Thanksgiving Topics for Your Table

Thanksgiving is unique among all of the holidays we celebrate in our country.  Those who believe in God’s providential role and countless spiritual and material blessings realize that we ultimately owe our thanksgiving to Him.  Granted, we ought to thank one another for acts of kindness.  But because we are stewards of God’s blessings, even the grace that inspires us to do kind acts is from God.  Therefore, thanksgiving is incomplete unless we humbly offer it in worship and praise to God Who alone is the Giver of every perfect gift that comes down from above (James 1: 17).

If you and your loved ones are seeking ways to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday in a meaningful way that acknowledges American history and God’s providential role in it, consider using a series of questions that may pique the interest of both young and old.  Here’s how I hope this exercise will work in our family.

Write or print the following questions on numbered cards or paper.  (Or, you can simply print the questions on one sheet of paper and have someone be the questioner.)  Choose a time to sit together, distribute the questions, and take turns in the order of the number assigned to each question.   Allow time for anyone to answer and be alert to opportunities for discussion.  Answers?  If you don’t know them, why not search for them online, but be sure to double-check your sources for accuracy.

1.      What was the name of the ship on which the Pilgrims sailed to North America?

2.      How did the tradition of having turkey on Thanksgiving begin?

3.      How many different American Thanksgiving traditions can you name? [See how long you can keep it going around the table or group.]

4.      Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?

5.      Why did the Pilgrims dress in dark, drab clothing?  [Suggestion: Pause for answers.  Then, ask if this stereotype is true.  See photos.]

6.      Which of the following is true of the Thanksgiving celebration by the Pilgrims, in 1621?
a.   Celebrating thanksgiving for the harvest was a tradition they brought from Europe.

b.   Their Native American friends (the Wampanoag’s) also had a Thanksgiving tradition.
c.    On their “First Thanksgiving” at Plymouth, 53 Pilgrims were joined by 90 Native Americans.
d.    At the time, numerous cultures in the world already practiced Thanksgiving celebrations.
e.    All of the above are true.

7.   Why did the Pilgrims decide to leave England?

      8.   Where did the Pilgrims land on their voyage from England?

      9.   What are the names of the two turkeys pardoned this year by President Trump?
10. Which president of the United States began the tradition of pardoning turkeys, and why?
11. Why did the Pilgrims leave their home and their work to come to North America?
12. Why did the Pilgrims land on Cape Cod when they had aimed for the mouth of the Hudson R?
13. In the Book of Genesis, who did God providentially send to Egypt as a slave so that his family
             and the whole nation of Egypt could be saved from famine?
14. In the Pilgrim story, who did God providentially send to help them survive in the new world?
15. Can you name other people in history whom God sent to intercede and deliver His people? Hint: One was a queen.  Another is mentioned in Isaiah 7: 14 and Matthew 1: 21. 
16. What are you thankful for as you remember the events of your life in 2018?

Additional Questions: (Select to fit age/maturity):
Although our culture is very different from 1620, does our celebration of Thanksgiving retain the purposes of the Pilgrims?

The Pilgrims believed that it was very important for each individual to love and honor their parents, family, and church.   Children and young adults learned that it was very important to make choices that honored their family and community.  Has culture in America become different from this, and if so how?  If today’s culture is different, do you think it is for the better?

Why are the Pilgrims called “separatists?”  How did their approach to living differ from the Puritans? Which if either is more in line with your beliefs about how we should live in our culture today?

Suggested Reading:

Read an account of how Squanto was strategically or (arguably) providentially prepared to assist the Pilgrims in ways that enabled them to survive in “New England.”  I recommend Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas. 2012 (Thomas Nelson), a very readable and well illustrated book for children and adults.

Quiz in PDF Format:  Available upon request to silviusj@gmail.com

Learning Lessons from the Pilgrims

In November, 2020 we will be celebrating the 400-year anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Harbor in what is now Massachusetts.  But why did the Pilgrims embark on this daring voyage from England via Holland to another continent?  As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this week, and then the quadricentennial anniversary in 2020, I wanted to be sure that I have the “Pilgrim story” correct. (See “Further Reading” below.)

Historians record that the Pilgrims left England for Holland in 1607 in pursuit of religious freedom from the Church of England.  Also known as separatists, the Pilgrims correctly believed that “the Church” had strayed from biblical Christianity in the years following the Protestant Reformation.  While religious freedom was their chief motive for leaving England, this does not explain why the Pilgrims left from Holland on the Mayflower, in 1620.  Robert Tracy McKenzie, professor of history and chair of the history department at Wheaton College, finds in the writings of William Bradford who later became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony what I will consider to be three reasons the Pilgrims left Holland for North America.

