You have a gross misunderstanding of the law and the covenants if you believe that just because something appears in the book of Leviticus it's not applicable to Christians.
The food laws of the Lords really fall outside of any covenant. They existed long before Abraham existed and were in effect before the flood. For example:
Gen 7:2 You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female;
Note that this is LONG before Abraham and LONG before the old covenant.
In addition, these designations exist in the future kingdom:
Isa 66:17 "Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves, To go to the gardens After an idol in the midst, Eating swine's flesh and the abomination and the mouse, Shall be consumed together," says the LORD.
Ironically this appears in the same chapter where you erroneously believed clearly dead bodies were really alive.
In addition, Christ NEVER taught that the food laws were done away with:
Act_10:14 But Peter said, "Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean."
These are the words of Peter and he said them 10 to 15 years after the death of Christ. Peter knew Jesus. Peter personally learned from Jesus. Peter was NEVER taught that the food laws were done away with. In other words, it's not a teaching of jesus Christ but is a tradition started by those, like yourself, who would deny the instruction of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Also, if you are going to follow the law, you must follow all of it: Gal_3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Again you show a misunderstanding of scripture. IF we depend on the law for salvation, then we MUST keep perfectly every aspect. However that's not my case or anyone else who believe's through Christ. Remember, Paul was warning about those Jews who did NOT believe in Christ. They believed they could be justified by keeping the law. And they could if they could keep it perfectly, which of course is impossible.
“Keeping the feasts of the Lord Jesus Christ was normal behavior for the first Christians.” Demonstrably false, and even you know it, because you turn around and say:
I've shown you Paul's specific command to his flock to keep the feast of Passover and Unleavened bread. I can't help that you retroactively apply the scripture to a modern day practice. Even if I couldn't show you any more examples (and I can) then as a Christian then we should as Christ walked.
1Jn_2:6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
John didn't say "walk as Christ walks...oh yeah, except when it comes to keeping the holy days he created and observed. We'll create out own in a couple hundred years and keep them. Oh, yeah, and that stuff that God wrote in the bible about food and that none of us violated? We'll get rid of that in a couple hundred years too."
Or how about Paul:
1Co_11:1 Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.
No my friend, the simple truth is that you're heavily invested in tradition and simply can't see the truth when it hits you between the eyes.
Akathartos is used broadly to refer to unclean foods, unclean objects, unclean spirits, unclean people, and unclean moral acts. This is in the context of not fellowshipping with unbelievers in a religious sense, taking part in their sacrifices: 2Co 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
The proper way to think of akathartos is to think of something that God designed as inherently unclean. Something that is unclean by nature as opposed to ceremony. Demons, sinners without Christ, sin, and the food that God has designated as unclean.
So which is it? Is Ignatius an apostate? Or did he celebrate all the Jewish feasts and obey the dietary laws? Remember, he dates from the first century, not 400 years apart, and only died near the end of the 1st century or a little into the second. That means, you have to make me believe that, while the Apostle John was still alive, a Bishop of the church had already fallen into heresy and had given up the Jewish feast days in exchange for the eeeevil sacrament of the Lord’s table
The fact that the bible and the doctrines of Christ began to be attacked in the 1st century isn't news. It's recorded in the bible:
2Th 2:7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work,; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.
Paul understood that there were those even then who were attempting to advocate the laws of the Lord were not in effect. Jesus warned against it:
Mat 24:12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
Mat 24:13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
Jesus is speaking of now, these times, and about the exact same philosophy of lawlessness you are advocating.
John saw the church being broken up in his lifetime and control wrested from those who loved the Lord to those who loved power and tradition:
3Jn 1:9 I wrote a letter to the congregation. But Diotrephes, who loves to be in charge, won't accept us.
3Jn 1:10 For this reason, when I come I will bring up what he's doing. He's not satisfied with saying malicious things about us. He also refuses to accept the believers we send as guests. He even tries to stop others who want to accept them and attempts to throw those people out of the congregation
If this could happen to a congregation (presumably) established by John then it's no wonder that things began ot go off the rails.
