Why do people wear the cross?

Question

If you came home 1 day and saw your mother who you love GREATLY" lieing in a pool of blood, and rite next to her layed the knife in which the criminal or murderer killed her with, would you pick it up and put it on a string and wear it round ur neck? And why would you not? So why then do people walk around with crosses when they should be obeying the most important request and commandment from Jesus at Matt:28:19,20 which says to preach the good news about the coming kingdom?

Answer 1

Very good question. I wouldn't wear one any more than wear any other symbol of torture around my neck.

Answer 2

THE cross is loved and respected by millions of people. The Encyclopædia Britannica calls the cross “the principal symbol of the Christian religion.” Nevertheless, true Christians do not use the cross in worship. Why not?

An important reason is that Jesus Christ did not die on a cross. The Greek word generally translated “cross” is stau·ros′. It basically means “an upright pale or stake.” The Companion Bible points out: “[Stau·ros′] never means two pieces of timber placed across one another at any angle . . . There is nothing in the Greek of the [New Testament] even to imply two pieces of timber.”

In several texts, Bible writers use another word for the instrument of Jesus’ death. It is the Greek word xy′lon. (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24) This word simply means “timber” or “a stick, club, or tree.”

Explaining why a simple stake was often used for executions, the book Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung (The Cross and the Crucifixion), by Hermann Fulda, states: “Trees were not everywhere available at the places chosen for public execution. So a simple beam was sunk into the ground. On this the outlaws, with hands raised upward and often also with their feet, were bound or nailed.”

The most convincing proof of all, however, comes from God’s Word. The apostle Paul says: “Christ by purchase released us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse instead of us, because it is written: ‘Accursed is every man hanged upon a stake [“a tree,” King James Version].’” (Galatians 3:13) Here Paul quotes Deuteronomy 21:22, 23, which clearly refers to a stake, not a cross. Since such a means of execution made the person “a curse,” it would not be proper for Christians to decorate their homes with images of Christ impaled.

There is no evidence that for the first 300 years after Christ’s death, those claiming to be Christians used the cross in worship. In the fourth century, however, pagan Emperor Constantine became a convert to apostate Christianity and promoted the cross as its symbol. Whatever Constantine’s motives, the cross had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. The cross is, in fact, pagan in origin. The New Catholic Encyclopedia admits: “The cross is found in both pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures.” Various other authorities have linked the cross with nature worship and pagan sex rites.

Why, then, was this pagan symbol promoted? Apparently, to make it easier for pagans to accept “Christianity.” Nevertheless, devotion to any pagan symbol is clearly condemned by the Bible. (2 Corinthians 6:14-18) The Scriptures also forbid all forms of idolatry. (Exodus 20:4, 5; 1 Corinthians 10:14) With very good reason, therefore, true Christians do not use the cross in worship.

Answer 3

I like your analogy, expect for the fact that you'd have to put 2000 years space between the event and the wearing of the knife. Early Christians did not wear crosses the way they do today, probably for similiar reasons. Also, it was still an active form of execution back then.

So since I can only speak for myself, why do *I* wear a cross? It has become a (if not the) major symbol for my religion. I rarely wear a crucifix (cross with the body of Jesus on it) because I don't want to focus soley on his passion and death. Both were important, but without the resurrection, they wouldn't have meant as much. So to me, wearing a nice cross is a symbol of the ENTIRE event. Yes, it was an instrument of death, but what came out of it was eternal life, so it was a tool of more than pain and suffering.

(and, in my opinion, Jesus' most important commandment was to love one and another as God loves us.)

Answer 4

People wear it to keep the devil away. Some wear it for reminder of our jesus Christ and what he sacraficed, some wear it cause it's been blessed. There are so many different reason why. There is nothing wrong wearing a cross. Besides the cross didn't kill jesus, it was where he was murdered.
Im not religious at all, but i had no choice but to go to church when i was little. There so many different religions out there that nobody really knows what happend, they just need somehting to believe in.

Answer 5

It's an ancient phallic symbol that was appropriated by Christianity, just as the Fish or vesica piscis is a symbol of the "female principle." Just as the entire Christian calendar is merely the old pagan fertility cycle. Note that the Crucifixion or copulation takes place on Good Friday, and nine months later comes the Nativity.

The fact that the symbol could be associated with the actual means of execution employed by the Romans around the time "Jesus" is supposed to have lived - that's just a happy accident!

Answer 6

Probably because they don't know any better. I use to think people who wore crosses were spiritual. I later got a cross necklace. I didn't know what it meant at the time I had it. I have a friend who is a Jehovah's witness, who told me that Jesus died on a stake, not a cross .These are some of the references that help give the understanding on this subject.Gal 3:13 Christ by purchase released us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse instead of us, because it is written: “Accursed is every man hanged upon a stake.”
, and Acts 5:30 The God of our forefathers raised up Jesus, whom YOU slew, hanging him upon a stake.

Answer 7

Some people like the symbol to remind them of the sacrifice Jesus did.

Hmm it should be noted that the difference between your mother being murdered and Jesus' sacrifice is that Jesus did it by choice. He wasn't murdered in the same sense.

I've talked to Mormons who have made the same point you just made but that's the only group I've heard it from. To me its a non-issue. I don't wear a cross but I don't condemn anyone for wearing one either.

Answer 8

Through out the bible, it is acknowledged that people need something physical to see in connection to God, IMO that's why he sent Jesus, but it could just be that Jesus said take up your cross and follow me, Granted this is a figurative statement, but the wearing of a cross could just be a reminder to be more Christ like.

Answer 9

To remind themselves of Jesus. And you can preach the good news while wearing a cross. The two aren't mutally exclusive.

Answer 10

They might forget they are self-stereotyping themselves as Christians otherwise...absent minded or what?

While on the subject of religious branding why not a nice big cross branded onto the forehead, that would stop anyone forgetting they were a Christian product and they couldn't be told to take it off either...brilliant!

Answer 11

In my experience, many people who profess to be Christians just want everyone to know how holy they are. So they wear crosses, demand prayer in public places (like city council meetings, befoe football games, in restaurants, ect.). these are also the same people who push their religion into politics.
So no, they're not Christian. I mean, did Jesus go up to Ceasar and try to convert him? Abortions were happening in Israel at the time JC was running aroud, did he preach against it?