Galatians, the Feasts, and the Text Christianity Misread

The Most Misused Text in Church History

There is a text from Paul's letter to the Galatians that has been used — or rather misused — by 99.9% of Christianity, from the fourth century to the 21st century, to deny believers the right to celebrate the seasons and feasts of the Lord. Here it is:

To understand this text correctly, we need to know that Paul was a lawyer. He studied under Gamaliel, the chief judge of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, and he writes like a lawyer — consistent and exact in what he wants to say. And as a lawyer, Paul is very precise about who he is addressing. When Paul uses the word "you," he talks to the Gentiles — you can prove it from Ephesians 2:10-11 and many other places. When he talks to the Jews and to the Jewish disciples he says "us," "we," "ours." Not "yours." "Ours."

So when Paul says "when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods" — there is not a single day in the history of Israel, from the time God called Abraham, in which Abraham and his seed did not know God. Paul is talking to the Gentiles. And he is talking about the holidays that Gentiles celebrated when they worshipped idols.

14 Pages of Roman Holidays

I have here 14 pages on Roman festivals dated to the time of the New Testament. 14 pages of holidays. Let's take February alone. The 1st of February — a celebration of the Queen of Heaven, Juno Sospeter. The 5th of February — a celebration in the temple of Concordia on the Capitol Hill. The 13th of February — the feast of Faunus. The 13th to 22nd of February — Parentalia, the celebration of your ancestors who died. The 15th of February — Lupercalia. Lupos means wolf. Rome was born from a she-wolf that fed Romulus and Remus. The 17th of February — Fornacalia, the oven festival, celebrating the bakers. The 21st — Feralia, the public observation of Parentalia. The 22nd — Caristia, a celebration of a meal shared in the spirit of love and forgiveness. The 23rd — in honor of Terminus. The 24th — the feast of Regifugium. The 27th — horse-races just before the month of March.

And this goes month after month. Almost every day of the month in Rome was a holiday for something. Paul is not talking about the seven biblical holidays. He is talking about holidays that by nature celebrate those who are not gods. That's not the biblical holidays.

The Feasts Are the LORD's — Not "Jewish"

There is no such thing as "the Jewish feasts." Everywhere that the holidays and feasts and celebrations are mentioned in both the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible, it talks about the feasts of the Lord — not the Jewish feasts, but the feasts of the Lord commanded to the children of Israel when they received the law in Mount Sinai. Here is what God says in Leviticus 23:1-2:

These are MY feasts, says the Lord.

Constantine — who supposedly converted to Christianity — didn't actually convert at all. It's a myth. He used Christianity for his own political needs. And it was Chrysostom, Pope when the center of the church was in Constantinople, who used the Galatians text more than anybody else to drive Christianity away from its biblical roots. It is all well documented. John Chrysostom, "Against the Jews," Homily 3, gives you some of the most striking documentation of this systematic anti-Jewish and anti-Torah campaign that the Catholic church set in motion between the 4th and 6th centuries.

"Let Us Therefore Keep the Feast"

The clearest text in the New Testament on this question is 1 Corinthians 5:7-8. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth — a church that was not 100% Jewish, but a majority of Greeks who came from a pagan background. And he says:

He does not say "don't celebrate the feast." He says celebrate the feast. Why?

There is that old Gospel song that was sung on the American frontier and has long been forgotten and needs to be restored:

It is. It still is.