re sabbath admissions of someone sent me this faq by e mail and i post my response here i m not enforcing the inclusion limits on this faq because most of our readers probably haven t seen it clh christ warns that anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches otheres to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven matt this faq is so full of error that i must respond to it i hope that whoever maintains will remove from it the partisan theology brothers and sisters being new to the faith and examining the decalogue closely i ve noticed the fourth commandment is pretty specific about keeping the sabbath day it states the th day saturday is the sabbath while most christian religions keep or atleast go to church on sunday what s up this is a frequently asked question every time it arises it causes months of debate so let me see if i can answer you directly basically it s because the law was given to moses as part of a specific covenanent with the jews most of us aren t jews so we aren t part of that covenant there was an argument early in christian history about whether the mosaic laws should apply to gentiles who became christians you can see the account of this debate in acts the main question there was circumcision but keeping the sabbath would be part of it as well the apostles concluded that we need not become jews in order to become christians and therefore that rules such as circumcision did not apply to us the law was known to man before it was revealed on mount sinai rom notes that where no law is there is no transgression not only did sin exist before sinai eden but the sabbath was kept before it was revealed on sinai ex the problem with the first covenant was not the law but the promise which undergirded it god wanted to perform his will in the lives of the people but in their ignorance after years of slavery they promised what ever he says to do we will do that is why the new covenant is based on better promises heb rather than do away with the law god promised to put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts heb including the sabbath in the acts is selective inclusion the sabbath was more important to the jews than circumcision if any attempt had been made to do away with the sabbath the reaction would have been even more strident than is recorded in acts do not confuse the weekly sabbath of the decalogue with the ceremonial sabbaths which could occur at any time of the week and were part of the law ceremonial which was added because of transgression of the moral law gal israel stands for god s people of all time that is why god grafted the gentiles in roma says that the adoption the glory the covenants the giving of the law the service of god and the promises belong to israelites in explanation paul makes it clear that being born into israel is not enough for they are not all israel which are of israel v then in gal he says if ye be christ s then are ye abraham s seed and heirs according to the promise all christians are abraham s seed jews israelites not physically for that is not the criterion but spiritually we are joint heirs with jesus based on the promise god made to all his people the israelites while christians agree that the ot laws do not all apply to us because some of them are part of a specific covenanent with the jews we also expect to see some similarity between the things god expected from the jews and the things he expects from us after all it s the same god however there are several ways of dealing with this these days the most common approach is to separate the ot commandments into moral and ceremonial ceremonial commandments apply only to the jews they are part of the specific mosaic covenant these are thinsg like the kosher laws and circumcision moral laws apply to everyone most of the commands are part of the moral law except for the commandment about the sabbath i believe most people who take this approach would say that the specific requirement to worship on the sabbath is part of the ceremonial law but a general obligation to worship regularly is part of the general moral law thus christians are free to choose the specific time we worship people would probably agree but they are wrong how can the sabbath commandment be ceremonial when it is part of a law which predates the ceremonial laws you are not free to choose your time of worship even if you were why do you follow a day of worship which has its origins in pagan sun worship would you rather give up a day which god blessed sanctified and hallowed in exchange for one which all church leaders agree has not biblical foundation see sabbath admissions in soc religion christian bible study a more radical approach which is generally connected with john calvin and the reformed tradition says that the law as a whole is no longer binding instead we are entirely under grace and our behavior should be guided solely by love portions of the ot law are still useful as guidance but they are not properly speaking legally binding on us in practice most people who take this position do not believe it is safe to leave christians without moral guidannce while we may no longer be under law as sinners it s not safe for us to go into situations with no principles to guide us we re too good at self justification for that to be safe thus christians do have moral guidance from things like jesus teachings paul s advice etc these may not be precisely a law but they serve much the same function as and have largely the same content as the moral law in the previous analysis while calvin would deny that we have a fixed legal responsibility to worship on any specific day he would say that given human weakness the discipline of regular worship is important i do not care what calvin or any theologian says my guide is what god says if being not under the law means we do not have to keep the law why is it that the only section of the law we have trouble with is the sabbath commandment which is the only one god thought was important enough to say remember if you study the word deeply you will note that the message is that we are no longer under the condemnation of the law