OK, I’m way too late posting this for this year to have any effect but hoping it will help more of you next year understand why many of God’s children do not get involved in most of the world’s holidays - - yes, including seemingly innocent Valentine’s Day. Some of you have kept it for years and may fear having to try to explain to loved ones why you won’t keep it any longer. If you come to that conclusion, do so well before Valentine’s Day next year at least.
Remember we are told to come out of Babylon, this world’s system led by the god of this world Satan (Revelation 18:4). “Coming out” will include no longer participating in its cherished holidays if they go against God’s ideals. So I don’t keep Valentines, and add to that – New Year’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas.
I saw a Facebook post from Maria Brown about Valentine’s Day. I’ll be the first to say, that like many of the other holidays rooted in paganism, I realize we don’t follow or keep the original ways the day was kept. But please also remember, that the practice of re-labeling pagan days, does not change its roots!
Most of the remainder is Maria Brown’s write-up on the day.
Is Valentine's Day God Blessed?
Valentine’s Day seems so innocent and beautiful! After all it is a time to show love and appreciation to that very special someone with flowers ,candy and small gifts. But is it what Jesus would do?
The history of Valentine’s goes back to pagan practices of the Roman sexual fertility festival of Lupercalia. Lupercalia was an ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral annual festival, observed in the city of Rome from the 13th to the 15th of February to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility. This Roman festival was supervised by a corporation of priests called the Luperci.
The origins of the festival are obscure, although the likely derivation of its name from lupus (Latin: “wolf”) has variously suggested connection with an ancient deity who protected herds from wolves and with the legendary she-wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus. As a fertility rite, the festival is also associated with the god Faunus (Pan).
Each Lupercalia began with the sacrifice by the Luperci of goats and a dog, after which two of the Luperci were led to the altar, their foreheads were touched with a bloody knife, and the blood was wiped off with wool dipped in milk; the ritual required that the two young men laugh. The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the sacrificial animals and ran in two bands around the Palatine hill, striking with the thongs at any woman who came near them. A blow from the thong was supposed to render a woman fertile.
In 494 CE the Christian church under Pope Gelasius 1 appropriated the form of the rite as the Feast of the Purification. ( Encyclopedia Britannica)
The wicked ruler Nimrod was the origin of the legend of Pan. A wolf hunter and strong man.
Genesis 10:19 “He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, ‘Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord”.
“My Valentine” comes from the practice of during the Lupercalia women would put their name in a box and which would be drawn out by the city’s bachelors to pair off for sexual immorality for the coming year. Sometimes (not usually) these ended in marriage later.
The early Catholics wanting to convert pagans adopted the pagan practice along with other pagan celebrations. But changed them to be more mellow giving them new names.
But Jesus ( Yeshua) would not celebrate this day because we are instructed in Jeremiah and other scriptures not to learn the ways of the heathens. God has His own holyday celebrations in Leviticus 23.
Jeremiah 10:2 “Thus saith the LORD, ‘Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.”
MARIA BROWN
Thank you, Maria, and History channel. Back to Philip writing now – so though these days may seem fun and innocent enough, I will not participate in them. God wants us having nothing to do with pagan holidays. It’s that simple. We are to come out of Babylon – the moniker for this world’s system.
You can Google what was written above and see it’s all there in the history channel. We didn’t make all this up.
https://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day-2
And Cupid? The fat little naked cherub boy who shoots golden arrows of love. That’s all rooted in paganism and pagan gods as well. Here’s what this source says, underlines are mine for emphasis.
“Cupid is often portrayed on Valentine’s Day cards as a naked cherub launching arrows of love at unsuspecting lovers. But the Roman God Cupid has his roots in Greek mythology as the Greek god of love, Eros. Accounts of his birth vary; some say he is the son of Nyx and Erebus; others, of Aphrodite and Ares; still others suggest he is the son of Iris and Zephyrus or even Aphrodite and Zeus (who would have been both his father and grandfather).
According to the Greek Archaic poets, Eros was a handsome immortal played with the emotions of Gods and men, using golden arrows to incite love and leaden ones to sow aversion. It wasn’t until the Hellenistic period that he began to be portrayed as the mischievous, chubby child he’d become on Valentine’s Day cards.”
So why should I participate in a day – as sweet as it seems – that goes back to the fanciful Greek god of love, Eros? Now you know why. Remember too, that Satan presents his ways to us as beautiful, for he comes as an angel of light, but he’s really all about darkness.
2 Corinthians 11:14-15 “And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.”