Get real! - What else could “times and seasons” possibly mean?
Get real?! Indeed, have you ever done a word study of chronos and kairos (times [G5550], seasons [G2540]) used in 1Thes. 5:1?! Evidently not as neither word is found referring to liturgical times and seasons except that "kairos" is used in censuring the keeping of them by those who desired to be under that Law for salvation!
Ye observe days, and months, and times [kairos], and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain. (Galatians 4:10-11)
What other times are there but the appointed times? You cannot be serious.
What other times? The fact is they words refers to many other times except that of commending the keeping of OT feasts!
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. (1Th 5:4) And thus "times" or "seasons" refers to understanding what signifies the return of the Lord in judgment and salvation, and thus is used for the actual time which was not revealed to the apostles:
And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times [chronos] or the seasons [kairos], which the Father hath put in his own power. (Act 1:7)
Similarly, chronos or kairos is used in rebuking those who lacked discernment of the times in which they lived:
Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time [kairos]? (Luke 12:56)
Likewise for the "latter times:"
This know also, that in the last days perilous times [kairos] shall come. (2Ti 3:1)
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times [kairos] some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; (1Ti 4:1)
How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time [chronos], who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. (Jud 1:18)
Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times [chronos] for you, (1Pe 1:20)
And thus for the Lord's return:
Whom the heaven must receive until the times [kairos] of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. (Act 3:21)
Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time [kairos]. (1Pe 1:5)
More can be given, but the idea that 1Thes. 5:1 refers to OT feast days is absurd, as it contextually refers to discernment of the times in which the Lord would return, proceeding from chapter 4:
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17)
Paul speaks of shaping his scheduled travel to accommodate the appointed feasts in several places. (1Cor 16:8 "...But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost)
Indeed, and consider that Paul's purpose was conversion of souls:
That was an important event for outreaching the Gospel to a great number of Jews, and likely to meet with believers who would have more time for fellowship.
Likewise we have many times hasted to be at an important event for outreach, but does not mean we ran after the same thing those lost did.
Moreover, if anything, rather than keeping OT feasts with unconverted Jews being sanctioned, going to Jerusalem is shown to be a dangerous thing, (Acts 21:4,12) and being part of a OT worship with unconverted Jews and attempting an admixture of law and grace is shown to be a wrong thing, as the ill-advised counsel of James in Acts 21 almost got Paul killed!
The charge was that Paul taught that the Gentiles ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs, and James and co. exhorted Paul to show he kept the Law.
Yet Paul did not require circumcision, nor keeping the dietary laws or literal feast keeping, and while being at liberty to do so.
And in contrasting what Paul is exhorted to do, that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law (as regards the purification and like ceremonial statutes), James himself states:
As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing , save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication. (Act 21:25)
The keeping of the Sabbath is understood in their everyday lives, and what of the traditional “coming together on the first day of the week” immediately after the sun sets for Havdalah? Paul even had to raise one of his followers from the dead when he fell out of a window late on a “saturday night” during one of his services.
That is more Roman-like reading into the text that which simply is not there. Faced with absolutely zero reiteration of the 4th commandment in the entire NT, you actually turn a Christian meeting on the 1st day into an observance of the 7th day sabbath!
And which you were reproved for doing before . "Saturday night" is the beginning of the first day.
[3] Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Get it? If you keep the times (watch) he will not come as a thief, but if you will not watch he will come as a thief.
This is more insolent assertions, as once again there is absolutely nothing here (except what you read into it) or anywhere in writing to the church in which literally observing OT feasts is what makes one prepared to meet the Lord. And in fact this imagined failure is no more given as a cause of reproof than failing to submit to a supreme infallible pope in Rome But i am sure eisegesis can read both into texts.
Do you think all those words in the epistles about the feasts are just chaff?Did Paul mention them but then ignore them?
All those words in the epistles about the feasts?! All what words? The only manifest mention of any special "feast" that the church kept was the Lord's supper,
For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come...., (1Co 11:26) Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. (1Co 11:33)
These are spots in your feasts of charity [agapē], when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; (Jud 1:12)
Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1Co 5:7-8)
The "leaven" and "unleavened bread" are spiritual, and observing the Lord's supper is "as often as ye do this," which is not that of ordaining a liturgical calendar.
Thus your manner of argumentation relies on insolent assertions ("Get real" Get it?) as they simply lack the actual evidence you insist is there, and marginalize you as one worth much time to refute.