Theology in the Raw - Bonus Q&A: Why Christians Stopped Celebrating Biblically-Commanded Holidays Like Passover & Hanukkah

Starting point is 00:00:00 Biblical Inerrancy, a central or peripheral doctrine for Christians. Are Christians who use social media or books to call out fellow Christians violating Matthew 18 by not having private conversations first? And what are my thoughts on Christian missionaries evangelizing the group and then insisting the group adapt to the missionaries' cultural values, for instance, like modesty and what kind of clothes to wear? These are just some of the many questions I'm gonna get to on this Q and A bonus podcast. If you would like to ask questions for me to address,

Starting point is 00:00:30 I do these twice a month, but you have to become a Patreon supporter. So you have to go to patreon.com forward slash theology and Rob become a member of the Patreon community. And then you can submit questions and also get access to the full length Q and A episodes. So let's dive into this episode. Okay, Gregory wants to know, why did Christians stop celebrating biblically-commanded holidays?

Starting point is 00:01:00 For instance, Passover, Sukkot, Shavuot, Hanukkah, Jesus celebrated Hanukkah, He says. This is not a salvation issue, but is it a loss? This is a really interesting question. I've not thought too extensively about it. My quick answer to why did Christians stop celebrating, I don't know the answer to that. I do know not all Christians did stop celebrating these holidays. We have, I mean, even today, there's Jewish messianic churches that very much still celebrate these holidays. And there were strains of Christianity that had a much more Jewish flavor that lasted well into the early centuries. And I'm not totally sure if they did continue to celebrate these

Starting point is 00:01:52 holidays, but I would imagine they did, but I would need to double check that. I want to be clear though, when you say biblically commanded, what we're really talking about is Old Testament commanded. Like these holidays, Passover, Sukkot, Shabbat, these are commanded under the Old Covenant, but not in the New Testament. There's no explicit command to keep these holidays in the New Testament. Even, I mean, Hanukkah is not biblically commanded anywhere. I mean, it was a holiday that came about between the testaments. So, there is no command, there is no Hanukkah in the Old Testament law. I mean, it celebrates the cleansing of the temple after Antiochus and Epiphanes desecrated

Starting point is 00:02:33 it in 164 BC. So I mean, it's commemorating an event that didn't even happen in Old Testament times. So Jesus does celebrate it. I mean, he's a first century Jew and he's doing Jewish things, you know, but there's no evidence at all in Scripture that Hanukkah was biblically commanded Old Testament or New Testament. Jared Sarkissian The other ones, you know, what's interesting is all of the other ones, Passover, Shavuot, and maybe Sukkot. Sukkot's a little tricky, but these main holidays, they do have kind of a

Starting point is 00:03:09 New Testament, New Covenant Christian correspondence. So for instance, Passover, obviously, you know, was fulfilled, if you will, in, you know, Jesus' resurrection weekend, if you will. I mean, you know, He had the Passover meal on Thursday night, died on Friday, was raised on Sunday. And so, we celebrate our Passover lamb, Jesus Christ, whenever we celebrate His death and resurrection, which is, again, explicitly connected to the Old Testament celebration of Passover. Old Testament celebration, you know, Passover celebrated God's deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. And in a sense, you know, our Passover or Easter celebration celebrates God's deliverance from, you know, you can say like our slavery to sin through Christ or something like that.

Starting point is 00:04:02 Shavuot occurs 50 days after Passover. That corresponds exactly with our Pentecost. So, on Acts 2, the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost happened, well, happened on Pentecost, you know, during the celebration. So, in a sense, if we, well, do Christians celebrate Pentecost? I think most Christians don't. Maybe we should. I think that I could see a biblical argument for us in, you know, celebrating with the New Covenant fulfillment or correspondence to these Old Covenant, Old Testament celebrations. So, and according to rabbinic tradition, Shavuot represented the, you know, tradition, Shavuot represented the, well, you know, 50 years after Passover was when Moses received the law in Sinai. I don't know if that's explicitly stated in Scripture,

