I would like to persuade you that you've never really heard The Real Meaning of Christmas.

I'd like to help you celebrate The Real Meaning of Christmas every day during 2018.

I don't mean with tinsel and glitter and lights and trees.

If you'll let me show you The Real Meaning of Christmas, You will experience

the most profound, beneficial, 
massive, and lasting
personal transformation
of your entire life.

A Personal "Life Coach" would charge you $500 or more per month to achieve this result.

I'll do it for free.

Not only will I do this for free,

If you follow my suggestions and I fail to persuade you about The Real Meaning of Christmas, $1,000.00 (one thousand U.S. dollars) will be added to your PayPal account or a bank check in that amount will be delivered to you by FedEx on December 24, 2018 (next year).

All I ask in return for this $1,000 check is that you tell me step-by-step where I failed to persuade you.

So what is The Real Meaning of Christmas Today

It might help to know what The Real Meaning of Christmas was when Jesus was born. I'll describe that in a minute.

Everybody knows that "the real meaning of Christmas" is not the tinsel and glitter and plastic and chrome that you buy at Walmart.

When asked what the real meaning of Christmas is, most folks will say "The birthday of Jesus."

Yes, that's what Christmas is, the anniversary of the birth of Jesus, but what is the meaning, the significance, and the moral obligation of the birth of some guy named Jesus two thousand years ago?

Here it is in a nutshell:

Jesus is the Christ

This is the most controversial proposition on planet earth.

Obviously Jews don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ ("Christ" means "Messiah").

Astonishingly, the vast majority of people who call themselves "Christians" and even go to "church" every Sunday do not believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah and is now reigning as the Messianic King today. Right now. They do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth became the Messiah in the past, at His first Advent. They believe we must wait for a future Advent, another Christmas, a Second Coming, before Jesus will assume the role of Christ and begin reigning as King.

So here's where it gets tricky. Here's where the mainstream gets uncomfortable. Here's why it will take me 365 days to persuade you that you've been wrong about The Real Meaning of Christmas.

Jesus is the Christ

The two most controversial words in that statement are the words "IS" and "THE."

 
Most church-going Christians believe that Jesus will become the Messiah at a future Christmas, a future advent, a future "Second Coming." But the word "IS" -- present tense -- is the wrong word to use about Jesus being the Messiah. To say that Jesus "is" the Messiah is to say that He already became the Messiah and began ruling in the past. The word "preterit" is from the Latin word for "past," and the idea that Jesus began ruling as Messiah in the past is called "the heresy of preterism." 
 

The word "Christ" also has many meanings. The basic meaning is "anointed," as in "king" (Matthew 21:5 ), e.g., "King of Israel" (John 1:49). Jesus is also called a "Ruler" (Micah 5:2), a "Potentate" (1 Timothy 6:15 ), a "Governor" (Matthew 2:6 ), a "Captain" (Hebrews 2:10 ), a "Prince" (Isaiah 9:6 ), and many other words (some of which we aren't familiar with in our day, like "Horn" [Luke 1:69 ]) which are political in nature.

Many political terms can be inferred:

• Jesus is a "servant," which is another word for "minister," and Jesus is surely the "Prime Minister."
• In his inaugural address, George Washington spoke of "that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations." The one who "presides" is the "president."
• Jesus is our King, our Lawgiver, and our Judge (Isaiah 33:22) -- all three branches of government under the U.S. Constitution.

Our point is that Jesus is the -- THE -- the ONLY -- legitimate king, prince, ruler, president, prime minister, governor, legislator, judge, and potentate. If we simply practice what we preach -- by obeying His commandments -- we will have a peaceful, orderly, and prosperous society. All other earthly kings, princes, rulers, presidents, prime ministers, governors, legislators, judges, and potentates are illegitimate usurpers and anti-Christ.

I know what you're thinking. "What are you, some kind of ANARCHIST?" That suspicion is the kind of thing we were all taught in schools run by earthly kings, princes, rulers, presidents, prime ministers, governors, legislators, judges, and potentates. We are never taught what Jesus taught.

Jesus actually taught His followers to be anarchists.

Jesus said the kings of the gentiles love to impose their will on other people by political and military force, but Christ's followers are not to do these things (Mark 10:42-45). Mark uses the Greek word from which we get our English word "anarchist." He says the kings of the Gentiles love to be "archists." But Christians are NOT to be "archists." So some folks will say all this talk about Jesus being THE Ruler -- the only legitimate Ruler -- will lead to "anarchy." Obeying Jesus as the Christ will certainly lead to the elimination of bloodthirsty empires and their Caesars, Pharaohs, and Führers. But it will certainly not lead to chaos and lawlessness (which is what most people have been trained to think of when they hear the word "anarchism" or contemplate the absence of "archists" in the swordless Kingdom of Christ).

So here's my offer:  if I do not persuade you that The Real Meaning of Christmas Today is this:

Christians should pray for and work to
abolish the government of the United States of America
and every other "civil government" from the face of the earth.

I will pay you $1,000.00

If I successfully persuade you that this is indeed The Real Meaning of Christmas, I will ask you to make a tax-deductible donation to the non-profit ministry that sponsors this website:  Vine & Fig Tree 

But you are under no obligation to do so. And any amount will be appreciated.
My obligation is to persuade you that the Bible says that the Baby born on the first Christmas wants His followers to abolish all earthly governments.
If I don't persuade you of this, my obligation is to fork over one thousand smackers.
Your obligation is to tell me why I failed to persuade you.

