However in the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom cited Acts as testimony. On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them It is interesting to note that St.
Paul had spent a week with the community in Troas Acts , and this is the only reported time that he celebrated the "breaking of bread" with them. Also no remarks are made later in this passage that St. Paul disapproved of their worship on Sunday. One would expect St. Paul to object to this practice, if it were rooted in paganism. Paul writes:. Therefore let no one pass judgement on you in questions of food or drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. According to these verses, the Hebrew diet, festivals and Sabbaths are no longer obligations for Christians. These were only a foreshadowing of things to come in Christ. The focus now is Christ 2 Cor. Elsewhere St. Paul told the Corinthians to contribute money to the Church each Sunday 1 Cor This would be a strange request, if Christians assembled on Saturdays. Hebrews speaks of "another day" because the former Sabbath was not obeyed.
If Saturday were truly "craved in stone", then it would be strange to speak of another day. According to Rev. John "was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. If his vision occurred on Saturday, St. John would have written "the Sabbath" instead of using a new phrase.
Even though the disciples may have attended the synagogues on the Sabbath to evangelize Acts , there is already a definite transition from the Sabbath to the Lord's Day in the New Testament. The booklet attempts to discredit the historical writings of Eusebius in the fourth century by claiming collusion with Emperor Constantine; however, we have no need to rely on Eusebius.
We can directly cite the writings of Christians who lived in the first century - centuries before Eusebius or Constantine. Even though these writings do not have the same authority as the Bible, they are still reliable historical sources - preserving the thoughts, beliefs and lifestyle of Christians during the first century.
These writings include the Didache a church manual written by the Apostles during the 1st century , the Epistle of Barnabas c. Ignatius of Antioch who was martyred in Rome before A. Translations of these classic Christian writings can be found at the local public or university library. According to the Didache, the Apostles wrote:. Assemble on the Lord's Day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one. Abide every man in his place, let no man go out on the seventh day.
Therefore the Jews could go no farther than yards on the Sabbath. When Antiochus Epiphanes made his attack upon the nation Israel, he was able to overcome some of the Maccabees, and the reason was that he attacked on the Sabbath day. He knew the Jews would not strike back because they would not even engage in defensive warfare on the Sabbath. When you turn to the Mishnah or text that was combined with the commentary in the Talmud containing the civil and canonical laws of the nation Israel , you will find that they had reduced the Sabbath day observance of Israel to minutiae, the most trifling regulations.
They had 39 ways of breaching the Sabbath, and they divided each one of those 39 ways into another 39 ways, and 39 multiplied by 39 equals ways in which one could break the Sabbath in Old Testament times! Let me give you some examples: If you tied a knot you broke the Sabbath. A scribe could not carry a pen, because that would be carrying a burden on the Sabbath.
A person was not even permitted to kill a flea — it was rather amusing to me that a man could not kill a flea even though it was biting him! In other words, the flea had a free day on the Sabbath. A person could not wear a coat or garment over his other clothing.
The thought was that the individual might become too warm, take off his coat and put it over his arm, and that would be carrying a burden on the Sabbath. A woman was not permitted to look in a mirror on the Sabbath day for she might see a gray hair and want to pull it out, and that would be reaping on the Sabbath.
Oh, my friend, they had reduced it to where it had become all but ridiculous. Beloved, would you want to revert to the Sabbath? But we find that God made it very clear to the people of Israel that they were to observe the Sabbath. He said in Leviticus :. The Sabbath day was bound together with the ceremonial worship of this nation — the two never could be divorced.
God said that they must keep holy His Sabbath and His sanctuary. It is little wonder that Simon Peter stood up in the first Council of Jerusalem and said to those gathered there:.
Now, therefore, why put God to the test, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples [Gentiles] , which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Acts He meant that they, the Jewish people, had not been able to keep all these regulations, so why burden the converted Gentiles with them?
When we pass from the Old Testament and come into the New Testament, nothing short of a revolution has taken place as far as the Sabbath day is concerned. Every commandment is repeated in the Epistles for the Christians as items for our conduct, with one exception — the Sabbath day is not given to Christians.
Nowhere is it given to the church. In fact, just the contrary is true, for the church is warned against keeping the Sabbath day, as we shall see. Our Lord precipitated the wrath of the religious rulers at this very point, and it is here that they broke with Him on the Sabbath question.
My friend, there is one thing that you need to turn over in your mind: Jesus was dead on the Sabbath day! Regardless of what day you think He was crucified whether it be Wednesday, Thursday or Friday , one thing is obvious, and upon this all agree — He was dead on the Sabbath day.
It was on the first day of the week that He came forth from the dead. And when we turn to the resurrection account in the Gospel of Matthew which was written primarily to Israel , it opens with a remarkable statement:.
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week…. Matthew What beautiful language.
Notice Acts :. Does it mean when the sun had come up or that it was twelve noon or that it was late in the afternoon? No, it does not mean any of that at all. It was the first day of the week, the only first day of the week Israel ever observed — for they observed seven Sabbath days after Passover, and then the day following the seventh Sabbath was Pentecost:. On that day the Holy Spirit came!
On that day the church was born! It would be exceedingly strange if the church did not make some recognition of the first day of the week. As we turn to Acts we find that Paul was preaching in Troas:. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the next day, and continued his speech until midnight.
That was a long sermon! It can be proven that they never did meet on any other day. There was a group called Ebionites that met on the Sabbath day, but they were called heretics by the early church. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him…. Friends, why should he designate that day? Plainly, that is the day upon which the church came together.
