The "ceremonial" Laws are (since Christ's Resurrection) not obligatory for Christians...
...And the observance of them is, according to Scripture, "
soul subverting apostasy".
...Both for those who push these dead systems & those who adopt them into practice.
Acts 15,5
B
ut there arose some of the sect of the Pharisees that believed, saying: They must be circumcised,
andbecommanded
to observe the law of Moses.
The Apostles meet to deal with this alien teaching and at explicit to [both] the origins & teaching.
Acts 15,24
Forasmuch as we have heard, that some going out from us have troubled you with words,
subverting your souls
; to whom we gave no commandment
Man is NOT "commanded by Nature" to observe one day as more important than any other day...
...Like [universally] man is commanded by Nature to NOT STEAL or commit adultery or murder.
...To put one planetary week day over another one must get "SPECIAL INSTRUCTION".
...OF A CEREMONIAL NATURE.
The act of setting aside some time to the worship of god's (false) or 'God' ( The One True & Living God ) is absolutely moral.
The act of establishing the "TIMING" of worship is absolutely
ceremonial.
Past this obvious point it's also salient to give mention to the fact that no-one prior to Moses observed the Sabbath as one day within a repeating cycle of time - to say so is slapping God in the face.
God created the earth and all that was in it within a "period of time", "an epoch of time", or if one believes 6 literal days...
...Once God completed the creation act God RESTED (ceased) - God "resting" wasn't because God was tired.
...God didn't have anything left to do - God ceased or RESTED.
Our first parents were created to PERPETUALLY LIVE IN THIS REST or Sabbath of God....
....However our first parents sinned and were expelled from God's REST (AKA SABBATH).
I've heard some folks actually say that Adam and Eve "WEEDED" the Garden for 6 days then on the 7th day rested because it was the Sabbath - then went back to weeding for another 6 days & then had the next Sabbath and so on. This is abomination.
Scripture is CLEAR there was no WEEDING or sweating work prior to Sin...
...Because man lived in "GOD'S SABBATH" or within "GOD'S REST".
...Here it is.
Genesis 3, 17
And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life.Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.
Generally, those that advocate that the Planetary week day of Saturday must be kept ALSO believe that Christ ( along with Lucifer ) was an archangel and that there is no such thing as hell or even that the saved upon death go to be with the Lord. This is why I believe that Acts is so explicit that the ceremonial laws are a means to Salvation are so "soul subverting".
Acts 15 is an important chapter to be sure. But you have missed some very important Biblical facts which bring your preaching of it into question.
first, the Jews were not keeping God Commandments (Law of Moses). They said they were, but they were not.
Matt. 24:
1 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,
2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:
3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe,
that observe and do; but
do not ye after their works:
for they say, and
do not.
4
For
they (Not God as "many" who come in Christ's name teach)bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne,
and lay them on men's shoulders (Necks); but they
themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
Matt. 15:
7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with
their lips; but their heart is far from me.
9
But in vain they do worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Not God)
John 7:
19
Did not Moses give you the law,
and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?
The Apostles would have known this when the Jews opposed them in Acts 15.
10 Now therefore why
tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
It is a common preaching since Constantine and the beginning of modern "Christian" religious traditions to preach that this "Yoke" was the Commandments of God. But according to the teaching the Apostles would have received from the Christ, this "Yoke" would have been the religious traditions and doctrines created by religious men, not from God.
Acts 15:
15 And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,
16 After this I will return, and will
build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and
I will build again the ruins thereof,
and I will set it up:
They were not rejecting the Word's of the Prophets, they were rejecting the religious traditions of the Jews.
19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles
are turned to God:
What God did they turn to? The one the Pharisees and the Jews served?
Jn. 8:
44 Ye are of
your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
No, the Gentiles did not "turn to their god", but to the God of Abraham. So James kept them away from the religious Jews and their man made traditions which had burdened their fathers for centuries, and turned their attention to the true, the real "Law of Moses".
20 But that we write unto them,
that they abstain from pollutions of idols,(Law of Moses, not tradition of religious men) and
from fornication (Law of Moses, not religious traditions of men), and
from things strangled (Law of Moses, not religious tradition of men), and
from blood. (Law of Moses, not religious tradition of men)
So is this it then? Are these the only instructions the Gentiles are to partake of?
No!!!
James addressed these because they were the ones the Gentiles needed to repent of sooner than later. They would learn about loving your neighbor as themselves from Leviticus, Loving God from Exodus, mercy and truth from the rest of the examples God had written for our admonition.
21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
This chapter has been bastardized by man made religious doctrines and traditions of our time, the same way God's Sabbath Commandment had been bastardized by the Mainstream Religion of their time.
It was never against God to walk in fellowship with Him and eat a strawberry or ear of corn or help a brother in need on the Sabbath. They had created their own Sabbath from the Commandments of Men as Jesus said.
This truth is hard to accept about acts 15 because it has been used for centuries by the catholic church and her daughters as support of the Mainstream Preaching that the instructions the Christ created before becoming a Man are burdensome and have been done away with.
Now I'm not saying that there might be another part of the Bible which make this Mainstream Christian religious doctrine true. I am saying that Acts 15 doesn't teach or support this doctrine.
