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COGwriter <\/a><\/p>\n The current edition of the Living Church News <\/em>has an article titled Birthdays and God’s Church<\/em> by Rod McNair, that states:<\/p>\n Should Christians celebrate birthdays? What does the Church teach on this topic? What does your Bible say? It is a fact of life that everyone grows older, and on one day a year we are considered a year older than the day before. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging the passage of time, as another year of life goes by. We know, for example, that Moses certainly knew his birthdate…<\/p>\n Moses simply acknowledged his age. By contrast, many in the world today have grown used to the idea that their day of birth is an occasion on which friends, family members and coworkers are expected to lavish them with attention, gifts and revelry. What can we learn from Scripture about observing birthdays? Jesus Christ did not mark the anniversary of His birth, nor did He make reference to it in any such fashion. Nor did any of the Apostles so much as even mention Christ\u2019s birth date or their own…<\/p>\n Does the book of Job indicate that Job\u2019s sons observed their birthdays? Some point to this verse to support that idea: \u201cAnd his sons would go and feast in their houses, each on his appointed day\u201d (Job 1:4). Is \u201chis appointed day\u201d a vague reference to a birthday? Scripture does not say. However, we should also note that, if this is a \u201cbirthday\u201d example, it is not entirely positive regarding the idea of birthday celebrations\u2014 we see that Job offered sacrifi ces afterward, on the assumption that his sons may have \u201csinned and cursed God in their hearts\u201d while feasting (v. 5)…<\/p>\n But even some casual observers have noticed that the early Church taught against participation in such birthday celebrations as are so common in our world today. As writer Norm Schneider points out: \u201cDuring the Christian era, the early followers of Christ didn\u2019t believe in celebrating birthdays, preferring\u2014as was the case in earlier eras\u2014of honoring one\u2019s death. Their belief was that only in death was there true deliverance worthy of honoring one\u2019s \u2018death day\u2019 [a reference to Ecclesiastes 7:1, where Solomon asserts that the day of one\u2019s death is better than the day of one\u2019s birth]. They also believed that Egyptian and Greek birthday celebrations were pagan festivals and should not be duplicated\u201d (\u201cThe Strange Origins of Our Modern Birthday Customs,\u201d August 13, 2008, www.associatedcontent.com).<\/p>\n Schneider goes on to observe that by \u201cthe fourth century, Christians\u2014having generally agreed on the date of Christ\u2019s birth\u2014began celebrating the event, ergo Christmas.\u201d Indeed, the observance of Christmas and the celebration of birthdays went hand in hand as the vast majority of professing Christians fell into apostasy. Today, billions of people who call themselves \u201cChristians\u201d are keeping Christmas to have, in effect, a sort of \u201cbirthday party for Christ.\u201d However, when we read what Scripture tells us about the young Jesus Christ, we find no precedent for such celebration. What do we find? When they saw the young Jesus, the wise men from the East \u201cfell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh\u201d (Matthew 2:11). This was a momentous event, but it was not a birthday party\u2014these were prominent men coming to visit the King. The custom of bringing a gift when coming before a king is still in practice today…<\/p>\n Accordingly, God does not want His people to become involved in worldly practices that lead to the destruction of character. Worldly birthday festivities, under the guise of a \u201cparty spirit,\u201d are often focused on greed\u2014the desire for gifts and attention\u2014as well as on vanity, selfishness and a wrong spirit of competition. Such attitudes are inappropriate for Christians as part of any celebration, not just birthday celebrations! God makes it plain that Christians are not to take part in \u201clewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries\u201d (1 Peter 4:3). We know from Scripture that covetousness is idolatry (Colossians 3:5)…<\/p>\n A balanced perspective on this issue can be found in an example cited by our Presiding Evangelist, Dr. Roderick C. Meredith in the January-February 2011 Ministerial Bulletin<\/em>: \u201c\u2026we also know that Mr. Armstrong gave his mother a dozen red roses on her birthdays, occasionally, and sometimes took her out for a nice dinner at the restaurant simply to honor her on such an occasion. It was not a \u2018birthday party\u2019 with candles, exchanging of presents and so forth. It was simply noting that God had given her another year of life and encouraging her and honoring her in that way. Often, we have stated that our own people may have a special meal prepared by the mother in the home for a child on his or her birthday and express thanks that our child has had another year of life\u201d (p. 2). Certainly, it can be appropriate for parents to reminisce with their children about past joys and challenges of a child\u2019s life, as well as future plans and goals, when the child grows a year older.<\/p>\n As for his own example, Dr. Meredith mentioned in his July 21, 2008 sermon, titled \u201cBuilding Faith and Courage,\u201d that he had just turned 78 years of age, but without a birthday party. On the other hand, as noted above, he has acknowledged that it can indeed be appropriate for families to acknowledge a child\u2019s growth and development on a birth date, just as it can be worthwhile to honor an elderly person at a milestone in his or her life\u2014in a Christian spirit of true love and respect, without getting caught up in the spirit of carnal celebrations that often go far beyond what is appropriate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Originally, even as more and more Gentiles began to profess Christ (so much so that they outnumbered those of Jewish heritage that did), the early Gentile leaders also did not endorse the celebration of birthdays. No early church writer endorsed the observance of birthdays by Christians, nor are they ever listed in the early observances of the Christian church.<\/p>\n Therefore, the celebration of birthdays, was clearly not part of:<\/p>\n … the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n No early religious\/church writing from the second century that I have seen (and I have read most that are available) seems to endorse (or even suggest) the celebration of birthdays by any who professed Christ.\u00a0 Actually, the only comments I tended to find showed that such observances were condemned (as late as the late third century).<\/p>\n There is no biblical, nor historical, evidence that early Gentile converts to true Christianity observed birthdays.<\/p>\n Since early Christian did not celebrate birthdays, should you?<\/p>\n Some articles of possibly related interest may include:<\/em><\/p>\n Did Early Christians Celebrate Birthdays?<\/a> Did biblical era Jews celebrate birthdays? Who originally celebrated birthdays? When did many that profess Christ begin birthday celebrations? COGwriter The current edition of the Living Church News has an article titled Birthdays and God’s Church by Rod McNair, that states: Should Christians celebrate birthdays? What does the Church teach on this topic? What does your Bible say? It is a fact of life that everyone grows older, and on one day a year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cog-news","category-doctrine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7273"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7278,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273\/revisions\/7278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nDo You Practice Mithraism?<\/a> Many practices and doctrines that mainstream so-called Christian groups have are the same or similar to those of the sun-god Mithras. Do you follow Mithraism combined with the Bible or original Christianity?
\nThe History of Early Christianity<\/a> Are you aware that what most people believe is not what truly happened to the true Christian church? Do you know where the early church was based? Do you know what were the doctrines of the early church? Is your faith really based upon the truth or compromise?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"