Some of you may know this, but I didn’t grow up in America. In Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan where I grew up, as in America, people celebrate holidays. But there were no holidays I can remember where families and friends came together purposefully to give thanks in those countries. This is why it is most interesting to me there is Thanksgiving in America. The most important holiday in both Taiwan and Hong Kong is the Chinese New Year. The most important holiday in Japan is New Year’s Day. For this reason, when I tell my parents in Taiwan that Americans consider Thanksgiving the most important holiday of the year, they are stunned, because they thought it had to be Christmas, or New Year’s Day.
Do you happen to know if the word “Thanksgiving” appears in the Bible at all? The answer is yes. Depending on the English Bible translation you use, it appears about 29 times. Even though “Thanksgiving” is mentioned both in the Old Testament and New Testament, it is not talking about the holiday you and I celebrate each year in America in late November. We must be careful not to confuse the “Thanksgiving” in our Bibles and the Thanksgiving holiday. But even though they are two separate things, there is one thing that is true between them —people come together to give thanks. Where are the “Thanksgiving” in the Bible and our Thanksgiving similar? Where are they different?
This Sunday morning, Billy introduces us to the second wall of the Church—the fellowship, or “koinonia”. In the evening, we will come and have koinonia to give thanks at the Thanksgiving Service that begins at 7 p.m.
Your friend,
Alvin