For millions of Christians, Christmas is about one thing: Jesus Christ. Parents read the account of His birth aloud to their children. Church congregations sing of the Savior by candlelight. Families push back against the commercialism of the season, determined to keep Christ at its center. For them, Christmas is a way of thanking God for sending His Son.

Yet many of these Christmas keepers also know that the holiday has pagan roots.

One prominent Presbyterian pastor wrote in 1999 that “the great majority of Christmas symbols seem to have originated in pagan idolatry,” and that December 25 appears to have been chosen because of earlier pagan celebrations. He keeps Christmas anyway, arguing that Christ came to claim a lost world, so even symbols with dark origins can be turned to His praise.

A well-known evangelical author and pastor reached a similar conclusion by another route. Many of our day names, such as Sunday, began as pagan references, he pointed out, yet no one thinks of sun worship when the word is used today. Holidays, he says, are “like chronological language,” and over time the old associations fade.

These arguments raise serious questions: When a tradition becomes part of religious worship, does giving it new meaning make it acceptable to God? If Christians adopt customs from other religions, can they know whether God approves?

The Bible addresses these fundamental questions. God is concerned not only with who we worship, but also how we worship.

If we sincerely want to honor Jesus Christ, we must examine whether our practices follow His instructions.

God Sets the Standard

Before Israel entered the Promised Land, God warned the nation about the religious practices of the peoples already living there. The Israelites would encounter shrines, altars and customs used to worship other gods. Instead of adopting these practices, Israel was to destroy the places where such worship occurred (Deut. 12:2-3).

God warned Israel to “take heed to yourself that you be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before you; and that you enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? Even so will I do likewise” (vs. 30).

God’s view on such practices was clear: “You shall not do so unto the Lord your God” (vs. 31). Israel was warned against worshipping the true God using the methods other nations had used for their gods.

In this passage, the worship in question was aimed at “the Lord your God,” the true God—not at Baal or any other idol. Anyone tempted to do so would likely have believed they were honoring Him. God forbade it anyway.

Why such a firm warning? Because God did not leave Israel to decide which religious practices were suitable for worshipping Him.

Some customs may have seemed harmless, while others involved practices He utterly condemned, including child sacrifice (vs. 31). Of course, child sacrifice is not comparable to modern Christmas customs. But God did not tell Israel to sort the nations’ practices into harmless and harmful and keep the harmless ones. He gave a rule that covers every custom: “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: you shall not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (vs. 32).

Centuries later, the prophet Jeremiah gave a similar warning: “Learn not the way of the heathen” (10:2).

What the Record Shows

Historians debate how some Christmas customs began. Yet the record does show that, from early on, Catholic and pagan religious practices overlapped. This blending of religious traditions is called syncretism, and it has a long history.

In AD 601, Pope Gregory I wrote to Abbot Mellitus, who was joining the mission to Britain, advising that pagan temples be converted into churches rather than destroyed, though he instructed that the idols inside be destroyed. He also recommended turning former sacrificial gatherings into Christian religious feasts. His letter never mentions Christmas, but it shows how familiar religious customs remained while their purpose changed.

What about December 25 as Jesus Christ’s birthday? That date is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

Even the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia admits that Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the New Testament Church. The earliest surviving record of December 25 as Christ’s birthday is a Roman calendar compiled in AD 354. That same calendar marks December 25 as Natalis Invicti, the birthday of the Unconquered Sun, a festival the encyclopedia says “has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date.”

In the decades that followed, Catholic leaders were warning against sun worship at Christmastime. Around AD 400, Augustine told his congregation to keep the day sacred not for the sun’s sake, as unbelievers did, but for the sake of the One who made the sun. In the mid-400s, Leo the Great, bishop of Rome, rebuked some Christians in a Nativity sermon. They would climb the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica and then turn to bow to the rising sun before entering.

The pull of such customs was felt even earlier. Around AD 200, more than a century before Christmas appears in the record, the theologian Tertullian rebuked Christians for joining Saturnalia and New Year’s festivities, with their gift exchanges and banquets, and for hanging lamps and laurel on their doors. Centuries later, the Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledged where such customs ended up. Pagan observances around the Roman New Year moved into Christmas, and the New Year’s gifts that Tertullian condemned survived as Christmas presents.

So Catholic leaders admit that pagan practice shaped their worship. What does God think of this?

Truth Over Tradition

Scripture is not ambiguous on this subject. It reveals many places where people believed they were honoring God and were told they had it wrong.

Consider Israel at Mount Sinai. While Moses was on the mountain, the people made a golden calf and declared, “These be your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 32:4). They credited the calf with the very deliverance God Himself had performed. Aaron then built an altar before it and proclaimed, “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord” (vs. 5).

Aaron used the Lord’ s own name. The next morning the people offered sacrifices, then “sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (vs. 6). God told Moses: “Go, get you down; for your people, which you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them” (vs. 7-8).