but freed by the grace of god if a cop pulls me over for speeding then in court i ask for mercy and the judge does not throw the book at me but gives me grace do i walk out of the court saying i can now go on speeding for i am now under grace being under grace i now drive within the speed limit paul adds to it in rom di we then make void the law through faith god forbid yea we establish the law wherefore the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good rom in both analyses the specific day is not an issue as a matter of tradition we worship on sunday as a memorial of christ s resurrection there s some debate about what acts shows about early christian worship the most common analysis is that is shows jewish christians continuing to go to jewish services on the sabbath but that specifically christian service were not necessarily held then act shows worship on the first day sunday and i cor also implies gatherings on that day there are a few groups that continue to believe christians have to worship on the sabbath saturday the best known are the seventh day adventists and jehovah s witnesses they argue that act is not a regular worship service but a special meeting to see paul off and that i cor doesn t explicitly say it s a regular worship service do you prefer implication to fact a careful study of the acts shows that the meeting was on saturday night and that on sunday morning paul did not go to a worship service but set off on a long journey by foot to assos in icor there is no way you can equate lay by him in store with go to a worship service it s clear that this issue was a contested one in paul s time see rom paul s advice is that we should be very careful about judging each other on issues like this one person sees a specific day as mandated by god while another does not he who observes that specific day does it in honor of the lord he who believes his worship is free of such restrictions also does it in honor of the lord those who believe that the sabbath is still mandated argue that paul is not referring to sabbath worship here note however col which says something similar but briefer it explicitly mentions sabbath wrong these are the sabbath days of the ceremonial law not the sabbath day of the moral law there are some differences among christians about use of the word sabbath originally the term referred to the th day the jewish day of worship many christians now use it to refer to sunday the day of christian worship they do this largely so that they can apply the th or whatever there are a couple of different numbering schemes commandment to it reformed tradition does not do this it distinguishes between the sabbath which is the observance mandated for jews and the lord s day which is the free christian worship the only reference i can find to this in the nt is rev there are also differences about laws regarding this day many christians support blue laws both in secular law and church law setting aside that day and causing people to spend it in worship the more radical anti legal approach sees such regulations as a return to the jewish sabbath which is not appropriate to the free christian worship of the lord s day why would you prefer to twist and turn relying on different arguments which conflict with each other rather than obey a simple request from a god who loved you enough to die for you jesus died because the law could not be changed why bother to die in order to meet the demands of a broken law if all you need to do is change the law penalties for law breaking means the law is immutable that is why it is no sin not to follow the demands of the ceremonial laws it will always be a sin to make false gods to violate god s name to break the sabbath to steal to kill etc except it you disagree but then your opinion has no weight when placed next to the word of god darius it s not clear how much more needs to be said other than the faq i think paul s comments on esteeming one day over another rom is probably all that needs to be said i accept that darius is doing what he does in honor of the lord i just wish he might equally accept that those who esteem all days alike are similarly doing their best to honor the lord however i d like to be clear that i do not think there s unambiguous proof that regular christian worship was on the first day as i indicated there are responses on both of the passages cited the difficulty with both of these passages is that they are actually about something else they both look like they are talking about nnregular christian meetings but neither explicitly says and they gathered every sunday for worship we get various pieces of information but nothing aimed at answering this question act describes christians as participating both in jewish temple worship and in christian communion services in homes obviously the temple worship is on the sabbath acts is an example of christians participating in them unfortunately it doesn t tell us what day christians met in their houses acts despite darius confusion is described by acts as occuring on sunday i see no reason to impose modern definitions of when days start when the biblical text is clear about what was meant the wording implies to me that this was a normal meeting it doesn t say they gathered to see paul off but that when they were gathered for breaking bread paul talked about his upcoming travel but that s just not explicit enough to be really convincing similarly with cor it says that on the first day they should set aside money for paul s collection now if you want to believe that they gathered specially to do this or that they did it in their homes i can t disprove it but the obvious time for a congregation to take an offering would be when they normally gather for worship and if they were expected to do it in their homes there would be no reason to mention a specific day so i think the most obvious reading of this is that on the first day of every week simply means every time they gather for worship i think the reason we have only implications and not clear statements is that the nt authors assumed that their readers knew when christian worship was clh
