Most Christians today worship on Sunday, and many of these worshipers call Sunday the Christian Sabbath. Yet, I have not found a single Scripture to support this idea. Am I saying that Christians should return to worshiping on the 7th day rather than Sunday? No—even though the reason we turned to Sunday had more to do with anti-Semitism than the truth, it is done. We do, however, need to be honest about what occurred, admit what we’ve done and move on. We are not under the Law but under Christ.
One cannot pick out portions of the Law one thinks agreeable and say: “this is binding, but the rest are not.” We have no authority to pick and choose what is binding in God’s word. Only God has that authority, and he has shown that gentiles are not under the Law. Paul says that we are a law unto ourselves (Romans 2:14), that is, we already have laws of our own—against stealing, lying, murder etc. What is not covered by the laws of our lands is covered in the principle that we are to love God with all our being and love one another as ourselves.
So, what about the Sunday/Saturday thing? What does God’s word tell us and why do most Christians worship on Sunday? In Acts 20:6-12 we find Paul at the culmination of his 3rd missionary journey, and he has organized an offering from the gentile churches in Asia Minor and Europe for the poor at Jerusalem. He intended to be in Jerusalem by Passover, but a plot against his life in Corinth changed his plan (Acts 20:3). Instead of Paul sailing from Chenchrea, the Corinthian seaport on the Aegean, he sent the disciples by sea to Troas, while he and at least eight others traveled by land through Achaea and Macedonia to Philippi, where Paul and company celebrated the Days of Unleavened Bread.
In Acts 20:6 Luke tells us that Paul set sail AFTER the Days of Unleavened Bread and in 5 days came to Troas and hooked up with the other brethren he sent by sea that were waiting for him. The troublesome phrase is “where we abode for seven days”. This doesn’t make sense for two reasons. First, Paul would have liked to be in Jerusalem by Passover but couldn’t, so why would he delay bringing the needed supplies to the poor at Jerusalem for another 7 days? Secondly, verse-7 begins with “And upon the first day of the week…” This is clearly wrong and gives the reader a wrong sense of the context of the meeting at Troas.
Luke gives us a sense of urgency, which is all but hidden by the assumptions of Sunday worship in the translation. The phrase: “And upon the first day of the week…” is wrong. First of all, day is supplied by the translators, and is NOT in the Greek. Secondly, the word translated week can also be translated “Sabbath”, which is preferred if the context supports it. Finally, this same Greek word is in the plural NOT in the singular. If one would literally translate the phrase, one could see it belongs to the Jewish method of counting toward Pentecost (cp. Acts 20: 16).[1]
Therefore, verse-7 literally translated would be: “And upon the first of the Sabbaths (weeks)…” But, what does this mean? In Leviticus 23 we discover a list of all the annual Holy Days, including the weekly Sabbath, that Israel was to observe in their seasons. The Jews were to count 7 Sabbaths, or weeks to Pentecost (Leviticus 23:15-16). The count began on the day following the weekly Sabbath falling between Passover (the 14th) and the 2nd Holy Day of the Days of Unleavened Bread (the 21st of the 1st month). By adding one more day to the calculation made it 50 days to the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost. Since the first day of the count is ALWAYS a Sunday, the phrase “seven Sabbaths shall be complete” can be translated “weeks” or “Sabbaths” without losing its meaning.
Acts 20:7 literally translated is “and upon the first of the Sabbaths… (weeks).” By sticking with a literal rendering, Luke’s sense of urgency isn’t lost in the translation. The plural in the Greek supports the context (v.16) of counting toward Pentecost. However, what about the troublesome phrase in verse-6: “…where we abode seven days”? If this is correct, it contradicts Luke’s sense of urgency to be in Jerusalem by Pentecost, and my point thus far is moot.
Luke says in Acts 20:6 that they left Philippi’s seaport AFTER the Days of Unleavened Bread—i.e. after the 21st of the first month or on the 22nd. He arrived in Troas five days later or on the 26th of the first month and broke bread with the disciples on the first of the (seven) Sabbaths or the 27th of the month. This scenario can be true without any contradiction **only** if the Passover began on a Sunday that year. The weekly Sabbath between the 14th and the 21st would have been observed on the 20th, making the 21st a Sunday, the 1st day counting toward Pentecost. Five days of travel to Friday or the 6th day of the 50 days before Pentecost. The next day would have been the 27th, a Saturday, when they broke bread on the “first of the (seven) Sabbaths…” This means that the troublesome phrase in verse-6 “…where we abode seven days” ought to be understood as Paul tarried until the end of the first seven days of the 50 day period at Troas. He stayed there only two days at the most, depending upon what time Friday he arrived and what time on Sunday he left.
