A Day of Lust, Not Love – Martin G. Collins cgg.org

Valentine’s Day has become widely accepted by the religious and non-religious as a day to celebrate their significant other. For most its history is unknown or dismissed as unimportant in its currently celebrated state. To those that profess to follow God, its origins shouldn’t be so easily dismissed.

Historically it’s often traced to the Roman festival Lupercalia. This festival honored the god Lupercus. Lupercus, like the god Pan, Baal or so many other derivations trace their roots to the archetype Nimrod. Within the Bible, Nimrod was known as defiant, and a fearless hunter -secular history adds that he “was a vicious murderer and an abuser of women”. He was believed to have been born on Jan 6. Forty days after his birth his mother presented herself for purification on February 15^th. Fast forward to Rome and we have the pagan celebration on the eve of the 15^th – “a sensuous festival of idolatrous worship in honor of Lupercus, the deified “hero-hunter of wolves.”

As an effort to convert the masses, the Roman church blended the widely accepted traditions into one religion leaving out the most extreme observances. This practice of syncretism led to the conversion of many though it further watered down any semblance of the first century church and its teachings.

As a festival dedicated to Venus it was now dedicated to Mother Mary and by AD 496 took on the name “Saint Valentine’s Day,”. Yet in the centuries following the Protestant Reformation Christian symbols lost a significant role in the celebration of this day but Cupid, son of Venus remained.

Driven by pleasure most today don’t care about God and how to worship him. This apathy about how to worship the true God and its corresponding moral decay is the result of watering down truth, minimizing its authority, and appealing to people’s base desires. A stark contrast with Paul who said in 1 Corinthians “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”