[Cal]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

So I don't disagree with Evangelical that these things are a mixture, that they have their roots in paganism, and that it is corrupting.

I don't agree they are necessarily corrupting. Look at it this way, who made and owns the pine trees, the holly, the mistletoe, the logs in the fire, the fire itself? God! If he wants to reclaim those things for himself, to take them from the false gods and like a train of vanquished foes show them forth in celebration for himself what is wrong with that?

Who worships the sun god anymore? Is a yule log a nod to him, or is it to God reclaiming what should have been his all along? What is really wrong with building a fire, decorating a tree and circling around them and singing hymns of praise to Christ? Because pagans built fires and decorated trees that means we can't do it?

I just disagree with that thinking. Ultimately it will get to the point we can't do anything because some pagan did it first. The pagans can go jump in a lake. What God has made clean let no one call unclean. An idol is nothing. Don't you get it? Christ redeemed everything, except the inward evil things he condemns below. But all this outward stuff, I don't think he cares. He looks on the heart. That's the reality. That's the NT freedom.

What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them..... “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” Matthew 15:11, 16-20

But I agree with you that this is the gnat and swallowing all the sins of Witness Lee's sect is the camel.

That's a major point.