Bible Question: Sabbath - Saturday vs Sunday. In general, most people agree that the Sabbath mentioned throughout the old and new testament is actually Saturday. The fourth commandment tells us to keep the Sabbath day holy. I understand that Sunday is referred to the Lord's Day in recognition of the resurrection. My question is when did the shift happen from worshipping on the Sabbath to worshipping on the Lord's Day? Is it specifically mentioned in the Bible somewhere? Is it recorded in secular history anywhere? Thanks in advance for your responses. |
Bible Answer: As Christianity spread beyond the borders of Palestine/Israel, the church became increasingly Hellenistic. Up until 65AD the Roman Government treated the church as just another sect of Judaism--Kind of like the Essenses/Pharisees etc. Why did they do this? Because they: 1.) Used Jewish scripture to affirm what they believed about Christ. 2.) Preached a very uniquely Jewish concept of a Messiah. 3.) Spent time in the synagogues—Even Paul would go to the synagogues in the cities he evangelized in the book of Acts and try to persuade them in the truths of Jesus. The one thing I want to say from the start, is the early church was a mix bag of ideologies. There were those in the early church—Marcion comes to mind—that hated anything Jewish; Therefore, I think you would be hard pressed to find anything from Marcion that promoted the Sabbath as the Christians' only alternative to worship. He would not even consider the O.T as being part of the new Christian Canon and many of the Gospels because they contained O.T quotations. But for the most part, very early on in the churches development you see the church focusing more on the Lord’s Day (Sunday) in honor of His resurrection and less on Sabbath worship. You see the pattern beginning in the Book of Acts and by 65 AD most of Christedom was using Sunday exclusively as the Churches’ day of worship. The Didache, which was a document in circulation around 60 AD, already had the church meeting on Sunday’s. “But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one who is at odds with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: "In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations."” Although the Didache is not scripture, it does provide us insight into the thought process of the early church in regards to this matter. I think in the church, the closer you got to Jerusalem the more Jewish Christians hung on to Jewish traditions. The further you got away from Jerusalem—and as Rome began to take center stage and Jerusalem lost its importance—the more those traditions were looked at as optional and discarded. I hope this provides a little insight into how the early church viewed this issue. I will let others argue weather the church was right in adopting Sunday or wrong. schwartzkm |