[Darris McNeely] I recently edited an article for our website about something called SAD. SAD is an acronym for Seasonal Affective Disorder. Something that a lot of us are prone to at this time of year in the winter, the days are short, days get cold. Sometimes you go several days without sunshine and our attitude goes into kind of a disorder. We get a little bit depressed as a result of that. Now, I know and I've used this as well, many others do, we have a workaround today, lights, and other things that we can do to help us get through that. I got to thinking about this in connection to that other big event that goes on at this time of year called Christmas. In the ancient world, seasons changed, short, cold, short days as well. People got the same seasonal attitude disorder, but they didn't have the workaround that we do. Instead, their workaround was to create a festival and a whole narrative around the darkness of wintertime to worshipping a pagan god.

And so they would light bonfires to drive away the darkness, the gods of darkness, and to wage against the gods of the bitter cold. And all of this began to develop culture to culture into something that is a little bit more familiar with what we have today. Let me read a quote from a book called "The Christmas Almanac" that kind of describes this. "The time of the winter solstice begins has always been an important season in the mythology of all peoples. In December, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, this is when we have the winter solstice, the very shortest day of the year. The sun, the giver of life, is at its lowest ebb. It's the shortest daylight of the year. The promise of spring is buried in cold and snow. It is the time when the forces of chaos that stand against the return of light and life must once again be defeated by the gods. At the low point of the solstice, the people must help the gods through imitative magic and religious ceremonies. The sun then begins to return in triumph, the days lengthen, and the winter remains. Spring is once again conceivable for all people, it's a time of great festivity." From "The Christmas Almanac," a book talking about the origins of Christmas.

Their workaround was to light a bonfire, to create a story of the chaos of the gods of cold and darkness and through all of the actions that they did that became part of their pagan festivals, they would drive it away and their own way of thinking and according to their own story. And, of course, all of this, culture to culture, was adapted into Christianity, into a custom called Christmas, which everybody knows who's thought about the topic and the subject today recognizes that Christmas on December 25th has all of its origins in the pagan festivals that have ranged across cultures and across time, but have been kind of baptized by Christianity and made legitimate as part of the festival calendar to commemorate the birth of Christ, even though everybody knows Christ was not born in the midst of winter, in December, or December 25th.

I sometimes I'm amazed as I read articles by very intelligent people who do know a great deal about the Bible, the Greek, the Hebrew, and the customs and the origins out of the pagan world that have worked their way into Christianity. And people just can't see that that's something that has no place in Christian worship and in the true worship of the true God at this time of year or at any time of the year. It makes me wonder about a lot of things. But I hope that all of us, as we kind of look at where we are right now in the seasons, can understand the need to focus upon God and the truth of Scripture, rather than the false teaching that is there in order to us create the best workaround to move forward with hope and with a true light and understanding of the gospel.

That's "BT Daily." Join us next time.