Gerry Bowler observed in his book Christmas in the Crosshairs, that while the birth of Jesus has always been important to the gospel, the first generations of Christians “lived in profound expectation of [Jesus’] imminent return.” He suggested that, among other things, when those eschatological hopes weren’t immediately fulfilled, the birth of Jesus began to get more attention. When Constantine issued the Edict of Milan making Christianity a legal religion, the annual celebration of festivals and holy days soon followed.

The history surrounding Christmas has been anything but peace on earth and goodwill toward men. While contemporary religious and cultural traditions may evoke a certain nostalgia for its celebration, its history is actually a mess! One big mess—with feverish disagreements, hostility, and even rioting. In Christmas in America, Penne Restad wrote: “Christians [have] wrestled for centuries with questions of if, when, and how to celebrate Jesus’ birth.”
Stop the sleigh! Christians have wrestled with if Christmas should be celebrated? To some that might be a bigger surprise than the presents under the tree. After all, according to Gallup polling, ninety-three percent of people across all demographics celebrate Christmas in the United States, and of those who are fairly religious that number rises to ninety-six percent. In a society that’s deeply divided on any and every issue, Christmas is a near-universal observance. But it wasn’t always so. Paul VM Flesher said: “The notion that Christians of any stripe should not want to celebrate Christmas is so foreign to our present concept of the holiday that we need to review some history to understand it.”
The incarnation—the act of the eternal and only begotten Son becoming man—is foundational to the Christian faith. As John Chyrsostom preached: “Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the Nativity.” For some, the yearly commemoration of that event is one of the most important days of the year. Yet Jesus never indicated that this redemptive act was to be annually celebrated, and its yearly observance didn’t enter into the way the Apostles ordered the worship and life of the church. Early Christian scholar Origen (d. 253) asserted that celebrating birthdays was foreign to Christianity, saying: “It has not come from the thought of any of the saints; not one from all the saints is found to have celebrated a festive day or a great feast on the day of his birth” (Homilies on Leviticus 8).
Gerry Bowler observed in his book Christmas in the Crosshairs, that while the birth of Jesus has always been important to the gospel, the first generations of Christians “lived in profound expectation of [Jesus’] imminent return.” He suggested that, among other things, when those eschatological hopes weren’t immediately fulfilled, the birth of Jesus began to get more attention. When Constantine issued the Edict of Milan making Christianity a legal religion, the annual celebration of festivals and holy days soon followed.
Emperor Constantine commissioned that the Church of the Nativity be built in Bethlehem over the cave where it was believed Mary had given birth to Jesus. Historians debate the role of Constantine in the precise development of Christmas, but it has been suggested that he had a personal interest in the festival of the nativity. Nevertheless, it was in the 4th-century when the Roman Church began celebrating December 25th as the birthdate of Jesus. In the spirit of celebration Maximus of Turin (d. 465) said: “Brothers and sisters, our hearts still echo with the joy of the Lord’s birth, and our continuing gladness creates in us a sense of heavenly festivity. For, though the joyous day itself has passed, the sanctification that joy brought is still with us” (Sermo 6).
As that spirit grew around this man-created holy day, so too did traditions, superstitions, and syncretism. Leading to centuries of trouble was the struggle to keep the celebration set apart from worldly activities. For example, warning of the dangers of celebrating the feast in a worldly way, Augustine (d. 430) preached: “For our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became Man for our sake, paid a price for us. He gave Himself as a price and He did so for the purpose, namely, to redeem and separate you from the pagans. But if you wish to intermingle with the pagans, you do not wish to follow Him who redeemed you” (Sermon 198 on New Years Day). He went on to say: “Therefore, in order to follow your Redeemer, who bought you back with His own blood, do not mix with the pagans by aping their customs and deeds.”
Again, Bowler wrote: “Time after time, century after century, clergy would warn against unseemly folk rituals being practiced by Catholic believers; Christmastide was not the only battlefield but was a particularly contested one.” It seems, however, it was a losing battle. At first, Christians and the church adopted rituals they deemed harmless, but soon even practices once condemned (like gift giving and feasting) became high points of celebration. By the sixteenth century Christmas celebration was well established.
Then the Reformation happened. Often, when we think of the Reformation we think of reclaiming the biblical gospel especially as its related to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. But the Protestant Reformation was also about worship. In his The Necessity of Reforming the Church, John Calvin wrote: “The whole substance of Christianity [is] a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly of the source from which salvation is to be obtained.” As Sinclair Ferguson concluded: “[The Reformers] well understood that the rediscovery of the gospel and the reformation of worship were two sides of the same coin.”
Following the Protestant Reformation certain branches within Protestantism retained the celebration of Christmas. For example, the Augsburg Confession of the Lutheran churches states: “Of Usages in the Church they teach that those ought to be observed which may be observed without sin, and which are profitable unto tranquility and good order in the Church, as particular holy days, festivals, and the like” (Article 15.1).
Even some of those Protestants who followed a Reformed doctrine of worship gave place to its observance as helpful to piety although not given by God. The Church Order of Dort (1619) prescribed: “The congregations shall observe, in addition to Sunday, also Christmas, Easter and Pentecost”—and they threw in the circumcision of Jesus for good measure (Article 67). Francis Turretin (d. 1687), a Reformed scholastic, said “anniversary days” for the nativity, passion, or ascension should, according to the orthodox, “be left to the liberty of the church.” He argued this even while recognizing the festivals “were kept neither from the institution of Christ nor of the apostles.”
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The public reading of Scripture is not a light thing, but a grave exercise of Christ’s authority. Those who read Scripture publicly function as God’s very voice, directly addressing his people through his Word. To say that the reading of Scriptures is not an exercise of the church’s authority would be to suggest that worshipers in the congregation do not need to submit to the Word of God when it is read.