Starting point is 00:04:53 that Moses received the law 50 days after Passover. I don't know. I don't think that's explicitly stated in Scripture, but according to Jewish tradition, you know, Shavuot celebrated the giving of the law. And in a sense, I mean, you, Shavuot celebrated the giving of the law. And in a sense, I mean, you know, Pentecost is the giving of the Spirit. So, you know, Paul says we are no longer under the law, but under the law of Christ and under the power of the Holy Spirit, Romans 7 to 8. So, you can make a case that like our celebration of Pentecost corresponds to the Old Testament celebration of Shavuot. Sukkot is another one, otherwise known as the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths celebrated in, I believe,

Starting point is 00:05:32 it's early fall, like it's a harvest festival. I don't know of an explicit Christian connection to Sukkot. I know some people say, know, it represents the tabernacling of God, you know, like whereas the Old Testament celebration, you know, people would live in, you know, tents to commemorate their 40-day wilderness wandering. And now, you know, Jesus tabernacled among us. He is the tent. He is the full presence of God who overcame 40 days of temptation to wilderness, whereas Israel failed their 40 years of temptation to wilderness, whereas Israel failed their 40 years of temptation to wilderness. I think it's a little vague. I don't see that explicitly in Scripture, but I don't want to deny that Jesus didn't, you know, that Jesus

Starting point is 00:06:14 tabernacled among us. I just don't know if there is an explicit connection in the New Testament connecting those two events. So, I would also add that these Jew or these Old Testament holidays, that they are, I mean, intrinsically connected to the Old Covenant and also they are, most of them, connected to like living in an ancient agrarian context that is unique to Israel's story and Israel's social and historical situation, whereas the new covenant church, which is not limited to an agrarian context, these holidays don't make as much sense. So someone could say these were designed for a specific time and place. We're no longer under the old covenant. But yeah, Christians, you know, we do have some, you know, events that correspond

Starting point is 00:07:06 to these old covenant celebrations. So, I would say, I think it could be, you know, if we sell it, if we do, if Christians do celebrate these holidays, I would say celebrate them through the lens of their connection to the death and resurrection of Christ and the new covenant that He established. I wouldn't want to celebrate them in a way that's disconnected from the New Testament story. I don't know any Christian that would do that. So, in short, I would say, yeah, they could be good to celebrate, but I wouldn't say they are biblically commanded from a New Testament Christian perspective.

Starting point is 00:07:40 All right, next question is anonymous. Do you think biblical inerrancy should be a central or peripheral doctrine for Christians? I think it can depend on how you define inerrancy. So, the very, well, you have this meeting in Chicago in 1978 where a bunch of evangelicals leaders got together. They hammered out a definition of inerrancy and it became known as the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy. So that's 1978. That's a very, very recent and it was, I believe, very Western, very evangelical.

Starting point is 00:08:22 It wasn't like it was an you know, an ecumenical or global meeting. And, you know, there's, you can go look it up online, but the basic gist of it is that biblical inerrancy means that the Bible in its original manuscripts, which we do not possess, are without error or fault in all of its teaching. Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. That's so, I mean, yeah, I've got quibbles about that. For one, yeah, we don't possess the original. Let me, let me, let me back up. I affirm inerrancy as long as I get to define what I mean by inerrancy, not just me, but like there's other people that say, wait, we need to take into account a lot of other things. Number

Starting point is 00:09:09 one, we don't have the original manuscripts. Number two, what about like literary features? Number three, what about authorial intention? You know, if you say Jonah was a parable and not a historical event, people say you're denying inerrancy. It's like, well, not if the original biblical author intended it to be taken as parable, then the one who takes it as history, they're actually denying inerrancy because they're going against authorial intention. Now, I'm not saying Jonah is a parable or is not a parable. I'm just saying we need to take into account what the inspired biblical authors are trying to do, trying to say with what they said. I think we need to take into account literary features that the authors were

Starting point is 00:09:57 utilizing. So, I actually did a little research on this to kind of see how people were interacting with this, you know, the definition of inerrancy. And I found a really good article explaining this by Justin Taylor in a TGC article, the Gospel Coalition, so, okay, so very conservative ministry? Is it a ministry organization? And Taylor says something here that I think was really helpful and I agree with. Inerrancy must be compatible with unrefined grammar. So like, for instance, the Book of Revelation is notoriously has really bad Greek grammar, according to the first century standards of what

Starting point is 00:10:39 good grammar is in the Greek language. And it's really bad. And he's like, well, that's okay. That's not, you can make spelling mistakes or syntactical mistakes. And that isn't a violation of inerrancy. And I agree. It also has to take into account non-chronological narrative. So for instance, Luke's gospel is not always chronological, especially in that middle, what the travel sections from, oh gosh, what is it, from Luke chapter 9, I want to say 51, 52, all the way to like Luke 18, like there's a whole section in Luke there where it's not chronological.

