Should Christians Celebrate Them?

• Not "Jewish" Feasts; They are the Lord's Feasts (Lev. 23:37) THE FEASTS• Passover• Unleavened Bread• Firstfruits• Pentecost• Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah)• Day of Atonement• Tabernacles

  • Shabbat was a weekly feast

• Acts 20: 6-16.  Paul adjusts his schedule around the Feasts. • 1 Cor. 5: 7-8.  Feast of Unleavened Bread assumed to be

celebrated.

• THE COUNCIL OF ANTIOCH (A.D. 325)"If any bishop, presbyter or deacon will dare, after this decree, to celebrate Passover with the Jews, the council judges them to be anethema from the church."

 • THE COUNCIL OF LAODICEA (A.D. 365)

"It is not permitted to receive festivals which are by Jews, nor to hold a festival together with them. Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day... but if any be found to be Judaizers let them be anethema from Christ."

 • THE COUNCIL OF TOLEDO X  (seventh century)• "Easter must be celebrated uniformly" [at the time set by the decree of Nicea rather

than at the time of Passover.]

 • THE COUNCIL OF NICEA II  (A.D. 787)• "[Those who] openly or secretly keep the Sabbath and follow other practices in the

manner of the Jews are not to be received into communion, nor into prayer, nor into the church."

 • In light of these statements, one must ask an obvious

question: If the Jewish elements of Christianity died out before the end of the first century, as many have been taught, why were church councils still fighting to stamp out these influences seven hundred years later!

  • I would wager this (anti-semtic Constantinianism in history)

is why Christians do not celebrate the Feasts today; not because it is rooted in some theory of being abrogated by the New Covenent.

• Jesus crucified on Passover: The true Lamb of God • Jesus raised on Firstfruits

 • Spirit falls on Pentecost

 • Feast of Tabernacles: God will dwell "tabernacle" with men -

and this is still future for us!

  • We Westerners like to teach in classrooms.  Apparantly God

likes to teach in parties! 

And I think our children might learn better this way too....

Questions? 

Comments?