Gerhard Ebersoehn said:
GE:
In Galatians Paul nowhere speaks to Jews. Throughout the Letter he addresses the heathen! And he tells THEM, that they had returned to there former gods or "pathetic principles", then went on, to foreswear their apostacy from Christ with having themselves circumcised. He tells them, he not only laboured in vain for them, but they thus - trying to force the arm of God - had themselves by their mutilation of the flesh, cut off from Christ. They had fallen back into the worship of their former heathen idolatry, the worship of the 'gods' or 'first principles' ('stoicheia') of time: "days, months, seasons, years". The land of Galatia was steeped in thes idolatrous practices - peaked by the heathen and idolatrous mysterie of circumcision. There was NOTHING Christian OR, 'Old Testament', or even 'Jewish', in their backsliding, though it smacked of Juda-ism.
Where on earth do you get that? Circumcision was strictly the covenant sign given specifically to Abraham, and kept by the Children of Promise, Israel. Now, you're calling it a heather idolatrous practice?

Is that what God int he LAw calls it? I know of no nonAbrahamic people who keep it. Paul uses "uncircumcision" as
synonymous with "gentile", so he did not know of any gentiles keeping it that had not been influenced by Jewish Proselytizers and Christian Judaizers.
Then you err in saying Paul wrote to them to get them not to keep the Law. Paul hoped to get the faithful back to God's Law, to get them back to faith in Christ! Never are the Law of God, and Christ, exclusive of one another. The Law's honour is to honour Christ, and Christ's honour, is to honour the Law of God. The mere fact you oppose Christ and God's Law, should tell you you are wrong.
Uh, haven't you criticized Bob in the past for keeping the Sabbath because of the Law, and made that different from the new meaning in Christ?
BobRyan said:
The problem is that the word "ALIKE" is not even in the letter. Paul argues that ONE group "OBSERVES ONE day ABOVE another" and the other group "OBSERVES EVERY DAY" in that "list of days" given by God in scripture (Lev 23)
Again, "krino" is "
decide", which is closer in meaning to "esteem", not "observe". It is also translated elsewhere as "aconclude", "condemn", "
decree", "
determine", "judge", "go to (sue at the) law", "ordain", "Call in question", "sentence to", "think". Nothing anywhere near "observe".
If Paul wanted to say "observe", he would have used
tereo ("watch", used in Mt.23:3
(2×), 28:20), or
phulasso (used in Mk.10:20) both of which, regarding "observing" of Laws.
Recall that all of their First century NT church leaders were Christian Jews and EVEN the Gentiles were looking to the Acts 15 Jerusalem council to solve their disputes. Paul was not in a "death to Jews" mode in Romans 14 and he clearly was not saying "JEWS observe EVERDAY in Lev 23 because they are Jews. Gentiles OBSERVE NO DAY".
If this was talking only about "annual days of Lev. 23",
SDA's don't keep any of the annual days, (at least not mandatorily) so actually,
you yourself would fit in the category of "observ[ing] NO DAY"! So again, it must not mean that.
You guys are really pushing it to explain away the scriptures.