer, but in 2 Timothy 4:10 he will have forsaken Paul for a love of the present world.
Psalm 78:72 — Integrity of heart, skillfulness of hands. May we seek to have a single-minded heart for God coupled with the capacity to serve Him!
Proverbs 24:29 — The golden rule is not “do unto others as they have done unto me,” but “do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Matthew 7:12).”
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