Holiday Celebrations

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When Paul wrote at Romans 14:5, ‘One considers a day as more important than other days, while another considers each day as all the rest’, the problem he was addressing had to do with Jewish Christians trying to convince the gentile Christians that it was necessary for them to observe the special days, festivals, and Sabbaths as they are prescribed in the Law of Moses. So Paul was simply pointing out that, though there was nothing wrong with doing so, they really didn’t have to observe those days any longer.

So, when he went on to write (in verse 6), ‘Those that observe a certain day [as holy] should observe it to the Lord,’ he wasn’t encouraging Christians to celebrate pagan holidays if they so wished. Rather, he was saying that gentile Christians were under no obligation to celebrate Old-Law holidays or to follow Old-Law dietary restrictions.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he was partly writing to address problems that had arisen between the Jews and gentiles in the congregation there in Rome. In fact, it’s the same problem that he had to address in many of his writings to other congregations. For example, there were apparently jealousies and feelings of superiority on the part of both Jewish and gentile Christians (see Romans 3:1, 9).

So Paul’s purpose in writing was to try to settle their differences and to bring both races toward complete unity as one man in Jesus (Romans 3:22; 12:5). As we can see throughout the rest of Romans chapter 14, Paul went on to say that those who don’t feel comfortable eating food that is forbidden under the Jewish Law shouldn’t be judged, and that those who do eat such food shouldn’t be judged either.

So this was the point that he was also making about Jewish holidays in verses 4 and 5, that Christians shouldn’t be judging each other over such trivial matters.

Written by a contributor.