In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he expresses dismay about their observance of holidays. He uses the second person plural:
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
One interpretative question arises about the holidays the Galatians are observing: Are they the traditional Jewish holidays? Or are they the holidays of the pagan Greeks?
On the one hand, Paul’s writing is occasioned by the presence and activity of Judaizers among the Galatians: the work of those who would impose Mosaic laws, and additional Jewish laws, upon those who had only recently become followers of Jesus.
On the other hand, the Galatians were a set of predominately gentile congregations in a predominately gentile region of Asia Minor, and so the pagan holidays would have been more familiar, and more compatible with the surrounding culture.
In either case, there’s something wrong with the fact that the Galatians were observing these holidays.
(Most scholars tend toward the interpretation that Paul refer to Jewish holidays being introduced among the Galatians.)
Why is Paul displeased? Is he upset about how the Galatians are observing these holidays? Is Paul upset about which holidays the Galatians are observing? Or about why they are observing them? Or about that these holidays are being observed?
Some readers have taken extreme the interpretation that this passage prohibits the observation of any holiday whatsoever.
One clue is the verb: Paul is dismayed that the Galatians are “observing” holidays. He is not dismayed that they are “celebrating” holidays. The difference might be related to elements of Mosaic and post-Mosaic laws.
In John 10:22, e.g., the text states that it was “the Feast of Dedication” (Hanukkah), and Jesus is at the Temple. Presumably, He was there to celebrate, not to observe, Hanukkah. God’s message of grace in the Gospel is something to be celebrated, not observed. It engenders joy, not legal conformity.
In John 7:2 and 7:10, the text likewise avoids mention of ‘observance,’ and instead tells us that Jesus ‘went up’ (the elevation of Jerusalem being higher than that of the surrounding countryside) for the “Feast of Booths.”
Similar wording is used in John 5:1 and 2:13.
In Matthew 26, Jesus organizes His disciples to ‘prepare’ for the Passover, meaning that it was a deliberate act on His part to celebrate the feast. Jesus says that He will ‘keep’ or ‘celebrate,’ but not ‘observe’ the feast.
The Greek verb used in Galatians 4:10 is a verb of scrupulous rigor and legal compliance. The verb in Matthew 26:17 is means merely ‘to do’ or ‘to make,’ indicating a physical action.
Other passages in the New Testament also indicate that Jesus celebrated at various occasions.
The early followers of Jesus celebrated Sunday (Acts 20:7 and Revelation 1:10). There is no indication that this was observed as a legal requirement.
Is there, then, a tension between Paul’s comment in his letter to the Galatians and the fact that Jesus celebrated holidays? If so, how is this tension to be resolved?
A few general interpretive comments: Scripture contains tensions and paradoxes, but not contradictions (James 1:17); Scripture is accurate (Numbers 23:19) and inspired (II Timothy 3:16).
Already indicated is one route toward resolution: the difference between ‘observing’ a holiday and ‘celebrating’ a holiday. (The verb in Matthew 26:17 indicates simply the physical action, the task of preparing for the holiday, and is therefore not an ‘observance’ because there is no legal connotation.)
A second route to harmonizing the texts is to note that Jesus celebrates largely, if not exclusively, the holidays commanded by Scripture. He keeps Passover (Exodus 12:14 and 13:5), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:34 and Deuteronomy 16:16). His celebration of Hanukkah is less clear, because it is not in Scripture proper, but rather in the Apocryphal book of Maccabees.
This second route also highlights an innovation introduced by Jesus: He ‘celebrates’ the holidays ‘commanded’ by Scripture. He defangs the legal aspect of the holidays, and instead recreates them as opportunities to delight in God. Perhaps Paul’s dismay arises from the fact that the Galatians are ignoring this example set by Jesus.
Neither of the above two interpretive options excludes the other, which leaves the opportunity to use both.
In his commentary, Richard Lenski sees Paul’s remarks as directed toward Jewish, not pagan, holidays. Lenski understand Paul’s concerns about holidays as part of a more generalized concern about imposed legalism:
Here we see what success the Judaizers had had with the Galatians, which agrees with the present tenses used in v. 9; also in how far they had failed, for the Galatians had not yet accepted circumcision otherwise Paul would have mentioned this and more likely have named it first.
The ‘observance’ is riddled with legalistic matters, and devoid of joy. They are ‘regulations’ which ‘forbid’ actions or things, and which create a stress of careful observance instead of the spiritual peace which Jesus wants to give His followers:
The terms used refer to Mosaic regulations. While all of them refer to time, the terms expressing time are not themselves the stoicheia but refer to the elements involved in these terms. Thus all labor with earthly things was forbidden on the Sabbath, the Jewish fasts forbade eating food, et. Material, earthly things are always involved. “Days” are singled out by being placed before the verb; the compound verb is perfective: “you are carefully observing.”
The tone of Paul’s vocabulary indicates that these observances were a burdensome legal imposition, not a joyous celebration.
Lenski catalogues which Jewish holidays the Galatians might have known:
These are the days fixed by the Mosaic law, the Sabbaths, the fast and the feast days such as the Passover, the new moons, etc.
Far from the true freedom of the Gospel, the Galatians had tied themselves to a schedule, and made a moral obligation out of keeping that schedule.
Some of the holidays were indeed from Scripture, i.e., from the Tanakh, but others were innovations.
“Months” are often referred to new moons, but these are “days.” Months signify entire months such as the seventh month Tisri, called Sabbath month since its first day was treated like a Sabbath; also Nisan.
Nisan is, and was, “the first month which introduced the Jewish” cyclical “year and was distinguished by the Passover.”
The Galatians could not have been under this legalism for long, as they were relatively new followers of Jesus, yet the influence of this false teaching was so profound that Paul uses the word ‘bewitching’ to describe its influence.
Paul is less interested in the exact details of the holidays in Galatia than in the monotonous imposition of them as obligatory.
“Seasons,” as distinct from “days” and “months” on the one hand and from “years” on the other, are the seasons of prayer and fasting prescribed by the law. The “years” refer to the sabbatical year and to the interval of years. It would be speculative to conclude that a sabbatical year was in progress at the time when Paul wrote. His meaning is that the Galatians had been under Judaistic influence for only a brief period yet had begun the observance to time; how many Sabbaths, etc., they had already kept is immaterial. The tense of the verb means that the Galatians were launched upon this Jewish legalism.
Among the earliest recorded blessings which God gave was a blessing given, neither to a person nor to a material object, but rather to a unit of time. “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy” (Genesis 2:3).
Paul was dismayed that the Galatians were encumbered by legal observations of days.
The followers of Jesus are freed from such burdens and impositions. Rather, they are invited to celebrate the “Sabbath rest” and enjoy the freedom of the Gospel (Hebrews 4:9). Because the “Sabbath was made for man,” (Mark 2:27) followers of Jesus are encouraged, not to observe days, but to celebrate them.
