He says "I am afraid for you, LEST I have labored in vain". Once again, this is a warning, that you are acting like you were never saved. It does not say "AHA! you kept that day, now your salvation is revoked!" (Wow! they must have been doing something really horrible for that to happen! It can only be paganism!
). If we had a convert who used to live a fast life, and then begins to fall back into it, we may say it looks like we labored in vain. But we can't say "Salvation revoked". To keep more in with this context, if that person instead became a rigid legalist, even to the point of being abusive (just like he was in the streets, let's say), we can still say that he in a sense "returned" to an aspect of his old life, even though the OUTWARD practices may be diametrically opposite, and in fact, based on commands taught in the Bible. Since unbelieving Jews were not saved either (v.3), yet kept the Law, it is possible for the adoptation of the old Jewish system to be a "return" to a lost condition, but Paul does not say they actually became lost again; it's just a warning that they are acting like it.You are getting hung up on the word "return", and once again, mixing up v.8 and 9. For the last time, it does NOT say "return...to what is not God". It says they ONCE served what is not God, and "returned" to BONDAGE! Returned... to bondage. Returned... to bondage! WHATEVER the "bondage" is, it could either be pagan OR Jewish (v3). The Law itself was not bondage, but our fallen condition which could not keep it, and only condemned by it. The solution was not simply to add Jesus to the Law, but to set aside the old Law, which served its purpose in showing man's fallen condition, for the original basic moral and spiritual Law, written in the heart, and magnified to its spiritual intent. Anyone who kept days thinking they were gaining merit with God (e.g. "obeying" better than others) did not understand Christ, and after all Paul labored with them, it would SEEM "in vain". Yet, if they kept them as personal devotion to the Lord, that was pleasing to Him. Just what is so difficult about this to understand?
And here you go again getting hung up over "observe" and "times". Where in the words "evil intent", "insidious" or "trap or beguile" do you see any reference to ASTROLOGY?
All that says is that it was a bad motive, and in fact, these being Torah practices would make it all the more "insidious" (i.e. "trapping")! I showed you from the Greek and Hebrew that the English words are translating two different things. In Lev., it was pagan practices (not the word "observe", but rather the "times".) In Galatians, "observe" only denotes the evil intent, and the "times", in this case simply means "appointed times", and could be anybody's festivals. You have not even attempted to disprove this, except for just repeating your assertions, and that since you can't believe people could ever be wrong in their observance of days God once commanded, and it was so serious that God would revoke their salvation (both mistaken assumptions), then it can only be paganism
They did have "appointed times", and they did have new moons.
#3, you just repeat the same unfounded assertions, as if they somehow prove themselves.
Where does it say anything about "ordained by God"? That is something else you add. Paul kept the system "ordained by God", and was still in the same "bondage" as everyone else. Remember, it was the "evil intent" that was condemned. Keeping even the things ordained by God with an "evil intent" is still condemned. You are so busy interpreting "evil intent" as "paganism", you don't even get what the passage is saying.
They were never Jews, but they were being influenced by Jews, who themselves were just as "enslaved" (v.3), so following them WOULD make them "enslaved all over again". That's the contrast Paul is showing here. Going from "Enslaved as pagans" to "enslaved as [wanna be] Jews". Neither is better than the other.