So, why do we celebrate Sunday? By the beginning of the 2nd century CE Christians celebrated both Saturday (the Sabbath) and Sunday (in honor of Jesus’ resurrection), but when Constantine legalized Christianity in the 4th century CE, he outlawed meeting for worship on the 7th day, partially due to his being anti-Semitic (approved by some Christian leaders of the day), but mostly because he worshiped the sun god. I don’t believe he was a Christian! However, Sunday as a day of worship is not wrong in itself—we are not under the Law, but using Acts 20:7 to support our doing so is wrong and hides the truth of Luke’s message.
[1] Paul in Acts 20:16 “hastens” to get to Jerusalem for Pentecost, for he has a lot to do besides getting the offering to the poor. The word Luke uses is speudo (G4692); compare this verse with how Luke uses the word elsewhere in Luke 2:16; 19:5-6 and Acts 22:18. This argues against Paul spending 7 days in Troas for no apparent reason.
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12 responses to “Has the Sabbath Morphed into Sunday?”
Personally, I believe it should be Saturday. It’s the only day which God sanctified and made Holy and he says to remember it. I understand we’re technically not under the law, but, in the book of the prophets when God speaks of the New Covenant he states, he would write the law upon our hearts and minds. If this is the case the commandments are within us on our hearts and in our minds. And to me this means we should honor the Sabbath as Saturday.
Plus Christ also kept the Sabbath and we’re told to follow in his footsteps. So this is why I prefer my Sabbath worship on Saturday…Just my opinion! But definitely a great post….many, many blessings to you….Robin
Thank you for your kind words and may the Lord richly bless you as well.
I would rethink this article. See below for quotes from the Roman Catholic Church aka the 1st beast from revelation or the last beast in Daniel has to say about the sabbath:
“You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctified.” James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers (1917 ed.), pp.72,73
“If protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day, that is Saturday. In keeping Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church.” Albert Smith, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the cardinal in a letter of Feb. 10, 1920.
“Have you not any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?”
“Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her, she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the Seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority” Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed. p. 174
How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holydays?
By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church.” Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine (1833 approbation), p.58 (Same statement in Manual of Christian Doctrine, ed. by Daniel Ferris [1916 ed.], p.67)
“The Catholic Church,… by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.
” The Catholic Mirror, official organ of Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893.
“Is Saturday the 7th day according to the Bible and the 10 Commandments?”
“I answer yes”.
“Is Sunday the first day of the week and did the Church change the 7th day, Saturday, for Sunday, the 1st day?”
“I answer yes”.
“Did Christ change the day?”
“I answer no!” Faithfully yours, “J. Cardinal Gibbons” Gibbons’ autograph letter.
But this theory is entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as holy days. The church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days.”
John Laux A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies 1936, vol.1 p.51
Which is the Sabbath day?
Saturday is the Sabbath day.
Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemity from Saturday to Sunday.”
Peter Geiermann, The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1946 ed.), p.50. Geiermann received the “apostolic blessing” of Pope Pius X on his labors, January 25, 1910.
“The Catholic Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her Founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant, claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. The Catholic Universe Bulletin, Aug. 14, 1942, p.4
“The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] church.” Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today (1868), p. 213
What power has claimed authority to change God’s law?
The Papacy in Rome.
“The Pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain, or interpret even Divine Laws…The Pope can modify divine law, since his power is not of man, but of God, and he acts as vicegerent of God upon earth.” Translated from Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca (Ready Library), “Papa”, art. 2.
What part of the law of God has the papacy thought to change?
The Fourth Commandment.
“Catholics alledge the change of the Sabbath into the Lord’s day, contrary, as it seemeth, to the Decalogue; and they have no example more in their mouth than the change of the Sabbath. They will needs have to be very great, because it hath dispensed with a precept of the Decalogue.” The Augsburg Confession (Lutheran), part 2, art. 7, in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (Harper), vol. 3, p. 64.
“It [the Roman Catholic Church] reversed the Fourth Commandment by doing away with the Sabbath of God’s word and instituting Sunday as a holiday.” N. Summerbell, History of the Christian Church (1873), p. 415.
