Do you know WHERE the annual feast days of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles were to be kept? Jerusalem – only Jerusalem, and nowhere else. The ONLY time these annual feasts were observed somewhere else was when there was no city of Jerusalem, but once Jerusalem was founded God Himself decreed that it was in that city alone these three feasts were to be observed. (See Deuteronomy 12:5; Deuteronomy 26:2 and Ezra 6:12). When you find these feasts (Passover and Pentecost) mentioned in the New Testament, do you know where they are being observed? Jerusalem – only Jerusalem, and nowhere else.
These feasts were intimately tied to an agrarian culture and society, a culture where tilling of the land and growing of crops was paramount. An offering of a sheaf of wheat and two loaves of bread as wave offerings figured largely in the keeping of the Feast of Pentecost. The Feast of Tabernacles required the children of Israel to dwell in booths constructed of branches of palm trees, the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook, not in the comfortable lodgings of some resort hotel. Various and sundry offerings by fire were required to be made during these annual feasts where a priest officiated.
Three times in each and every year ALL the males in Israel were commanded by God to gather in Jerusalem to honor these annual feasts! (See Exodus 23:14-17; Exodus 34:23-24; Deuteronomy 16:1-3, 16). The distance between Capernaum and Jerusalem alone was nearly eighty miles! Assuming an average walking speed of 3 mph, it would take over 26 hours to walk to Jerusalem from Capernaum if one could keep up such a pace with few rest stops. This indeed was a laborious journey. Have you ever walked 80 miles non-stop? It would have taken much longer for many Jews to make this trek if they were advanced in years or had physical infirmities.
When Paul says he hastened to be in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost, it was not because he felt obligated to keep this feast, but it was because the Word of God was growing mightily and Jews were beginning to magnify the name of the Lord. (See Acts 9:17-20). Paul knew that many thousands of Jews would congregate in Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Pentecost. He saw this as a marvelous opportunity to preach Christ to them. (See Acts 20:16). Later, after Paul discerned that the Jewish people were then largely accursed from Christ Paul remained in Ephesus purposely missing the observance of Pentecost in Jerusalem for “a great and effectual door” had been opened to him among the Gentiles by the Holy Spirit. (See Romans 9:1-3 and I Corinthians 16:8-9)
You can carefully read the Bible from cover to cover and nowhere will you find that God allowed anyone, not any prophet or apostle, to change the place where these three feasts were to be observed. Jerusalem alone was the locale where God commanded these annual sabbaths were to be observed! The apostle Paul makes a frank and telling admission in this matter when he writes, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood (did not ask for another apostle’s input) neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me, but I went in unto Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. Then AFTER THREE YEARS I went up to Jerusalem TO SEE PETER (not to keep an annual feast), and abode with him fifteen days” (Galatians 1:15-18).
This former Pharisee of the Pharisees freely admits he purposely missed observing nine annual feast days in Jerusalem. And, at that time, there is not a whisper in any scripture passage that believers were observing these feasts in various Gentile cities! But that’s not all. Paul goes on to say “Then FOURTEEN YEARS after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them the gospel which I now preach among the Gentiles…” (See Galatians 2:1-2). That is FORTY-TWO more annual feasts Paul purposely missed attending in Jerusalem, the ONLY city where God ordained these feasts were to be observed!
Friend, you better let the Holy Spirit and the Word of God instruct you lest Satan bring you under the curse of the law of works. (See Galatians 3:10-13). Do not add to the Word of God lest God add to you the plagues therein. What you have just read is NOT mere speculation. These are the cold hard facts of scripture. What you have read is clear scripture, not clever argument. God help you to understand.
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley