Why Jehovah's Witnesses Celebrate Wedding Anniversaries but not Birthday Anniversaries

[Charles loyal]

Why Jehovah's Witnesses Celebrate Wedding Anniversaries but not Birthday Anniversaries

This is because there are no pagan origins connected to marriage or wedding rings. Marriage was divinely instituted by the "one true God"...Jehovah. (Genesis 2:18-24; Matthew 19:4-6; John 17:3)

 

And unlike the mentioned examples of birthday celebrations, the Bible does not put marriage in a bad light. Jesus himself both attended a marriage celebration and contributed to the pleasure of the occasion.—John 2:1-11.

[Charles loyal]

How did early Christians and Jews of Bible times view birthday celebrations?

(Please note that these sayings below are not from Jehovah's witnesses.)

"The notion of a birthday festival was far from the ideas of the Christians of this period in general."—The History of the Christian Religion and Church, During the Three First Centuries (New York, 1848), Augustus Neander (translated by Henry John Rose), p. 190

 

"The later Hebrews looked on the celebration of birthdays as a part of idolatrous worship, a view which would be abundantly confirmed by what they saw of the common observances associated with these days."—The Imperial Bible-Dictionary (London, 1874), edited by Patrick Fairbairn, Vol. I, p. 225

 

“Early Christians [from time of Christ until the 4th century] frowned on [celebrating anyone’s birthday], which was too closely linked with pagan customs to be given the approval of the church.” - How It Started, Garrison, copyright 1972 by Abingdon Press, p. 213

 

The Christian Book of Why, by Dr. John C. McCollister (Lutheran minister and university professor, graduate of Trinity Lutheran Seminary), Jonathan David Publishers, Inc., 1983, tells us on p. 205:

 

"Christians of the first century did not celebrate the festival honoring the birth of Jesus - for the same reason they honored no other birthday anniversary. It was the feeling at that time by ALL Christians that the celebration of all birthdays (even the Lordâs) was a custom of the PAGANS. In an effort to divorce themselves from ALL pagan practices, the early Christians refused to set aside a date marking Jesus' birth. As a result, the first celebration of Christmas by Christians did not take place until the fourth century."�

 

The Jews themselves never celebrated birthdays until long after the death of Jesus. They considered it a purely pagan custom and detestable to the God they worshiped. Jesus and his Apostles continued this belief and so did their followers for centuries.

 

“As late as 245 [A. D.] Origen (hom. viii. on Leviticus) repudiated the idea of keeping the birthday of Christ, ‘as if he were a king Pharaoh [Gen. 4:19-22].’” - Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed., p. 642, Vol. 5