Calling something a feast to the Lord did not make it acceptable to Him.

Centuries later, Israel’s King Jeroboam did something similar with the calendar. To keep his people from returning to Jerusalem to worship, he set up golden calves and repeated Aaron’s words (I Kgs. 12:28). He also ordained a feast modeled on the one in Judah, but held a month later, “in the month which he had devised of his own heart” (vs. 32-33). Scripture’s verdict on Jeroboam’s actions: “This thing became a sin” (vs. 30).

These are all Old Testament examples. What about the New?

Jesus Christ addressed the authority of religious traditions when He confronted the Pharisees, a religious group of His day. They criticized His disciples for eating without first observing a ritual washing of hands. This was a religious tradition, not a command from God (Mark 7:1-5).

Christ said: “Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. Howbeit in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things you do” (vs. 6-8).

He continued: “Full well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition” (vs. 9).

In verses 10 to 13, Jesus gave an example: a tradition that let people avoid their God-given responsibility to care for their parents. He said people who did this were “making the word of God of none effect through your tradition.”

Remember Deuteronomy 12:32 from earlier. In Mark 7, a tradition displaced a commandment. In Deuteronomy 12:32, God forbade adding to His commands. Christ was not declaring that every human tradition is wrong. He was showing that religious traditions cannot take the place of God’s instructions.

The fact that people have followed a practice for generations, or attached sincere religious meaning to it, does not give that practice God’s approval.

All Christians would agree that Jesus Christ deserves to be honored. But how should that honor be expressed? Think about ordinary relationships. If you sincerely want to honor someone, you consider what that person wants and values, not simply what seems right or meaningful to you. Should a relationship with God be any different?

Jesus addressed the nature of true worship in a conversation with a Samaritan woman who asked where to worship God.

Samaria had a history of blended worship. When foreign peoples were resettled there centuries earlier, they “feared the Lord, and served their own gods” (II Kgs. 17:33). Christ answered her: “You worship you know not what: we know what we worship” (John 4:22).

He explained that “the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him.” Then He added: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (vs. 23-24).

God seeks a particular kind of worship. Sincerity matters, but so does truth. To worship in truth means taking seriously what God reveals about Himself and how He expects to be worshipped. Our feelings about a tradition cannot take the place of His Word.

A Word or an Act of Worship?

Many Christians insist that their celebration is directed toward Christ alone. Their intentions may be genuine. But does that give them authority to adopt customs from pagan religion and use them to honor Him?

What about the argument we began with, that old customs lose their old meanings? It is true that many things in society have pagan connections. “Thursday,” for example, takes its name from Thor, a god once worshipped in northern Europe, and “Sunday” began as a reference to the sun. Yet scheduling a Thursday appointment is hardly an act of worship. A day name is a word we speak, not an act we perform to honor God.

Christmas is different. It is a religious observance, kept to worship Christ, and worship is exactly where God forbade borrowing from other religions (Deut. 12:30-31).

Recall Aaron at Mount Sinai. He made a golden calf, the kind of idol other nations worshipped, then announced, “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord” (Ex. 32:5). He took a pagan form of worship and put God’s name on it. That did not make it acceptable then, and putting Christ’s name on borrowed customs does not make them acceptable now. What matters is following what God commands.

Making the Change

Think again of all the sincere motives of many Christmas keepers. Wanting to honor Christ, to teach children about Him and to thank God for sending His Son are all good things to do. Yet the Bible clearly shows that Christmas is not the way to honor Jesus.

Since God does not accept worship borrowed from other religions, the way to honor Christ is to stop keeping Christmas and to worship Him as He instructed. For many, that is not an easy step. Christmas is woven into family gatherings, childhood memories and community life, and setting it aside can feel like losing something precious.

Yet consider what is gained. Most who celebrate Christmas ignore the Holy Days that God commands. These annual festivals reveal God’s plan for mankind: Christ’s sacrifice, the removal of sin, the gift of His Spirit, God’s coming Kingdom, and His desire to work with all mankind.

Families who begin keeping these days and leave Christmas behind have more opportunities to teach their children about Jesus, not less.

For a fuller explanation of God’s commanded days, read our booklet God’s Holy Days or Pagan Holidays?

Making this change may bring disappointment or misunderstanding from relatives and friends. The cost is real, and it calls for patience and kindness in how you explain yourself. Leaving Christmas behind does not mean leaving love for family behind. And Christ Himself put God’s commands ahead of tradition, whatever the reaction.

Yes, Christmas’s pagan background matters. Not because Christians today intend to worship ancient gods, but because sincere intentions do not make a religious practice acceptable to God. As Scripture shows, God determines how He is to be worshipped.

Christ makes this promise: “He that has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves Me: and he that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him…” (John 14:21).

If we truly want to honor Christ, we must be willing to do so on His terms, not our own.