First, the Pilgrim’s placed high priority on establishing godly families and a community patterned according to their understanding of biblical principles.  Hoping to accomplish this goal in Holland, they instead encountered a morally permissive Dutch culture that made it difficult for Pilgrim parents to raise their children with “due correction without reproof or reproach from their neighbors.”

Second, over half of the separatists that came to Holland had to become textile factory workers.  According to McKenzie, in place of the seasonal rhythms of farm life they had known in England, the Pilgrims faced the work of carding, spinning, or weaving in their own homes from dawn to dusk, six days a week, merely to keep body and soul together. Hunger and want had become their taskmaster.

Perhaps the Pilgrims might have tolerated the moral laxity and harsh economic conditions, were it not for what they saw as a third, more fundamental reason for leaving Holland.  They came to understand that the first two factors were becoming a threat to maintaining a vibrant Christian faith.  To these separatists, their daily walk of faith depended upon a cohesive faith community centered around strong families and church.  Therefore, we should call these committed Christians “Pilgrims” and “separatists” not because they separated geographically and sailed to an alien land.  Instead, the two names fit because their faith in God and His Word had led them to view themselves as “Pilgrims” and “separatists” from a world whose secular values were in opposition to their beliefs. 

Having left England for religious freedom, the Pilgrims found themselves in a Dutch culture that threatened to smother their lives of faith with the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things (Mark 4: 19).  Maybe their “second separation,” a separation that led them to cut their moorings from a permissive, materialistic culture of Holland and set sale on the Mayflower, was a greater challenge than separating from the Church of England.  Whatever the case, the Pilgrim story provides Americans today with a choice of two Thanksgiving narratives—and more broadly, two American narratives.

Professor McKenzie challenges Christians today not to seize on the first narrative as simply “ammunition for the culture wars” against an unbelieving culture that undervalues or despises “religious liberty.”  While I do not deny that Christ-followers have an important role in standing against threats to religious liberty, the institutions of marriage and family, and other freedoms under the U.S. Constitution, we must not ignore the second Pilgrim/American narrative.  As Christ-followers, we must not forget that we too are called in the power of the Holy Spirit to be “pilgrims in a foreign land” and as such to remember another battlefront—one within our own souls, as the Apostle Peter reminds early believers (emphasis mine):

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light: who in time past were no people, but now are God's people, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.  Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having good behavior among the nations, so in that of which they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they see, glorify God in the day of visitation (1 Peter 2: 9-12).

Providentially, the Cape Cod coastline provided safe harbor.

Here, I must admit that as I write, I am “preaching to myself.”  I find it much easier to be my own political and cultural warrior against materialism and moral laxness than to focus regularly on battling the thorns and thistles that tend to grow and thrive within my soul.  So easily, they can crowd out my priority of seeking the peace of God and the fellowship with His Holy Spirit through daily time in prayer and the Word of God.   John Winthrop who led 700 Puritan immigrants to New England and was instrumental in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1630, preached a sermon entitled, “A Model of Christian Charity (Love)” in which he emphasized the spiritual disciplines that promote inner virtues and war against our fleshly selfishness:

Whatsoever we did, or ought to have done, when we lived in England, the same must we do, and more also, where we go. That which the most in their churches maintain as truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant practice; as in this duty of love, we must love brotherly without dissimulation, we must love one another with a pure heart fervently. We must bear one another’s burdens. We must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren. 

After challenging his Puritan listeners, Winthrop gives instruction and his vision for righteous living in community of Massachusetts Bay.  His message also challenges me to discipline my inner life so my words and actions will showcase Christ’s love in my marriage, family, church, and government (emphasis mine):

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

In summary, may I apply Winthrop’s challenge to all of us who choose to regard this year’s Thanksgiving as a holiday, or “holy day?”  In true “holy-day” spirit, we must direct our “thankfulness” to God, the only object worthy of our thanks—not to ourselves or our accomplishments, not to America or her cropland, forests, fisheries, mines; or great leaders and past heroes, as much as we ought to be thankful for all of these.  Our ultimate thanksgiving must be uplifted to the only Worthy Object of our thanks: Almighty God.

In giving our thanks to God, may we remember the “Pilgrim Fathers” and their costly commitments to separate not only from a church that was ruled by false doctrine, but from a materialistic and morally drifting culture that threatened the integrity of their marriages, families, and church.  But, most important of all is the lesson for us is in how Pilgrims believed and behaved.  They understood that their primary role was to be witnesses of Jesus Christ and not simply critics of politics and culture. 

