RickOtto said:
united4peace said:
Some don't celebrate birthdays due to a hanging and a beheading at a birthday...
Gen 40:1-23 and Matt 14:3-11
That said in our family we celebrate Birthdays
Lots of people lose their heads over birthday parties.
Is it a good thing that the bible shows them in a questionable light & you don't care?
Rick:
By way of reminder, although Pharaoh's baker was hanged on Pharaoh's birthday, Pharaoh's butler was also restored to his butlership on Pharaoh's birthday (Genesis 40:21). IOW, not only bad things are associated with people's birthdays in scripture.
Having said that, however, I do agree with some of the points that you and others have made here.
First of all, PERSONALLY (I'll do as my own conscience dictates, but not attempt to force others to do the same), I much prefer the day that I was BORN AGAIN SPIRITUALLY to the day of my natural birth. As such, I never make a big deal out of my own birthday.
Secondly, having grown up with 7 siblings (4 sisters and 3 brothers...another brother died before I was born), I've DEFINITELY witnessed, FIRSTHAND, the type of selfish attention that others have sought to bring upon themselves in celebrating their birthdays. In fact, I have one sister who was "reknowned" for planning her own celebrations from the time that she was a little child (she's still as self-centered as ever today).
Thirdly, as a married man with 3 young children, I still see the same type of self-centeredness surrounding birthdays within my own immediate family. In fact, it was my wife's birthday just 3 days ago on October 21st (I was kinda hoping that Harold Camping was right and that the world was going to end that day
). My parenthesised joking aside, birthdays in my immediate family have been grievous to me in one sense...
My wife has badgered me (she's good at that...sort of like Delilah with Samson) endlessly and coerced me into spending exhorbitant amounts of money for our children's birthdays...not to mention her own. Once, just last year, I think that we spent $700 on our 5-year-old daughter's birthday. As far as I'm concerned, that's terrible stewardship of that which truly belongs to the Lord. For those who might think that I'm more concerned about money than I am about my own children, nothing could be further from the truth. I love my children dearly...enough to try to teach them not to be COVETOUS and SELF-CENTERED and to live as pilgrims and strangers in this world. Unfortunately, my "better half" is not presently of the same mindset and she goes so far as to use our children as "weapons" against me at times to get what she wants. IOW, whereas I try to discuss such things privately with her, she'll deliberately bring them up in front of the children to coerce me into doing things her way so that the children don't equate my trying to be a good steward with a lack of love for them. Sorry to get all personal, but this is a personal matter with me and it extends even beyond birthdays.