in regard to that passage in Collosians to whom was it being spoken? It was being spoken to newly converted former pagans. They are being told not to let their pagan contemporaries judge them when they celebrate what? The Mosaic laws. Notice we were told that such things are a shadow of what? Things past and over with? No, things to come, as in the new millennium.
Stop and think. Stop and think please. Did Paul have the authority to change what the Almighty ordained? Why would he have such authority? Where in the Bible does it say he was given any such authority? There are many bad translations out there currently. Any translation tries to act like Paul could change what the Lord ordained, is grossly in error.
Who is your Lord, is it Paul? I don’t think you would say so.
Paul actually kept the law of Moses. This can be seen in Acts 21 where he takes a temple vow to prove that. (See the KJV where the word Moses has not been changed.) It can be seen when he tells some Jewish authorities that he has not done anything to violate the Jewish law. Therefore we know he was keeping the Sabbath, keeping the high holy days, and keeping the food laws.
Some say he was being a Jew to the Jews and a gentile to the Gentiles. That is one of many myths in mainstream Christianity. Nowhere in the Bible do we ever see a divide, in terms of obedience to the Lord, for Jews and non-Jews.
In the Old Testament we are told that the same law is for the native born Israelites as for the foreigners. In the New Testament we are told there is neither Greek nor Jew. The old testament and new testament always agree, if you do your research and don’t just listen to what people say who haven’t done the research.
There are quite a few places in the Bible where we see that Paul is keeping the law of Moses, ditto other believers. But it would take too long to get into that. If you want me to PM you the verses I will do so.
In the mainstream church there is cognitive dissonance. This means that people are believing two opposing things at one time.
On the one hand you are agreeing that the Lord does not change. But you are adding a but…. You were saying but it might be that things are really different now and that the Lord didn’t really mean it when he said he doesn’t change.
You are saying but it might not be true when the Lord said he doesn’t alter what goes out of his mouth.
The real change is with the sacrificial death of Messiah. But even that agrees with the old testament, for it was prophesied in Isaiah 53 and other places in the old testament. For example we are told that when the Lord returns that the Jews will look on the one they have pierced and mourn. I think that is in Zachariah.
There is no true disconnect between the Old Testament and the New Testament. That is a tradition of men. Messiah said that not one little dot or mark would be changed from the law and the prophets until heaven and earth disappear. They’re still here!
He said he did not come to nullify the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. For example he did not nullify the commandment about murder, but fulfilled its meaning by saying that even hatred is murder., And by the way, regarding the Sabbath, he told his followers that when the abomination of desolation came, which would be in 70 A.D.that they should pray that their flight not the in the winter or on the Sabbath. This is because the Sabbath is eternal and is a day of rest.
The Lord said that the laws of Moses are for all generations. That means they are for all generations. He says what he means and he means what he says.
Let me give you an example of how people say things have changed, when really they don’t have any New Testament support for their beliefs.
Wr are told that Messiah changed the food laws. No when he spoke about food he was speaking about clean foods. He didn’t consider pork etc. to be food, any more than you consider roadkill to be food.
We also know he did not change the food laws because when Peter had his meat on the sheet dream, he protested that he had never eaten anything unclean.
We are told in mainstream Christianity that his dream meant that we can now eat what we want to, and not follow the Mosaic laws on food.
When Joseph was in prison the pharaohs baker and cup bearer both had dreams about food. The interpretations given had zero to do with food.
The same was true for Peter’s dream. After his dream was over he puzzled as to what it could mean. It never occurred to him that it could mean that he could now eat unclean foods. Then there was a knock at the door. Some “unclean” Gentiles were wanting to fellowship with believers.
The interpretation for Peter’s dream is given two times, as all dreams in the Bible are given interpretation. Two times we are told “This means…” No mention of food is ever heard again after the dream. Instead we are being shown that the dream symbolized the acceptance of Gentiles into the kingdom with the chosen people.
Again, Peter who was so close to Messiah, said he had never eaten anything unclean. Therefore we know Messiah did not change the food laws.
The Almighty is never going to change the food laws because just as he says, he never changes. He says what he means and means what he says.
To fully show that the New Testament upholds the Mosaic law, and in particular the food laws, see Acts 15 which you will likely never hear a sermon on ever in mainstream Christianity.
Non-Jewish converts are the topic. They are being told to abstain, for one thing, from blood and from the meat of strangled animals. According to the law of Moses you refrained from blood, for example not having sex when a wife was menstruating, and from bloody meat.
Strangled animals still have all the blood in them, and they have certainly not been slaughtered according to Mosaic law where the blood is drained out of their throats before they are eaten.
Later we see in that chapter that the non-Jewish converts are expected to be going to the synagogues, on the Sabbaths, to learn the rest of the law of Moses. That was the tradition for converts at the time.
This is not really a forum for debate. I don’t really want to debate it anymore. I do appreciate your interest and courteousness, but I have given you some resources that I have personally found to be helpful.
It is really between you and the Lord.
Truth takes time to sink in when we have been indoctrinated for years, even so many centuries, into error. That has certainly been my experience.
The old and New Testaments have basically been very well preserved. However, there is a lot of confusion when you are reading about something that was written 2000 years ago in a foreign language with a totally different culture from what we see today.
That is why there is a lot of information out there to help clear up what seem like apparent inconsistencies, but really are not.
Please take this all up with the Lord. I gave you the resources from 119 Ministries. And they can say everything better than me anyway.
So I am going to bow out of this discussion, hoping and wishing the very best for you and yours.