Lie — Sunday is the Christian Sabbath

Acts 20:7

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 morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.

This one scripture is continually referred to as proof that Sunday is the Christian sabbath. But even a brief look at it in context shows this is clearly not the case.

The expression to break bread means literally that. Just as we today break the fast at breakfast time, people would use that expression to indicate a time of eating, in this case supper at the end of the day. There is no justification of thinking that it has anything to do with what is now referred to as a Communion ceremony.

As for being Sunday, this takes place after sunset on what we would still call Saturday. Paul is planning on leaving first thing in the morning.

Notice what happens in verse 11: When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.. Paul ate supper, spent the whole night talking, and left in the morning.

A better summary of the event might be something like: Saturday evening, after the sabbath was over, Paul and the disciples met for dinner. He preached to them until midnight and then they talked the whole night away before continuing their journey the next morning..

This is not anything remotely like a religious ceremony, certainly not one that happens every week.

The Old Testament

Genesis 1:5 defines what a day is: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.. Each day begins at sunset and continues until the following sunset.

Genesis 2:3 says that God designated one day as different from the other six: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it .... This was long before any Jews existed. The Sabbath day was given to all mankind.

The Ten Commandments specifically refer to this day in Exodus 20:8-11: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ... the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.. This commandment is repeated in Deuteronomy 5:14: ... the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God ....

Exodus 31:15 says ... the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD .... The sabbath is holy to God himself, not simply to mankind or to the people of a nation or religion.

The sabbath day is not simply a rule we must follow, it is a sacred thing in and of itself. Nehemiah 13:17 says that our actions can make it profane: ... What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the sabbath day?.

The New Testament

In Mark 2:27-28 Jesus tells us that The sabbath was made for man ...: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath..

Many times the Gospels record that Jesus and his disciples would go to the synagogue (church building) on the sabbath. Following the Crucifixion, the Apostles continued frequenting synagogues on the sabbath, as in Acts 13:14: ... they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down..

Consider the following actions of Paul:

Acts 13:42-44

And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath. ... And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.

Acts 17:2

And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures

Acts 18:4

And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.

Notice that Paul's weekly visit to a synagogue was as his manner was, doing it every sabbath.

And more significantly, notice that Paul's weekly teachings were delivered to both Jews and Gentiles. Even the Gentiles knew that they had to wait until the next sabbath.

Paul had just talked to the Jews on the sabbath, so when the Gentiles asked him to speak to them, it would have been the perfect opportunity for him to say something like Good timing. Tomorrow is Sunday, and that's the day that Gentile Christians meet at the church., but he didn't. Neither Paul nor the Gentiles ever considered Sunday to be an appropriate day for this activity.

The Roman Church

James Cardinal Gibbons, in Faith of our Fathers, stated: 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 sanctify.

The 3 October 1947 issue of The Catholic Virginian contained an article, To Tell You The Truth stating that Nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday..

The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, 1957, contains questions and answers that must be memorized by the faithful:

Q: Which is the Sabbath day?

A: Saturday is the Sabbath day.

Q: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

A: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea, transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.

The Roman Church freely acknowledges that moving the sabbath from Saturday to Sunday was strictly of their own devising, having no Biblical foundation whatsoever. The Roman Church believes that the Pope is a higher authority than the Bible, so this is a perfectly reasonable and self-consistent belief for them to hold. In fact, they make use of this fact to demonstrate that the many Protestant churches that broke away from Rome still respect its teaching.

The Protestant Church

Most non-Catholic Christian churches claim to adhere to the principle of Sola scriptura, the doctrine that the scriptures alone are the source of faith and practice.

As pointed out by the Roman Church though, this principle seems to be disregarded when it comes to which day is the christian sabbath. Many churches try to justify it by claiming that Jesus changed the day, that his being resurrected on Sunday made that day special, but such arguments are nothing but weak rationalizations to avoid admitting the truth.

The Christian Church

A Christian, who accepts the authority of the Bible and rejects the authority of Roman Popes and Councils, has no choice but to respect the seventh day of the week as the sabbath; not just as the Christian sabbath but as God's sabbath.

It is the day itself that was created intrinsically special; it is not special because of the way people treat it.