Greeks, Chapter 4
1
And moreover, their anxiety about meats, and their superstition about Sabbaths, and their vainglory about circumcision, and their pretense about fasting and new moon: these are laughable, and worthy of no account. I do not think you need to learn about them from me.[fn]
2
For among those things created by God for the use of men, they accept some as well created, and refuse others as unprofitable and superfluous. How is it not unlawful?
3
Then they misrepresent God, as if he forbids to do good on the Sabbath. How is it not ungodly?
4
Then they boast of a reduction of the flesh as a testimony of election, as though on that account they were especially loved by God. How is it not worthy of ridicule?
5
And then they attend to stars and moon, observing months and days. They distribute God's dispensations and the changes of seasons according to their own impulses, allotting some days to feasts and others to mourning. Who would count this as an example of godliness? Is it not much more [an example] of folly?
6
I think, therefore, that you have sufficiently learned that the Christians rightly abstain from the frivolity and deceit common [to both], and from the meddling and vainglory of the Jews. But do not expect to be able to learn the mystery of their own godliness from man.
Footnotes
1
I do not think you need to learn from me: the manuscript lacks the negative, reading 'I think you need to learn from me.' Most editors insert the negative (conjectured by Stephanus), since the author has just called these practices 'laughable and worthy of no account' and the rhetorical questions in 4:2-4 are dismissals, not explanations.
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