I suspect that their are a great many “Ron types out there” simply because it would mean that they would be accountable and have to change how they are “living” their lives.
Oh my:blush: Naw! For me? You know how I live my life? Hmm.
Love and prayers,
Yah. OK
It appears that the Catholic Church has decided that it can set up festivals or days, just because there is “no commandment preventing it” from doing so. You already have the text, mentioned earlier, in which Jesus tells His disciples to go forth and “teach all nations those things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Christ’s words were to teach only those things He had commanded His disciples to teach. Christ didn’t command the observances (Christmas, Easter, etc.) Instead, they kept the “Jewish” days which He gave to Moses, and did so after His crucifixion-to-ascension, but with new Messianic meaning.
Jesus knew that Peter was often filled with a vain, impetuous pride and desire for personal power. Yet, He knew that beneath that boastful vest, was a scared man, who would deny Him three times in Jerusalem. Jesus was merely comparing Peter, (Petros, in Greek), a rolling stone who could be easily manipulated or turned away from real strength, to a solid rock (the large boulder upon which they both stood. Jesus was merely telling Peter that the large, solid rock was the truth He had revealed to Peter and all the other disciples. That meant that the truth Jesus had revealed to Peter and the others, was the Rock upon which He would build His Church. Peter made no changes to what Christ had given him and the others.
He had already said to them that the “extra” (or the oral torah, which means “set of rules or laws,” set up by the religious “sages,” that is the rabbis and teachers, which disagreed with what He and His Father had set up as the everlasing covenant of grace, which started at the Gate of the Garden of Eden and were expanded and completed when given to Moses at Mt. Sinai , ie. the written Torah (first five books of Moses), such “extra-biblical” rules which were made by those who “laid heavy burdens on the people,” and that caused the people to “break the commandment of God,” were obviously to be rejected.
He was, as Exekiel 36, 26 and 27 clearly tells us, come to put "My Laws, Statutes and Judgements in their hearts There was no other Law given by God after Ezekiel’s description and Christ’s defense of those Laws.
Without the animal sacrifices and Temple services, which were the “mirth” and the “offerings and oblations”, the animal sacrifices are gone. Now, each Festival (Feast) has a prophetic meaning.
People sometimes say that Paul said: “Christ, our Passover has been slain.” They try to say that that means the Passover Seder with it’s 14 steps is gone. They fail to read the very next sentence where Paul then says: “therefore, let us keep the Feast.” Christ gave the example for His followers to follow when they had the final Seder with the prayer, the two questions before the meal,.the meal with the dipping into the bitter herbs, the Hallel at the end, as described mainly by Luke, but in pieces by the other Gospels.
He had already kept all of the Feasts that normally required male attendance at Jerusalem, but kept them at Capernaum, away from Jerusalem. In summation, He was setting up His religion and did so before He died for us.
Passover is a remembrance of freedom from Egyptian bondage. It is also a rembrance of Christ’s sacrifice for us. It is a prophecy because Christ told His disciples that He will eat of the Passover (meaning the Seder) with them, and us “in the Kingdom,” which yet to come.) We are to keep it until He comes, and will do so after He had come back. There, we will remember the feast of the early first fruits, Christ when he rose from the dead. The eight days of unleavened bread, the remembrance of His cleansing us from our sins. Thus, with the memory of such Salvation, we will worship Him
The bitter herbs, the sauce, taken by mouth, is a reminder of the suffering of Israel in Egyptian bondage. It is a memorial to the suffering of Christ for us. It is a prophecy about the suffering of the people of God who will suffer the time of tribulation at the very end, immediately preceding Christ’s second coming to deliver His people from that tribulation and take them Home.
Shavuot (Pentecost, in Greek), is a reminder of how God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, led our spiritual forefathers, the Jews, and even before the Jews, back to Adam and Eve. It is a memorial to the giving, by Jesus, Who is God the Son, of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. It is also a reminder, and a prophecy that His Holy Spirit is with us yet and in the future.
The Feast of Trumpets is a reminder of the great Trumpet of God at Mt. Sinai when the pre-incarnate Christ, whose voice Moses was able to hear, and whose finger Moses saw write the Ten Commandments, gave the Law to His people. It is the same Trumpet that will announce His second coming. Thus, it also is prophetic.
The Feast of Tabernacles is a memorial to how God was with His people, really from the very beginning. In the wilderness, it was the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. It is a memorial to when Christ was here on earth with His people and lived, guided them, and died for their law-breaking.
The Feast of Tabernacles is also, and as importantly, prophetic, because it says that He will Tabernacle with us in the new earth.
Because Christ now works within each of us to sanctify us (the cup of Sanctification, one of the four cups of the Seder), He delivers us (the cup of Deliverance of the Seder), because He died for us (the cup of Atonement of the Seder). When we stand, thereby, through having kept the original faith and testimony of God and Christ, in the Judgement (the cup of Judgement)
Praise God for His Deliverance.