2Ti 4:2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;
2Ti 4:4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
This is your Christianity today. You have heaped up tons of teachers and they've turned you to fables. You do the exact opposite of what Christ commanded. Keep these days holy. No, Lord, I'll keep these days because my teachers tell me this. Respect and keep my food laws. No Lord, I like pork and my teachers tell me it's okay. Don't keep pagan days. No Lord, I love easter and christmas and besides, my teachers says it's okay.
2Pe 3:15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 2Pe 3:16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
So my friend you sit there and tell me that Christ doesn't mean any of those things he created, taught and lived. And you then take scriptures and apply traditional, modern interpretations to them which twists the message, meaning and intent.
You should be ashamed of yourself. But I know that one day you will repent when the scales fall from your eyes.
“These are the words of Peter and he said them 10 to 15 years after the death of Christ. Peter knew Jesus. Peter personally learned from Jesus. Peter was NEVER taught that the food laws were done away with.”
Yet it was God commanding Him to eat of all those things, albeit, it was also a metaphor for Cornelius, considered “unclean” by the Jews. I’ll also add:
Gal_2:14 But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
Obviously, if Peter is living as a Gentile, the Gentiles aren’t living as the Jews. I’ll also add that Peter is quite clear that the Gospel is that of grace, not of law:
Act 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?
Act 15:11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.
And if by grace, it is not by works, not by merits, not to be received at the price of labor or works provided, otherwise grace is no more grace:
Rom_4:4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
By the way, none of your sophistry actually gets rid of:
1Ti 4:4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
The same context is in Romans 14:
Rom 14:2 For one believeth that he may eat all things
Thus, all creatures of the Earth are for us to eat, so long as they are received in Thanksgiving.
You can’t squirm your way out of this one. Blame Paul if you don’t like it, but this is how it is.
1Ti_4:3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
” IF we depend on the law for salvation, then we MUST keep perfectly every aspect. However that’s not my case or anyone else who believe’s through Christ. Remember, Paul was warning about those Jews who did NOT believe in Christ.”
You don’t know what you’re talking about. The opponents that the Apostles were facing were BELIEVERS who insisted on the law of Moses:
“For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”(Gal 2:12-16)
The Judaizers were those who came from Jerusalem, where James was leading the church, and they required that Christians follow the law, not of circumcision only, but of the Law of Moses as well, on top of their faith:
Act 15:5 But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.
They were of the sect of Pharisees “which believed,” and so they required the full compliance of both faith in Christ and obedience to the Jewish law. That is why the Apostles met together in their council to address the question. To which the conclusion and decree/sentence (krino) was only to abstain from sin, from food offered to idols, and things strangled. (Though, not to contradict Paul, as the sense was “not to offend others,” as our liberty frees us from all such obligation.)
If the dietary laws were meant to be kept, then they would have been commanded here. Instead, we are only told that “all meat” is clean, provided it is received with thanksgiving, as has already been demonstrated. And no amount of ranting on your part will ever steal our liberty away.
“I’ve shown you Paul’s specific command to his flock to keep the feast of Passover and Unleavened bread.’
All you showed was Paul calling Christ our passover, and beckoning us to eat unleavened bread through the consumption of sincerity and other virtues. You also need to find a way to put us under the burden of all the other feasts, since you can find only one, and at that, so spiritualized that it cannot be meant literally.
You also ignore Paul’s clear belief in the Lord’s Supper, which, unlike all your nonsense, is actually written in the scripture. All you offer is mere speculation and nonsense:
“For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.” (1Co 11:19-30)
I’ll stick with Paul. You can stick with the United Church if Beelzebub and eat, or not eat, your way straight to hell:
1Co_8:8 But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse.
“If this could happen to a congregation (presumably) established by John then it’s no wonder that things began ot go off the rails.”
Notice that the only apostates actually spoken of aren’t those whom you claim are going wild eating and stuff. It is the ones who command to abstain from meats:
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
(1Ti 4:1-3)
These are specifically called the “doctrines of devils.” IOW, from your own mouth, you alight yourself with Satan, even after accusing me of being a friend of his since I preach the liberty of Christ!