Within the PCA, there is a broad range of practices regarding who is permitted to read Scripture publicly within a worship service.[1] Some PCA churches restrict the public reading of the Word to the minister alone while others permit Christian men to read the Word. Still others allow even women and children to conduct the public reading of Scripture.
The causes for such diverse practices and opinions are not difficult to understand. The indirect answer in WLC #156 (“all are not permitted to read the Word publicly to the congregation”), and the non-binding, unclear statement of BCO 50-2 (“The reading of the Holy Scriptures in the congregation…should be done by the minister or some other person”), have opened the door to wide divergences in the PCA.[2] It is a mistake, however, to act as though Larger Catechism #156 and BCO 50-2 are the only relevant sections for giving our congregations direction about who may read the Word publicly.
In this article, then, I want to plead with fellow presbyters in the PCA to reclaim the biblical and historically Presbyterian understanding that the public reading of Scripture is an exercise of church authority. Accordingly, I will argue that the Scriptures and our constitution give us sufficient clarity about who is, and who is not, permitted to read the Word publicly.
Is the Public Reading of Scripture an Exercise of Authority?
Thankfully, the disagreement in the PCA about reading the Word publicly is not about whether women may exercise authority in the church (1 Tim. 2:12). Instead, the disagreement is about whether we should understand the reading of Scripture as an exercise of church authority. So, the Sessions who authorize women to read the Scriptures publicly may justify their actions by stating that simply to read the Bible publicly is not authoritative in the way that preaching is.
It is somewhat surprising, though, that we often do not consider this question of the public reading of Scripture in the light of a wider understanding of the biblical nature of authority in the church, as set down in the Preliminary Principles of the BCO. Preliminary Principle #7 is especially clarifying: “All church power…is only ministerial and declarative.” That is, within the church, there are only two lawful ways to exercise authority: (1) by ministering God’s word, or (2) by declaring God’s word.
Regarding the declarative aspect of church authority, we believe that the authority of the church does not consist in the power to legislate a new word from the Lord, but that we exercise authority whenever we declare the (old) word of God, as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (WSC #2). According to this definition, is the public reading of Scriptures an authoritative declaration of God’s word?
The answer to this question must be a resounding yes. Any time someone reads the Word of God publicly, that person is declaring, “Thus saith the Lord.” Indeed, we should notice the often overlooked (and, to my knowledge, uncontroversial) explanation of the nature of the public reading of Scripture in BCO 50-1: “Through [the public reading of the Holy Scriptures] God speaks most directly to the congregation, even more directly than through the sermon.” To read the Scriptures is to stand as God’s authoritative herald, declaring the word of God—even more directly than during the sermon.
So, Paul exhorts Timothy to devote himself to exhortation and teaching, and also “to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13). Then, Paul explains that these things (including the public reading of Scripture) were entrusted to him as a gift at his ordination, “when the council of elders laid their hands on you” (1 Tim. 4:14). Ordination is therefore a conferring of authority for a man to read the Scriptures publicly, among his other duties.
Our authority, then, is only a stewardship of God’s authority, in his Word.
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God tells us, essentially, “Don’t set up your own judgment seat, because I know the motives of the heart that you don’t.” We lack a few important qualifications for being judges: not only holiness, but also a little thing called omniscience! These words of our Lord are worth repeating: “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word they have spoken” (Matthew 12:36).

Proverbs 6:16-19 says there are six things God hates, seven things detestable to the Lord. “Hands that shed innocent blood” would apply to abortion. “A heart that devises wicked schemes and feet that are quick to rush into evil” could apply to both homosexual and heterosexual sin. But let’s not stop there. The passage also includes a “false witness” and one “who stirs up dissension among brothers.”
Wouldn’t we all like to think that WE couldn’t be guilty of any of the seven things God hates? I would. But if we say that, then we have “haughty eyes” and “lying tongues,” which covers the remaining deadly sins. None of us is innocent, are we?
Those who hold to the authority of Scripture typically agree that things such as adultery, pornography, homosexual relations, lying, and stealing are sins. But so is gossip. So is bearing false witness against your brother. So is pride and arrogance and sowing seeds of disunity.
Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We’re told, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). “Strive for peace with everyone” (Hebrews 12:14). Jesus also said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
God has indeed called us to battle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). This takes boldness and courage.
But do not mistake expressions of slander, cruelty, and verbal mob behavior as doing spiritual battle. Humility, grace, and peacemaking are often God’s greatest tools in the battle for righteousness and justice. (It’s all too easy to mistake each other as the enemy!)
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