In conclusion, Tracy McKinzie challenges us not to ignore the aspects of [the Pilgrim] story that might cast a light into our own hearts. They struggled with fundamental questions still relevant to us today: What is the true cost of discipleship? What must we sacrifice in pursuit of the kingdom? How can we “shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15) and keep ourselves “unspotted from the world” (James 1:27)? What sort of obligation do we owe our local churches, and how do we balance that duty with family commitments and individual desires? What does it look like to “seek first the kingdom of God” and can we really trust God to provide for all our other needs?  As Christians, these are crucial questions we need to revisit regularly. We might even consider discussing them with our families [during] our Thanksgiving celebrations.

Further Reading:
The following articles and two books are recommended as Thanksgiving readings:
Thanksgiving and Black Friday: Invitations to Develop Contentment (2011)
Remembering the “Yearning to Breathe Free” (2013, and edited recently for corrections)
Thanksgiving in a Watching World (2014)
How Do You P-R-A-Y This Thanksgiving? (2015)
McKenzie, Robert Tracy. 2013.  The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us…
Metaxas, Eric.  2012.  Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving.  Thomas Nelson.

LOVE: Part 3 – Because He First Loved Us

Welcome to Part 3 from my personal study and meditation on the love of God for mankind and for His creation.  As the songwriter expressed so well, all of us have a longing for “love, sweet love…” that which the world seems to “have so little of.”

In LOVE Part 1: “What the World Needs Most,” we considered the emptiness that results when we seek love apart from God.  But when we yield to God’s pursuit of us, we experience real love and are transformed by it.  We stop worshiping ourselves and plunge by faith into the infinite sea of God’s great love.  When we have become immersed (“baptized”) in God’s love through His Holy Spirit, all thoughts of ourselves being a source of love begin to dissolve away and our whole disposition changes.  

LOVE Part 2: “It’s Out of This World” pointed us toward God as the ultimate source of unconditional (agape) love.  John opens his Gospel with the claim that God’s Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1: 14).  “The Word” is God incarnated as Jesus Christ Who came to Earth over 2,000 years ago to show us God’s love and to save us from our sins.  Today, God reveals His love both through the inspired Word contained in the Bible (e.g. 1 John 4: 7-10) and through the amazing form and function of His creation (Romans 1: 20). 

Sunflower heads orient in the direction of the sun.

 God’s love comes to Earth like pure rays of sunlight after traveling 90 million miles—literally, from “out of this world.”  Sunlight warms the planet, causes plants to grow, and supplies food and oxygen essential for life.  Just as life on Earth depends on energy from an outside source, we cannot be alive spiritually and be lavishers of love unless we are transformed by the light of God’s truth and love as revealed in the Scriptures.

God’s lavished love still manifests itself through transformed lives of Christ-followers.  As we explained in LOVE Part 2, God transforms the life of each lost sinner when he or she hears the Gospel (“Good News”), realizes their “heredity of sin” (Romans 3: 23), and chooses to die to “self” and be “born again” through union with Christ (Romans 6: 1-14).  It is God’s love and grace that draws the sinner to hear and respond by faith to the light of Truth (Ephesians 2: 8-9). 

When God’s love works in our lives, we honor Christ and His Gospel in the sight of others who need God’s saving love (1 Peter 3: 15).  Now, we will discuss how God’s lavished love transforms us into lovers of Him and our neighbor.  The key to our spiritual transformation is hinted at in the title of this article, “LOVE Part 3: Because He First Loved Us.”

The apostle John wrote, We love because He first loved us (1 John 4: 19).  If we believe John’s claim to be true, then how exactly does God’s love transform us and enable us to lavish His love on the people and the creation He loves?  The answer is evident when we consider John’s statement, “because He loved us first.”

First, John’s use of the word “because” suggests that we ought to love God out of a realization of all God has done to redeem us.”  The Apostle John was moved to exclaim, See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are! (1 John 3: 1).

Our realization of God’s love is elevated to obligation when we read 1 John 4: 11:  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  This ought brings moral significance because it commands us to assign value to God and to other people with whom we associate.  The moral and ethical reason for loving God and our neighbor is confirmed by the command in 1 John 1: 6, Love means doing what God has commanded us, and He has commanded us to love one another….  Our love is only registered in God’s eyes when we obey His commands.

But there is a third element of our “motivation” to love besides realization and obligation.  The word “because” in 1 John 4: 19 also suggests that God gives Christ-followers an inner compulsion to love—i.e. “we love because we cannot help but love.”  When we come to the Cross of Calvary, realize Christ’s sacrifice for us, and obey God’s command to “love one another as I have loved you,” God’s Spirit creates an inner compulsion to love as He loves us.  The Apostle Paul wrote that Christ’s love compels us because we are convinced… he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again (2 Corinthians 5: 14-15).