Not surprisingly, there is some "fine print" to this offer. I didn't put this website up just to pass out checks to every Tom, Dick, and Harriet that comes along and says "Oh yeah? I'm not persuaded; give me my thousand bucks!"

The big, over-arching requirement on your part is to read the entire Bible from cover to cover in chronological order, a little bit every day, for the next 365 days,  following a sequence you will receive each day via email. Answer two no-trick, no-brainer questions about the content of the day's reading, then tell me why you're still not persuaded. It only takes about 11 minutes a day to read the Bible in one year. I predict you will realize that the Bible is not all about going to church while you're alive and then going to heaven when you die. There are 30,000 verses in the Bible, and only a handful have anything to do with what happens to you when you die.

The Bible is mostly about "politics."

The Bible is an Anarchist Manifesto

The Bible is mostly about the war between the True King in heaven and false kings on earth. (Hint: all earthly kings are false kings. Illegitimate kings. They should repent and get real jobs, and serve the True King.)

Guess who the True King is.
The Greek word for this King is "Christ."
Guess what the real meaning of CHRISTmas is.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here's how I will attempt to persuade you over the next 365 days, and here are your obligations:

1. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you are basically an honest person, and will work through this persuasion process on "the honor system." No cheating, no multiple entries, no false identities, no bots.
2. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you are willing to be sharpened:
   • "Just as iron sharpens iron,
     friends sharpen the minds of each other."
     Proverbs 27:17
3. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you are an open-minded "Berean"
   • "Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica,
     in that they received the Word with all readiness of the mind,
     searching the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so."
     Acts 17:10-12
4. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you are willing to have your favorite writers, pet slogans, and bumper-stickers challenged:
   • "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him."
     Proverbs 18:17
5. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you are basically a non-violent person.
6. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you are in basic agreement with these principles from The Declaration of Independence (1776):
   1. that there really is a God, and His existence is a "self-evident truth"
   2. that our rights really are the product of the intelligent design of our Creator
                (not a gift from the government)
   3. that all Americans really are obligated to conform their lives to
                "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"
   4. that one day our actions really must pass judgment with
                "the Supreme Judge of the world"
   5. that all Americans should have "a firm reliance on
                the Protection of Divine Providence."
   6. that Americans have a duty -- not just a right
                -- to abolish any government
                that becomes a tyranny.
7. Note: Our work to "abolish" tyranny is non-violent and uses persuasion only.
   • "For although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons. Instead, our spiritual weapons are energized with divine power to effectively dismantle the defenses which people hide behind."
     2 Corinthians 10:3-5
         • I also hope to persuade you that The "American Revolution" was un-Christian.
8. If you don't agree with these principles (which made America the most prosperous and admired nation in history), and if you're some kind of atheist or scrooge or think you get to be your own god, we might still enter into an agreement, but before we do, I would like to hop on the phone with you for 10 minutes and talk with you, to see if you're serious and open-minded about this.
9. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to hear the case that you are a victim of educational malpractice.
   I will quote extensively from America's Founding Fathers, who wrote about what children should learn in public schools, and from historians who report on what children did in fact get taught in the typical one-room colonial American schoolhouse.
   When you see that you don't know as much about The Real Meaning of Christmas as the average 15 year-old in colonial America did, you will admit you are a victim of educational malpractice.
10. In addition to reading the Bible, I will therefore be forced to put you through a remedial education program, which will involve reading four of the most important books in the history of America, and of western civilization (described below). In order to understand The Real Meaning of Christmas, you must understand why God created human beings and put us on this planet. Americans in 1776 understood this better than Americans in 2017.
11. To help you read these five books during the next year, I will read them out loud to you. Each day I will send you an audio file to listen to in the morning as you drive to work, and another audio file to listen to in the afternoon or evening as you drive back home. The answers to the daily questions will be plainly spelled out as you listen.
12. You must allow me to try to persuade you a little bit every day. You can't say on December 23, 2018, that you completed the whole persuasion program "last night," and want your check delivered the next day because "I'm not persuaded." You can only complete 1/365th of the program in any 24-hour period. You can skip a day now and then if you don't want your thousand dollar check delivered in exactly 365 days. But you must complete all 365 lessons to qualify for the one thousand dollars.
13. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you agree that human beings are generally prohibited from stealing, that is, taking other people's money, property, or wealth without their consent.
14. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you agree that human beings are generally prohibited from killing other people.
15. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you are not permitted to hire a Mafia hit-man to kill someone who is in your way or whom you do not like.
16. Before we even make an agreement and get started, I would like you to affirm that you are not permitted to use extortion to raise the funds you need to hire your Mafia hit-man.
17. Do you see where this is going?
18. Does the Bible say that you have the right to "vote" for a friend of yours ("the candidate") to kill one of your enemies, take money from your neighbors, or threaten to lock someone you don't like in "the candidate's" basement with a psychopath who will sodomize your enemy?
19. Does God anywhere in the Bible declare that a small group of people have the moral right to take money from the rest of society by force or threats of violence ("taxation") and use that money to kill the enemies of the State (vengeance, "justice," "bold foreign policy")?
    As we read through the Bible from cover to cover, that's one of the questions you'll have to answer. I'm confident you'll see that the answer is "No. Nowhere."
    The angels told the shepherds that The Real Meaning of Christmas is "Peace on Earth." That peace comes when more and more people see that the answer to this fundamental question is "No. Nowhere."

I mentioned that in addition to reading the Bible from cover to cover in 2018, you need to read four other books which are among the most important in the history of America and Western Civilization.

Please let my try to sell you on reading these five books, a little bit every day during the next 365 days.