Does the papacy acknowledge changing the Sabbath?
It does.
The Catechismus Romanus was commanded by the Council of Trent and published by the Vatican Press, by order of Pope Pius V, in 1566. This catechism for priests says: “It pleased the church of God, that the religious celebration of the Sabbath day should be transferred to ‘the Lord’s day. Sunday.’” Catechism of the Council of Trent (Donovan’s translation, 1867), part 3, chap. 4, p. 345. The same in slightly different wording, is in the McHugh and Callan translation (1937 ed.), p. 402.
Daniel 7:25
“And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.”
It certainly is wrong for any christian to celebreate Sunday as the sabbath.
Thank you, Joe, for your comment and references, but I neither believe the Roman Catholic Church is the “Beast” of Revelation (or Daniel), nor do I believe just because Saturday is the Sabbath that it naturally follows gentiles are required to keep that day by the Law of God. Paul tells us we are **not** under the Law. I agree with you that Saturday is the Sabbath, but like it or not in the course of Christian history, whether for good or for bad, most Christians worship on Sunday rather than Saturday. I am not condemned or justified by whether or not I keep the Sabbath. In the greatest sense of the **rest** Jesus is my Sabbath. I **rest** from all my labors in him–not in a day of the week.
Your are welcome to your understanding. I would not think of seeking to change your mind or try to lord it over your faith and walk in Christ. I do hope, however, you would reconsider the freedom other believers have in Christ to worship on another day. We are not called to serve God through the Law but to love him with our whole being and one another as Jesus loved us, and this can be done on any day of the week in particular, and should be done every day of the week in general.
May the peace of the Spirit of God be with you,
Eddie
Eddie, thank you for your defense of the Catholic Church above, from the other Joe. ;)
I’m going to have to disagree with your reading of the Greek of Acts 20:7, as well as your ahistorical assumption that it was only in the fourth century under Constantine that worship moved from the Jewish Sabbath to Sunday, the Lord’s Day, and only on account of “anti-Semitism” (I’ve heard that charge before, from anti-Catholics, and there’s no historical merit to it.) There’s every indication, from both Scripture and Tradition (which, whether you accept it as divinely authoritative or not, represents concrete historical evidence) that meeting on the Lord’s Day was the practice of the Apostles.
To the Greek:
[ἐν] [<dative-attributive-pronoun>] <dative-adjective-of-number> <dative-genitive> is a very common Greek construction of denoting time-at-which, especially to say “the first (etc.) day” of something. When no other notation of time is given, “day” (ἡμἐρα) is almost invariably assumed. Cf. these instances:
Matthew 26:17: Τῇ δὲ πρώτῃ τῶν ἀζύμων . . . (“Now on the first [day] of Azymos [the Feast of Unleavened Bread]”)
Matthew 28:1: Ὀψὲ δὲ σαββάτων, τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ εἰς μίαν σαββάτων (“After the Sabbath” , at the dawning on the first [day] of the week)
Mark 16:2: καὶ λίαν πρωῒ τῇ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων (“And very early [on] the first [day] of the week . . .”)
Mark 16:9: Ἀναστὰς δὲ πρωῒ πρώτῃ σαββάτου (“Now he having risen [on] the first [day] of the week . . .”) [The only case in which σάββατoν in the singular refers to a week, and a discrepancy in usage with v. 2, one indication that this part was added by a different author.]
Luke 13:32: . . . καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ τελειοῦμαι. (“And [on] the third [day] I finish.”)
Luke 24:1: τῇ δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων (“Now [on] the first [day] of the week . . .”)
John 20:1 Τῇ δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων (“Now [on] the first [day] of the week . . .”)
John 20:19: Oὕσης οὖν ὀψίας τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ τῇ μιᾷ σαββάτων . . . (“The evening of the same day [on] the first of the week . . .”)
Acts 27:19: καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ (“And the third [day] . . . “)
1 Corinthians 16:2: κατὰ μίαν σαββάτου [Byzantine text form reads σαββάτων] (“On the first of the week . . .”)
Clearly in speaking of Jesus’s Resurrection, telling the day of the week is the context! Σάββατoν (‘”The Sabbath”) appears here repeatedly in the genitive plural — this is common when referring to a “week.” The idiom, perhaps, was “The first day [of that period of days initiated by] the Sabbath.” Σάββατoν in the singular usually meant “The Sabbath” proper, and the form σαββάτων appears in the NT only 11 times, five of which are listed here, in reference to “the first day of the week.” Acts 20:17 makes a sixth. And this is not even to mention the hundred or so cases I could cite from the Septuagint!