Philippians 2: 12-13 combines all three “motivations” for loving—realization, obligation, and compulsion (emphasis mine):

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

According to verse 12, if we obey God’s command (“work out your salvation”) in the daily situations of life, He “wills and works” His good pleasure within us.  Oswald Chambers wrote,* “God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly.”  As we take up His cross (or “yoke”) and bear it daily and lovingly, we are not alone.  We bear it in partnership with Jesus Christ (Matthew 11: 28-30).  The Holy Spirit in turn enables us to experience our Father’s love and good pleasure, and to share His love with others.  Therefore, Christ’s claim is true: “My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (11: 30).

Because of our willing submission to God, His love and power can work within us, producing fruit of the Spirit (i.e. love, joy, etc. according to Galatians 5: 22-23) that is pleasing to Him and attractive to our neighbor.  Again, by our analogy of sunlight, when the Sun’s rays warm the soil in the Spring, seeds sprout and seedlings emerge into the light through what botanists call a positive phototropic response.  That is, each seedling takes in the light energy and grows “in obedience” toward the light.  As tiny leaves enlarge in response to light, they intercept more light.  By the time the seedling has grown into a mature plant, it has accumulated enough energy and nutrient resources so that it can bear fruit.  We might say, obedient pursuit of the light (input of God’s love) leads to abundant fruit-bearing (supernatural output of love).

We can see that humble submission is a key to receiving and sharing God’s love.  Jesus used a “seed analogy” to teach how we must die to self in order to receive new spiritual life and growth.  We must be like a seed that falls to the ground and dies to itself (i.e. gives up its food reserves for the embryo) in order to enable the seedling to emerge from the soil (John 12: 24).  In John 15: 7-14 Jesus uses another plant analogy: “the vine and the branches.”  Speaking to Christ-followers, Jesus says in essence, You are like branches and if you obediently remain grafted into Me (Jesus) and receive my love, you will be filled and compelled to express My love to God and to your neighbor—even to the extent of giving up your life if necessary. 

In summary, we have considered how it is that God’s love transforms us and enables us to lavish His love on the people and things He loves.  The Apostle John’s point is this-- We love because He first loved us (1 John 4: 19).  If we respond in obedience to God’s love as He commands us, we are in fact showing evidence of our love for Him.  We will also realize that love does not ultimately come from us; it is from God as a fruit of His Spirit abiding and working in us.

While He commanded that we love Him, Jesus also knew what was in men’s hearts (John 2: 24).  Jesus knows that my heart is very prone to forget or deny His truth and great love.  I am prone to deny my Savior in thought, word, and deed.  Also, perhaps like you, I frequently face people and situations that challenge my ability to love unselfishly and witness unashamedly.  Therefore, I have been studying other passages of Scripture that teach what God expects of me in regard to his love.  In “LOVE Part 4: Dying to Be Loved,” we will consider how focusing on the Cross of Christ and His great sacrifice for us magnifies the holiness and judgment of God, and even more, the great love of God.

How About You?
Is there a point in your life where you surrendered to the claims of Christ and asked Him to forgive you and be your Savior?  If not, I refer you to Steps to Peace with God which will explain how you can become a Christ-follower.  Without Christ, you are dead in sin, cut off from the vine which provides spiritual nourishment needed to yield the fruit of the Spirit in your life.  In your unsaved condition, you are facing judgment for your sin and the “wages” of eternal separation from God (Romans 6: 23).  Romans 8: 6-7 states that those who are not at peace with God remain hostile toward Him because their minds are not "tuned" to the Spirit of God].  In fact, according to Romans 8: 7-8, they are not even able to do so... 

Maybe you have received Christ but your spirit (your "receiver" or "antenna") needs to be tuned again to the voice of God's Spirit speaking to you through His Word, or friends, or circumstances.  Ask God to help you turn again to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1: 9).  Then, as a Christ-follower, when you open your Bible and read, God’s Spirit will go to work to make your spirit and mind receptive to the Scriptures, and to give you understanding of the truth you are reading.  When you are receptive to that truth, God’s Spirit will empower you to respond to the Scripture for reproof, for correction, [and] for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3: 16).  When God’s Spirit can freely guide your mind and will, He will produce in you the fruit of His love so that you can love God and your neighbor as He intends.  If you have questions, please contact me at silviusj@cedarville.edu
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*Oswald Chambers. 1935.  My Utmost for His Highest, September 20 (Dodd, Mead, & Co., New York, NY.)