Answering objections to the celebration of the New Moon and the other ‘feasts of the LORD’

A detailed exploration of passages such as Col. 2:16-17 and Gal. 4:10 can take a lot of time and space, and others have tackled the question already.¹McKee, J.K. “Does the New Testament Annul the Biblical Appointments?” 2002.
Hegg, Tim. “Are the Festivals (Moedim) for Today?” (PDF) 2001.

However, a simple answer to this question of whether apostle Paul is commanding believers in Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) to abandon the “feasts of the LORD” (Lev. 23:1ff) is to read the entire chapter and sometimes the whole letter — a good idea anyway — to get the context of statements such as these.

Here’s a key example of the importance of context in Colossians 2:

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

Col. 2:8 NASB (emphasis added)

Is Paul saying that God’s Word is ’empty deception’ and ‘tradition of men’?

Consider Yeshua’s words to the Pharisees when they had extrapolated Bible instructions to exclusionary ends:

“You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”

Mark 7:8 NIV

If the ‘Old Testament’ is ‘tradition of men,’ why did Yeshua battle the Pharisees over interpretation of it?

If the Pharisees’ problem was putting their traditions and interpretations ahead of the plain meaning of God’s written Word, how can Yeshua take issue with them if large parts of God’s Word — the foundation for all the writings of the prophets, psalmists and Gospel writers — now was “traditions of men”?

The key issue in Colossians and Galatians is putting tradition ahead of the “spirit” of God’s Word, barring new believers from the congregation until they comply with the traditions.

What’s really going on in the Apostles’ Jerusalem council decision in Acts?

Please read Acts 15 and pay close attention to who required what of whom and at what stage of the spiritual life:

• What were the requirements for new believers?
• How were they expected to grow spiritually?
• If the requirements on new believers were to be minimal “for [because] Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath” (Acts 15:21), does that sound like the early assembly of believers in Yeshua considered the teachings Moses conveyed, including the New Moon and other “feasts of the LORD,” to be “philosophy” and “elementary principles of the world”?