Starting point is 00:11:20 Like he's kind of going back and forth, like Jesus keeps going like to Jerusalem and also he's back in Galilee and then he's at Jerusalem and back in Galilee. He kind of going back and forth. Like, Jesus keeps going like to Jerusalem and also he's back in Galilee and then he's sat in Jerusalem and back in Galilee. He's not going back and forth. He's like, it's just Luke does not organize his narrative in that section in strictly chronological terms. You also have the famous, you know, cleansing of the temple. Matthew, Mark, and Luke is at the end of the gospel. Also, John puts it in chapter two.

Starting point is 00:11:40 And people are like, wow, it must be two cleansings of the temple. It's like, well, maybe, or John just decided to tell that story at the beginning of his narrative. And it's like, he's allowed to do that. That's not a violation of inerrancy. Justin Taylor goes on to mention, so, okay, so inerrancy is compatible with unrefined grammar, non-chronological narrative, round numbers. If it says, so-and-so came out with a million men, it's like, it doesn't have to be exactly a million men. It could be 900,000, 854 men. Um, because we talk like that today. If I said, Hey, class is three hours long and it's actually begins at, uh, 12 o'clock and ends at two 50, I'm not lying to you. It's all we use round numbers. Like

Starting point is 00:12:26 that's okay. Um, in precise quotations, Justin Taylor says priests. This is a big one for me. This other one pre-scientific, phenomenalistic description, for instance, that the sun rose or I would even place in this category, an ancient view, an ancient cosmology, an ancient view of the heavens and the earth. Like I don't think that ancient, we should assume that ancient authors must have had a very modern post-enlightenment view of the cosmos. They didn't have the Hubble Space Telescope. So I, and I think that's okay.

Starting point is 00:13:06 We don't need ancient biblical authors to speak in modern scientific terms for them to be inerrant. The use of figures and symbols in precise descriptions, he says, and this is Justin Taylor who cites Mark 1-5, which says that everyone from Judea, everyone, everyone from Judea and Jerusalem went out to hear John the Baptist. Everyone? Like 100% of the people in all of Judea and all of Jerusalem went out to hear John the Baptist? Well, no, it's a general statement. So, he concludes, inerrancy asserts truth, not precision. Woo! Is that debated? I mean, I think everything he says here is totally true and accurate. We must take into account authorial intent, which

Starting point is 00:13:52 includes literary features of hyperbole, parable, symbolism, non-literal statements. Yeah, I think authorial intent and how they're using language, how they intend to use language is incredibly important. So all that to say language is incredibly important. So all that to say, I don't, so I can affirm, so under all of those caveats, if you will, like I can affirm biblical inerrancy.

Starting point is 00:14:13 I'm gonna sign a statement every year when I go speak at the Evangelical Theological Society, which, you know, you have to sign two doctrinal points, Trinity and inerrancy. And I'm like, okay, and then we'll give an expanded definition of inerrancy. I'm like, well, no, if you factor all these qualifications in, then yeah, I could sign that. Some people would say once you add all those qualifications, well, that's

Starting point is 00:14:33 not inerrancy. I was like, well, all right, well, it's a modern term that I think we're free to define differently. The fact is, for most of church history, Christians did not think about Scripture in these categories. They definitely presumed biblical authority, the trustworthiness of Scripture. I think these are central. I don't think, yeah, I don't think it's at all periphery to say, yeah, I think for me, biblical authority is up in the air. I think that is central. And throughout church history, as they were hammering out core doctrines, they assumed the authority of Scripture, the trustworthiness of Scripture. But the modern definition of inerrancy, I think that's a little more peripheral. Okay, so biblical authority, trustworthiness, yes. Modern definition of

Starting point is 00:15:22 inerrancy according to the Chicago Statement of 1978 in America, I would say that's more peripheral. All right, John wants to know, are Christians who use social media or books to call out fellow Christians violating Matthew 18 by having, by, oh, by not having private conversations first? This is a great question. I don't know, a little relevant for me because I get called out quite a bit on social media for being a heretic and stuff. Let me say this.

