If our intention is pure, this is pleasing to God. Since pagans of old defiled a couple of birthday celebrations, that does not automatically exclude all Christians from using a worthy practice to honor God.
Hey sirach2 it has been a while hey… It’s nice to see you doing well or atleast I hope you are… I do appreciate your prayers as I pray for you too…
I see you mentioned 1 Timothy 4:4,5 and then applied it to birthdays, people often take one scripture and take it out of context similar to what you have done… But please take the time to read from verse 1 to see the context, the very verse before verse 4 at 1 Timothy 4:3 says “forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.”
The context of verse 4 and 5 is in verse 3, which speaks about food… The apostle Paul warns against conscienceless men who put on a display of sanctification that is false, “commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be partaken of with thanksgiving by those who have faith and accurately know the truth. The reason for this is that every creation of God is fine, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified through God’s word and prayer over it.” If God’s Word declares a thing clean, it is clean, and the Christian, by giving thanks for it in prayer, accepts it as sanctified, and God counts him clean in eating. That verse has nothing to do with a man’s life or anything else like you mentioned. Similarly with the verse you used in Mark 7:15, that too is about food… Let’s read the verse after that from 17 it says - Now when he had entered a house away from the crowd, his disciples began to question him about the illustration.
18So he said to them: “Are you also without understanding like them? Are you not aware that nothing from outside that enters into a man can defile him,
19since it enters, not into his heart, but into his stomach, and it passes out into the sewer?” Thus he declared all foods clean.
Tell me how does any of those verses you used stand as a defense for what you using it for?
“As long as you have pure intentions”
People often say that as a way to justify what they believe… The Bible actually recorded an account of a group of God’s people that chose to worship him with pure intentions and I would really like that you read that account and hope that you get the point. The account is at Exodus 32:1-35. There you will see the Israelites also adopted a religious practice which they renamed as “a festival to Jehovah” and “sat down to eat and drink and to have a good time”. Even though the Israelites with pure intentions used this festival to worship the True God, God still viewed this as idolatry or a form of pagan worship, and that is also true of customs today that are clearly derived from false religious practices. Here’s more verses you can read (Lev.18:3; Deut.12:30, 31; Jer. 10:2; 1Cor.10:6- 11).
True Christians will listen to what God’s thinking and avoid any association with idolatrous, pagan backgrounds and corruptive non-Christian practices in their pure worship of the True God.
Jehovah’s Witnesses base all of their beliefs, their standards for conduct, and organizational procedures on the Bible. Yes, the Bible does command children to honor, obey and respect their parents. (Eph. 6:1, 2) But nowhere does it advocate the commemoration of a special “Father’s Day” or a special “Mother’s Day”. True Christians follow Jesus Christ as their Exemplar and realize that to Jesus,
everyday was Father’s Day. He did not set aside only one particular day out of the year to bring praise to his Father. He did so every day.
We don’t celebrate any of those days that you mentioned, remember we have a different view of death than to what you do. And we also like Jesus always give all praise to God the Father never to a particular human
(Got it?)
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