His quote is from Acts 18. And taken by itself I would agree with you. But since James said what he did in Acts 21 - several years later - it was clear those instructions were ONLY for the gentile believers and that Paul taught that. Apparently some believed he was teaching that to believing Jews as well, which was NOT the case.
Okay, so let's assume that this is what they meant. That
no gentile was to do any more than these things.
1 Corinthians 5:8 - Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth.
Here, he's writing to gentile churches, and telling them to keep the feast of unleavened bread. He's even giving them instructions on how to keep them, with love essentially. I'll also add, that because he instructed them to keep the feast of Unleavened Bread, it goes without saying that they were to keep Passover as well, considering they go hand in hand.
Colossians 2:16 - Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath
days:
He's writing to gentiles here, but why would gentiles judge in what meats you eat? They don't, they're gentiles, they eat whatever meat they want to eat, therefore they would only have been judged if they were abstaining from certain meats.
Why would they judge in drink? They don't, in fact, historically whether it's reverence of the feast of saturnalia, or ishtar, heavy drinking was accepted and even expected when observing these things, therefore the converts Paul is writing to would only be judged if they were limiting themselves or even abstaining entirely.
Why would they be judged in respect of an holyday? Well, only God can make a day holy. They couldn't serve other "gods" and were surrounded by gentiles, so logically the only way they'd be judged, is if they weren't observing the times of the "gods" the gentiles were, and instead observing times and seasons God appointed His children. The Moadim.
New moons, why would they be judged observing these? Gentiles don't go off of new moons. Especially not at this time, because since like 43 ad, they were using the Julian calendar which used the sun. So considering they had used this calendar for about a decade, seeing people use a calendar that went off of new moons, would be unusual. Hebraically, new moons symbolize a new month, so for these people Paul writes to, to be surrounded by people using a calendar going off of the sun, and they use one going off of the phases of the moon, judgements are bound to happen, especially since gentiles generally didn't get a rest day.
Sabbath days. Notice that it's plural. What sabbath days do gentiles observe? Generally none. Back in this time, it was normal for gentiles to hate jews and judge them thinking they were lazy, because a day off wasn't something people generally got to enjoy, let alone several times of the year where you had several days off in a week. Sabbath days, are something gentiles don't have. It's only something ever given to God's children. Well, I mean, it's given to
everyone but only God's children partake. So, if he's writing to gentiles, and he's telling them to not let anyone judge them in sabbath days, well they're living amongst gentiles, who would judge them? Unless they were keeping them.