Starting point is 00:15:55 I do think, you know, so Matthew 18 is where, you know, somebody has an issue against you, go talk to them privately. If they don't listen, then bring two or three others with you and then if they still don't listen, then bring, then what? Like kick them out of the church or something like that. I think, I mean, Matthew 18 is written with the assumption that you're in physical community with the person, right? I mean, that's really the social context of Matthew 18.

Starting point is 00:16:21 Like you have opportunity to go, to physically go to that person. You know, it's not talking about somebody on the other side of the world, not somebody that you know from a distance. It's talking about somebody in your community. Okay. I think if we're going to say somebody's violating Matthew 18, I would say the most specific sense, I think they would have to be, have physical access to that person. Now we could probably expand, okay, let me expand physical access to the person. Maybe you can have a conversation with the person, even if it's not physically present with them. I'm thinking of Jude and 2 Peter 2 and Paul and others. There's times in the New Testament when biblical authors call out other people, namely like false teachers. And I don't know,

Starting point is 00:17:14 did like Jude and Peter, did they go to these false teachers first or did they just call them out? You know, Paul mentions a few people by name in like 1 Timothy 1, I think 2 Timothy 1 as well, and several other passages. And Jesus mentions to people in Revelation 2 and 3. You kind of get the impression that they had some kind of physical relationship with this person. Maybe they already talked to them before and then they called them out through a letter. You talk about public call out, I mean, you get called out in the Bible. Social media lasts 17 seconds. The Bible, gosh, lasts thousands of years in the most widely distributed piece of literature in human history. So that's kind of a public call out. Now, did Jude and Peter, Paul and others, did they already go to them? Did they

Starting point is 00:18:04 exhaust Matthew 18? I don't know. I don't think the text always makes that clear. Peter or Paul records his call out of Peter in Galatians 2, but he went to Peter, right? And then he kind of called them out. So yeah, I would say, here's what I would say. I would say if you choose to call somebody out on social media or a book when you have some access to the person and you refuse to pursue those channels first, I think that that can be problematic.

Starting point is 00:18:36 I'm trying to think if, am I making an absolute statement there or their time is like, hey, okay, I could email this person, but I'm going to choose not to, I'm just going to call them out. I don't know. If I have any kind of relationship with the person, even if it's extremely minimal or it's from a distance, I would hope, and maybe I haven't always done this, hope I have, I should strive to at least. I would hope that if I have some kind of relationship with the person, even if it's from a distance and I have a serious, serious problem with

Starting point is 00:19:09 them and I'm calling them out publicly, I would hope that I would have gone to them before. So yeah, I was going to go into some personal stuff here with people calling me on social media, even though I've reached out to them and have a conversation several times and I refused to have a conversation, but I'm going to let that go and let's go to the next question. Okay. Next question. We have friends whose child is trans, but they say they do not have gender dysphoria.

Starting point is 00:19:35 Is this common? I don't remember you ever addressing this in your writing. I actually do cover this in my book, Embodied. I think it's in chapter one or two. It's sometimes called the self-ID perspective. It's much more common among younger trans-identified people where they might say, you know, I don't need some medical gatekeeper to diagnose me

Starting point is 00:19:58 and then they're gonna determine whether I'm trans or not based on whether I've just gender dysphoria or not. If I say I'm trans, I'm trans. I self-ID as trans. Older trans identified people typically aren't really into this version of being trans. Most older trans people would say, no, if you're not medically diagnosed or if you don't have gender dysphoria, you're not really trans. It's actually a bit of a, from what I can tell, a bit of a tension between older and younger trans identity. Hey friends, I hope you enjoyed this portion of the Patreon only Q&A podcast. If you would like to listen to the full-length episode and receive other bonus content like monthly podcasts, opportunities to ask questions,

Starting point is 00:20:40 access to first drafts of my research and monthly Zoom chats and more, then please head over to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw to join theology in the raw's Patreon community. That's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.

Theology in the Raw - Bonus Q&A: Why Christians Stopped Celebrating Biblically-Commanded Holidays Like Passover & Hanukkah

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