As you may know, classical Greek had no concept of a “week.” The closest approximation was ἑβδομάς, the number seven, which in the context of time was assumed to refer to seven [days]. It’s interesting to me that even Mark and Luke, who I always was told were Gentiles when I was growing up, would reckon a week in reference to the σάββατον. You’ve been digging deeply into these people. Do you think they are Jews or Gentiles? Mark, upon a little study, appears to be a Jew. He was a cousin of Barnabas (Colossians 4:10), and his mother Mary was a Jew of Jerusalem (Acts 12:12). There is a very early tradition that Luke was one of the Seventy and also one of the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, but the Catholic Encyclopedia rejects this based on Colossians 4:14, in which Paul separates Luke from the list of “the only Jews who have helped me to preach God’s kingdom” (v. 11).
Now, the context: You are stretching awfully far and into some awfully awkward-looking positions to make “the first of Sabbaths” fit this context. Luke is narrating an itinerary. They sailed from Philippi and in five days came to Troas, where they stayed seven days. You certainly lose the sense of immediacy if you here suddenly shift to referring to a calendar date — especially a calendar date that would only make sense in a very limited case (“This scenario can be true without any contradiction **only** if the Passover began on a Sunday that year.”). The phrase in verse 6 is a perfectly straightforward piece of Greek which would otherwise leave no question about its meaning — it is only “troublesome” because you are making trouble for it where there is no trouble. Seven days is a week. Ἐν δὲ τῇ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων most certainly refers to the first of those days. It is the most natural reading of the Greek and the best reading to fit the context.
Now, there are other references in Scripture that indicate that the Apostles celebrated the Christian mysteries on the first day of the week, not the Sabbath. In 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul suggests that the Church take up a collection on “the first day of the week” because that’s when they would gathering. In Revelation 1:10, John states that he received his vision while in the Spirit “on the Lord’s Day” — which is what the early Church called Sunday, as made clear by the very earliest extrascriptural documents. It was called “the Lord’s Day” in celebration of Jesus’s Resurrection, and plainly this is the tradition received from the Apostles. I am sure you’ve noted in your study of Acts that Paul always went to the local synagogue to preach the Gospel of Christ to the Jews on the Sabbath — because that is when the Jews gathered there. But every clear reference to a gathering of Christians, to the celebration of the Christian mysteries (“the breaking of bread”) is on “the first day of the week.” It is apparent that the custom of the Jewish Christians was to attend the Sabbath synagogue services, and then after the sun went down, celebrate the Christian mysteries in someone’s home.
Now, to look the the earliest Christian documents beyond the Bible — as I’ve complained before, you Protestants so easily get tunnel-vision when you ignore Tradition. ;) These are valid and important historical evidences of the faith and practice of the Early Church:
“On the Lord’s own day, assemble in common to break bread and offer thanks, but first confess your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure.” Didache, 14 (Widely believed to be the earliest extrascriptural Christian document — dated by some as early as A.D. 70, by others as late as A.D. 90).
“If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death–whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master.” Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Magnesians, 9:1 (ca. A.D. 107).
“The seventh day, therefore, is proclaimed a rest–abstraction from ills–preparing for the Primal [First] Day, our true rest; which, in truth, is the first creation of light, in which all things are viewed and possessed. From this day the first wisdom and knowledge illuminate us. For the light of truth–a light true, casting no shadow, is the Spirit of God indivisibly divided to all, who are sanctified by faith, holding the place of a luminary, in order to the knowledge of real existences. By following Him, therefore, through our whole life, we become impossible; and this is to rest.” Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 6:16 (ca. A.D. 202).
“The Apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let there be service, and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and the oblation: because on the first day of the week our Lord rose from the lace of the dead and on the first day of the week He arose upon the world, and on the first day of the week He ascended up to heaven, and on the first day of the week He will appear at last with the angels of heaven.” Teaching of the Apostles, 2 (ca. A.D. 225).
I do believe these are a little bit earlier than Constantine. ;) And there is a lot more where they came from.