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Simply stated the RPW limits acceptable Christian worship and celebrations to those that are specifically indicated in the Bible. And that would be just the traditional Jewish holidays except Hanukkah?
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No. Sunday (celebrating the Resurrection) as for the day of worship and the observation of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper (Communion or Eucharist) including the several elements of worship such as prayer, singing of praise, reading and preaching the Word (the Scriptures or the Bible). Christians do not observe the Old Testament feasts such as the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) or Passover except as their implications are assimilated into the Lord's Supper for example. Jesus, who Christians believe to be the Second Person of the Godhead, instituted the Lord's Supper which was to be and is observed in these New Testament times with elements of Passover.
PastorVon
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Ah. I wasn't aware that they were actually stipulated as holidays. Of course, I'm only going by hearsay on the biblical stipulation of the Jewish holidays.
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old hand
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The regulative principle is often misunderstood. It's true generally speaking that Anglican and Lutheran denominations work on the principle of if it's not prohibited by the bible it's allowable while the Reformed tradition says if it's not in the bible it's not allowed. However, Presbyterians distinguish between matters of content or theological substance and matters of form in worship. The latter are not so important. Moreover, the principle was meant to exclude things like Roman Catholic saints days and Mariolatry, etc. Conservative Presbyterians have mounted good cases within their own tradition's beliefs for celebrating Christmas, and most Presbyterians do so. Christmas is celebrating the birth of the Saviour and that is certainly in Scripture. A related irony is that many who hold strictly to the regulative principle (even some who don't like Christmas) often celebrate Reformation Sunday. But this is all getting a bit theological and drifting into areas that are verboten by the no religion thread police... 
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Carpal Tunnel
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And the 12 days of Christmas??
Very interesting topic above, even if verboten by the
police.
Christmas trees on the curb for trash on 26 December, whereas
that is only the 2nd day of Christmas with the 12th being
the day the Magi appeared in the reckoning of the Church
way long before the Reformation.
The 12 days of Christmas are after the Christmas day itself, up
to Epiphany: day 12.
Last edited by LukeJavan8; 01/09/09 06:33 PM.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Simply stated the RPW limits acceptable Christian worship and celebrations to those that are specifically indicated in the Bible. And that would be just the traditional Jewish holidays except Hanukkah? And Hanukkah is found in the Bible, the Bible still used by Catholics and Orthodox, before Luther threw out the Books of Macabbees. This is 2000 years vs. the 500 since the Reformation.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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And Hanukkah is found in the Bible, the Bible still used by Catholics and Orthodox,
before Luther threw out the Books of Macabbees. This is 2000 years vs. the 500 since
the Reformation.
Way I heard it, and as I said in a later post I only have it by hearsay, that while the events around which Hanukkah is based might be found in the Bible, Hanukkah itself is not a holiday mandated by God as the other Jewish holidays are. Similarly, the events around which the major Christian holidays are based, to my knowledge, are not mandated by God as holidays. I can see, for example, the Eucharist as a ritual but not the celebration of Maundy Thursday as a holiday. While the date of the Resurrection can be calculated based on the dates of Passover I don't see anything that states it should be celebrated as a holiday. Perhaps, PastorVon, if he isn't ignoring me, could enlighten me. The dating of the Nativity is, of course, quite controversial. I've heard that the fact that the shepherds were tending there flocks means that it was in the spring and James Tabor, the author of The Jesus Dynasty, has said that he thinks it was in September, IIRC.
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What Faldo says is correct, about Hannukah (however it's spelt) and the various Christian feasts he mentions. Although there is some implied scriptural mandate for the celebration of Easter, if not for an annual date, at least for celebrating it every Sunday, the day Jesus rose - the early church met specially on that day from the start for that reason.
Regarding Luke's statement about the extra books of the Old Testament, it's not as simple as that. It was not Luther who "threw out" the seven inter-testamental writings (and additions to two other books) that had always been accepted as scripture up to that point. That's historically incorrect.
First, they were not always accepted by everyone. The Jews, at the council of Jamnia in ca 80AD failed to include them in their Canon of the Hebrew Scriptures. I don't believe any of them are among the books or portions of books found in the Dead Sea Scrolls either. In the 4th century, several prominent Church Fathers declared them non-Canonical and not authoritative, only to be read for edification. Augustine (Luther's favourite father!) accepted them, Jerome did not. Various figures throughout history up to the Reformation continued to express doubts about them. There were other books, too, such as 1 & 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, that were not accepted by Rome but were accepted by parts of the Eastern Orthodox church (called the Anagignoskomena). And there are yet other ones that practically nobody accepts.
Second, these extra books (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, and the additions to Daniel and Esther) were only finally definitively and officially accepted as scripture by the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in 1561, AFTER the Reformation. That is why they are sometimes referred to by Rome as the 'Deutero-Canonical' books, because they were part of a "second" canoning process by the Roman Church, having not been part of the canon prior to that.
So the idea that the "Protestant" Old Testament Canon (which is also the Jewish one!) is only 500 years old versus a Catholic Canon which is four times more ancient, is actually an historical fallacy. The Roman Canon is some 50 years later than Luther, not 1500 years earlier!
Last edited by The Pook; 01/10/09 04:12 AM.
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Simply stated the RPW limits acceptable Christian worship and celebrations to those that are specifically indicated in the Bible. And that would be just the traditional Jewish holidays except Hanukkah? And Hanukkah is found in the Bible, the Bible still used by Catholics and Orthodox, before Luther threw out the Books of Macabbees. This is 2000 years vs. the 500 since the Reformation. It would be erroneous to blame Luther for "throwing out" the Books of Macabbees, because the Deuterocanonical books were never universally accepted by the Church, whether Eastern or Western, on the same level as the Canonical books. Even Jerome who first translated them questioned their authenticity. But, even if it were conceded that the Books of Macabbees were to be included in the list of canonical books, it would be erroneous to include Hannakuh as a mandated feast for two reasons: 1) you would have to prove that the references to Hannakuh were not purely narrative; and 2) that any subsequent observation of Hannakuh was not abrogated by the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ as explicated by the Epistle to the Hebrews. Hebrews very clearly demonstrates that even those Jewish feasts that were mandated before the coming of Jesus Christ were superseded by the sacrificial work of Christ and are no longer to be observed. Just because something is found in the Bible does not make it into something to be observed.
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1) you would have to prove that the references to Hannakuh were not purely narrative; My comment was that Hanukkah wasn't a mandated feast. 2) that any subsequent observation of Hannakuh was not abrogated by the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ as explicated by the Epistle to the Hebrews. Do we know who wrote Hebrews? Is that one that biblical scholars are pretty sure was written by Paul?
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