[bkaycee]

Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" 22(referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

[dangus]

A lenten observance is hardly ascentism, and hardly causes visions, and “puffing up without reason the sensuous mind”. What Paul is condemning is the practice of ritualistic self-deprivation, a practice used to achieve an altered conscience to gain spiritual insights.

Paul himself, and all his companions observed a ritually mandated fast (Acts 27:9). (This refers to the Day of Atonement.) The Didache reflects that first-century Christians observed fasts on Wednesday and Friday.