Aunty, doesn’t Jeremiah 10 ban Christmas trees?
23 December 2024 |
Dear Aunt Sevvy,
Why do people have Christmas trees, when Jeremiah 10:3-4 clearly warns against them?
For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
Signed, Christmas Trees Aren’t Christian
Dear Aren’t Christian:
Your interpretation is a textbook example of pulling a passage out of context and applying it to something you want to make a fuss about, rather than what it is really about. Jeremiah 10 has nothing to do with Christmas trees—though superficially it might sound that way. In context, it is about pagan idols and worshipping them rather than worshipping the one true God.
Verse 3 says that the workman cuts a tree and shapes it into a sculpture of a god or goddess. Verse 9 describes the construction method: by covering the wood with sheets of silver and gold hammered thin, they didn’t have to make the whole statue out of those metals, which would be too heavy and expensive.
Yet as beautiful as their workmanship might be,
Every goldsmith is shamed by his idols. The images he makes are a fraud; they have no breath in them.
God, by contrast,
is the Maker of all things, including Israel, the people of his inheritance—the Lord Almighty is his name.
So as long as you put your cheap plastic or glass ornaments and Christmas tree lights back into a box after Christmas is over and drag the dry tree to the curb for the garbage collectors to gather, you should be fine.
But beware! Don’t be tempted to carve the trunk of your Christmas tree into a statue of Zeus or Ganesha, then cover it with sheets of gold and silver and mount it permanently in your living room and pray to it—that would be wrong.
Aunt Sevvy
Aunt Sevvy has collected her answers into a book! You can get it from Amazon by clicking here.
You can write to Aunt Sevvy at DearAuntSevvy@gmail.com. Your real identity will never be revealed.
