Galatians 4:8-11 “8 Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are not gods. 9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. 11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.”
Do these verses say the Sabbath is done away with and is verse 10 referring to the observance of God’s days of worship? Answer, no.
In Bible Study we must know the context of which we read. Paul wrote this letter to the GENTILE PAGAN converts of Galatia. The recipients of this letter were gentile converts to Christianity. Paul had to write this letter because they had gone after “another gospel” (Gal. 1:6) which was a perversion of the true gospel (Gal. 1:7). Paul was correcting gentile pagan’s who were new to Christianity. They were sliding back to what they had come out of-paganism. Now we can look at Gal. 4:8-11 in the context it was written in.
Galatians 4:8-11 “8 Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are not gods.” Prior to their conversion to Christianity they served idols who by their vary nature were not gods. They had previously served false gods of pagan origin. Paul had to deal with false god’s his entire ministry. The most famous being in Acts 17: 23 When he declared the “unknow God’s” true identity to the Athenians.
9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? They were turning back to what they had previously worshipped. Their former pagan rituals sought to save people by ritualistic activities creating “works for salvation”. They were bringing their prior concept of “saved by works” into the Church of God and Paul was not pleased as we are saved by grace and not works (Gal. 1:6; Eph. 1:7; 2:5). They were bonding themselves to their wicked past and had become “bondage” to sin (Gal. 4:3). What were the “weak and beggarly elements” which were returning them to bondage? “Days, months, times and years.”
10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. Since they were Gentiles what were the “days, and months, and time, and years” they went back to? They went back to mixing their prior days of pagan worship with the Sabbath and Holy Days of God. We note the word “observe”. The Greek word for “observe” is “paratereo” and is used only once in the Bible. It’s meaning is “To watch closely, observe-watched” (Strong’s #3906). In this case it is used suspiciously as in “observing” in a negative sense to denote going back to where they had come from. Paganism. Such activities as Lev. 19:26 Do not practice divination. Deut. 18:10 Do not pass your children through the fire (sacrifice them to false gods) or practice witchcraft, soothsaying, astrology, etc. II Kings 21:6 Evil King Manasseh sacrificed his children to the fires of Molech- the false god. They went back to the future and their spiritual life was in reverse.
11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.” Paul was saddened by their desire to mix their prior pagan ways with Christianity. A practice he would soon warn the Corinthians against (I Cor. 10:19-21 and II Cor. 6:14-18).
Far from removing the Sabbath day observance, the verses of Gal. 4:8-11 show the proper use of the Sabbath and how it should not be perverted by the mixing in of pagan religious festivals. It was “not the principle of Sabbath-keeping that Paul opposes, but rather the perverted use of cultic observances which were designed to promote salvation not by divine grace but rather by human achievements.” 1 …”whenever any of these or similar practices were promoted as the grounds of salvation, he (Paul) denounced in no uncertain terms their perverted function.”1
1 Bacchiocchi, Samuele, From Sabbath to Sunday, The Pontifical Gregorian University Press, Rome, 1977.
