How Do You Start Keeping the Biblical Feasts?
How Do You Start Keeping the Biblical Feasts?
In short
Start with the why, not the how. Read Leviticus 23 in one sitting and notice that God calls the days His. Learn what each appointed time points to before you plan anything. Pick the next one on the calendar rather than attempting all seven at once. Keep the commands as simple as the text gives them: gather, do no work, use the symbol Scripture names. Settle that no observance saves anyone (Ephesians 2:8-9), then do it with people, and bring your kids.
The most common way people start out is by starting with the how. They ask what they are supposed to do, get seven different answers, and suddenly they have a checklist and a low-grade anxiety that they are going to do it wrong.
Start with the why instead. The how gets a lot simpler once you understand what you are commemorating, and it stops feeling like a compliance exercise. You do not need to look or act like an ancient Hebrew to celebrate these days.
Step one: read Leviticus 23 in one sitting
Do not study it the first time. Just read it the way you would read a letter, and notice one thing while you do: God does not call them Israel’s feasts. Verse 2 says, “My appointed times, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations.” He repeats that possessive throughout the chapter.
That one observation reframes the whole subject. You are not being asked to adopt somebody else’s national custom. You are being told about appointments somebody else scheduled.
A plain reading of what the chapter lists is in What Does Leviticus 23 Actually List?.
Step two: ask what each one points to
Before you plan a meal or worry about what you are supposed to do, learn what the day means. Paul says that the things Israel walked through happened as “examples” and were written for our instruction (1 Corinthians 10:11). The word behind examples carries the idea of types: real events that also teach something beyond themselves.
| Season | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Passover and Unleavened Bread | A lamb, blood on wood, death passing over, and then leaving the old life behind |
| Firstfruits and Pentecost | Resurrection, then the Spirit given and two leavened loaves offered together |
| Trumpets | An announcement. A summons, and an alarm |
| Atonement | A high priest, a covering, and a day set apart for humbling |
| Tabernacles | God dwelling with people, temporarily now and permanently later |
Step three: start with one season, not all seven
Pick the next one on the calendar and give it your attention. Trying to observe an entire year you have never lived before is a pretty good way to burn yourself out by month three. Learn one season. Live it. Then move on to the next one.
The commands themselves are generally much simpler than all the traditions that have grown up around them. Gather. Do no work. Where Scripture gives a symbol, use the symbol. During the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for example, that means unleavened bread, because God attached meaning to it.
You do not need to travel to Jerusalem, and there is no sacrificial system for you to participate in, because Jesus superseded that. What remains is the meaning and the practices Scripture describes.
Step four: protect it from becoming a scoreboard
A conversation that gets stuck on method is one of the shortest roads to legalism I know. Which hour? Whose practice? Who is doing it correctly? Before long, the whole thing becomes a scoreboard.
Here is a test I find useful. Imagine asking your spouse to tell you the minimum required to keep the marriage functioning: “Just tell me what I have to do and when I have to do it, and I will do exactly that.” Nobody hears that and thinks, now that is love. Asking whether a holy day is necessary for salvation can do the same thing to the day. It reduces the whole question to, what is the minimum I have to do?
And settle the salvation question once so it does not keep sneaking back into the conversation. No observance saves anyone.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”
Ephesians 2:8
Keeping these days is a response, never a payment.
Step five: do it with people, and bring the kids
Scripture calls these days convocations, which means gathering is part of the command rather than an optional add-on. These were never meant to be purely private observances between one person and a calendar.
Show your kids how every one of these days points to the work and importance of Jesus. The holy days provide an opportunity to not just tell them about it, but to also live it and walk it out. Kids learn a symbol by living inside it long before they can explain the theology behind it.
And come with your questions rather than waiting until you have resolved every one of them. Reading about a table is not the same thing as sitting at one. Plan a visit and sit at ours.
One question worth sitting with
If God set apart a piece of time before there was a nation or a temple, what would it look like to simply ask Him what He wants done with it?
Frequently Asked Questions
Which biblical feast should I start with?
The next one on the calendar. Observing one season with attention teaches more than attempting a full year unprepared, and each appointed time carries its own meaning that can be learned on its own.
Do you have to travel to keep the feasts?
No. The pilgrimage requirement belonged to a temple system that no longer operates, and the sacrificial elements find their fulfillment in Jesus. What remains is gathering with other believers, worshipping God, resting from ordinary work, celebrating, and using the days to remember and rehearse what God has done. The symbols Scripture gives still matter, but their purpose is to point beyond themselves to Jesus and His work.
What do you actually do on these days?
Gather with other believers, worship, rest from ordinary work as the text commands, and spend the day learning, remembering, and celebrating what God has done. Each appointed time highlights something about His plan and ultimately points toward Jesus: His sacrifice, resurrection, priesthood, return, and His dwelling with His people. The symbols connected with the days can help tell that story, but the point is not simply to perform the symbols correctly. The point is to worship God and better understand the work of Christ they were designed to reveal.
How do you keep the feasts without becoming legalistic?
Lead with the why instead of obsessing over the how. Legalism grows very easily when the conversation becomes a contest over method. Settling the fact that no observance earns salvation, as Ephesians 2:8-9 makes clear, removes the pressure that turns obedience into scorekeeping.
Keep going
This post comes from an Oak Stone sermon.
Justin Glasgow works through more of this passage than there was room for here. Oak Stone Christian Church meets in Allen, Texas, and you do not need to have this figured out before you walk in. Nobody here does.