The church is a new creation of God. It does not belong to the old creation; it is a new work:. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God — not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. Paul writes to the Galatians in the sixth chapter, verse 15 :. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature [creation].
I am aware that a great many commentators hold the position that this has reference to this day of grace in which we live. In the opening of this message I made mention of the fact that the Sabbath day has never been changed to Sunday, the first day of the week. A false propaganda has been circulated to the effect that the Roman Catholic Church changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. That needs to be refuted. The church never did observe the Sabbath day, so how could it be changed?
We have this record not only in Acts, but the body of church history also bears testimony to that fact. For example, during the first century we find a lovely thing to corroborate this, a quotation from one of the church fathers, Ignatius born in A.
The Epistle of Barnabas, which was never recognized or accepted in the canon of Scripture, though no one has ever questioned the accuracy of its historical statements, contains the following:.
The early church always met on the first day of the week to honor a resurrected Christ and to recognize the fact that they were a new creation.
They did not belong to the old creation where the Sabbath day is at the end of the week, but to a new day, the first day of the week. It may surprise you to learn that the Seventh Day Baptists started the observance of the seventh day, or the Sabbath. So you Baptists are going to have to take the blame here. The Presbyterians and the Methodists have already got enough to answer for, and I think that you Baptists ought to shoulder this one!
The Ebionites rose in the early church. They were called heretics then, and by the sixth and seventh centuries they had called themselves Sabbatarians. It was not until the seventeenth century when Puritan theology became so dominant and legalistic that the Ebionites began to call themselves the Seventh Day Baptists.
And all of the legalists today get the seventh day from them. Sunday — oh, how important this is to see — does not take the place of Saturday. In fact, all is contrast. Mackintosh put it this way:. If the Jew worked on the Sabbath, he was to be put to death. It is a day when you, as a Christian, demonstrate that you belong to Christ.
It is not a day when you are to do nothing. It is not a Sabbath; it is something new. Oh, if we could make every Sunday an Easter — come in our new garments and fill our churches and talk about the resurrected Christ — that would be wonderful!
Now I have a suggestion to make. I believe that the Bible would sanction that, for it says,. We observe the first day of the week because our Lord came back from the dead on that day. We do not observe it as a substitute for the Sabbath day or any other day.
It is vital that we understand that the Sabbath day, which was part of the ceremonial law, has already been fulfilled in Christ. And now the injunction given to Christians is clear in Colossians , 17 :.
Let no man, therefore, judge you in food, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day, or of the new moon, or of a sabbath day, which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. My friend, rituals in the Old Testament were shadows of things to come — and shadows are photographs. When a photographer takes our picture, a shadow is registered on a very sensitive negative. That shadow is developed and becomes our picture.
The Bible says that as we look back to the Old Testament we find that even the Sabbath day was a shadow of something. But now, after ye have known God, or rather are known by God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, unto which ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. Galatians , Beloved, Judaism has passed away, and it says here in Galatians that today it is the same as any other pagan religion.
Therefore, to observe the Sabbath in our day is to return to paganism. Let us, therefore, fear lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them; but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
Hebrews , 2. My friend, I keep the Sabbath day — I keep it in accordance with the preceding passage of Scripture. Now let me give you a personal illustration: When I came to Pasadena to live in , my neighbor — a very fine man, but a member of a legalistic system that keeps the seventh day — nailed me first off.
I tried to make it clear to him that when God created everything, including man, man sinned and ran into the ditch. And from that day on, God did not rest because He wanted to redeem the poor, lost sinner and bring him into a place of rest. But when He said it, it was only one word — Tetelestai! What was finished? The work of redemption was finished so that now you and I can enter into rest. Look again at Ephesians and 9 :.
Redemption is a completed package, and He presents it to you wrapped up with everything in it. Click to see full answer In respect to this, which day is the Sabbath day of the Lord? We should observe the seventh day of the week Saturday , from even to even, as the Sabbath of the Lord our God.
Evening is at sunset when day ends and another day begins. No other day has ever been sanctified as the day of rest. The Sabbath Day begins at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday.
Also Know, what does it mean to keep holy the Lord's Day? The full text of the commandment reads: Remember the Sabbath day , to keep it holy. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
The Lord's Day in Christianity is generally Sunday, the principal day of communal worship. It is observed by most Christians as the weekly memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is said in the canonical Gospels to have been witnessed alive from the dead early on the first day of the week. This is a completely different question from which is the right day to go to church. The true day of rest is Saturday or more specifically Friday sunset to Saturday sunset.
On March 7, , however, Roman Emperor Constantine I issued a civil decree making Sunday a day of rest from labor, stating: All judges and city people and the craftsmen shall rest upon the venerable day of the sun. In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Sabbath food preparation refers to the preparation and handling of food before the Sabbath , also called Shabbat , or the seventh day of the week , the Bible day of rest, when cooking , baking , and the kindling of a fire are prohibited by the Jewish law.
Sunday is a day of rest in most Western countries, as a part of the weekend and weeknight. For most observant Christians, Sunday is observed as a day of worship and rest, holding it as the Lord's Day and the day of Christ's resurrection. In some Muslim countries and Israel, Sunday is the first work day of the week. It may refer to an instant, to 45 minutes, an hour, an hour and a quarter, a period of three hours, a day , or even a season!
Welcoming Sabbath Honoring Shabbat kavod Shabbat on Preparation Day Friday includes bathing, having a haircut and cleaning and beautifying the home with flowers, for example.
0コメント