Scripture clearly tells us that we are to be guided by the Holy Spirit, not by the fleshly commands of fleshly circumcision or special diet. It explains why God did this. I don’t find the commands for cancelling the Sabbath or the feasts. These instructions are about worship and praising God very different from what circumcision and diet are about.I studied history to discover when and how these cancellations came about. I searched information from the dead sea scrolls as well as established ancient history as Harvard and Yale teaches it. I found that it is probable that these decisions were based on what was happening in the secular world at that time rather than scripture teaching.
History tells us that when the Jews rebelled against Rome in 70 and 132 the Romans killed so many Jerusalem Jews the blood ran in the streets. Before this the Jews headed the Christian church councils, men like James the earthly brother of Jesus. They only had the OT, and the Jews knew it well, the gentiles didn’t. The gentile church heads were familiar with their pagan worship and they only changed gods, keeping a lot of their customs like Sunday church. They felt God wanted them to oppose Jews who denied Christ, they were against anything Jewish.
Adding to this was enmity between Christian Jews and those who denied Christ because Bar Kokbha who headed the revolt of 132 was said to be the messiah. They did not want to join ones who thought this, even to oppose Roman rule. When they would not help in the war, the Jews became angry at the Christian Jews.
For over 300 years these ideas influenced the church and there were many diverse ideas written about. There was no central council, no unification. Then came an Emperor of Rome (Constantine) who made Christianity the official religion, changing from pagan worship. He wanted a united Christianity, a central ruling council. The people of the church were called to meet. From this council meeting we have the Apostles’ Creed, and the church was unified. But along with this came the idea of the Jews having such wrong ideas everything they did must be opposed. Even Passover was tossed out, they said their Easter they created replaced it.
I think it is time we take a closer look at the policies they established. The idea of scripture telling us not to be led in worship by the seasons like the pagans do as a reason it means to cancel Sabbath on the last day of the week instead of the first, or that Mary discovered Christ had risen these or that Mary established Sunday because she discovered on Sunday morning that Christ had risen during the night has been thoroughly disproved as reasons, so let’s not go over that dead end again. Something so important as these cancellations would have been made clear in scripture like circumcision and diet has. Where are these instructions?
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