by Harry BuererIt comes as a surprise to many, but there is not even a hint in the New Testament of Sunday being a special day, let alone a replacement for God’s chosen Sabbath. Certainly the first day of the week is mentioned a few times, but every time, without exception, the significance of the mention is that it is not the Sabbath.
The first day is mentioned in the gospels in connection with the resurrection narrative. I can’t prove it, but it seems very likely to me that the reason God waited until after the Sabbath to raise Jesus is that he didn’t think it was appropriate to do on the Sabbath. It did represent his day of rest, after all.
But aside from the resurrection accounts, there are only two mentions of the first day in the New Testament, one in Acts 20:7 and the other in I Cor. 16:2. Neither one involves a gathering for worship.
In the Acts 20 passage we see Paul arriving to join his companions at Troas. Paul was in a hurry to continue on to Jerusalem for the feast of Shavuot (Pentecost), as all Jewish men were commanded in Deuteronomy 16:16 to go to Jerusalem three times a year. He wouldn’t be leaving on the Sabbath, so he planned to set sail the day after the Sabbath, what we would think of as Sunday.
Acts 20:7 says, “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.” Our first reaction, given our culture, is often that this was a Sunday morning communion service. But we need to remember a couple of things. First, the Jews reckoned a day as being from sunset to the next sunset, consistent with the Genesis account of creation, where “the evening and the morning” were the first day. This gathering in Acts 20 occurs fairly late in the evening, since Paul continues talking until midnight. It seems obvious that this is a late Saturday evening gathering.
The second thing we need to be aware of is that preparation of cooked food was forbidden on the Sabbath. In order to have a banquet for Paul’s going-away, they needed to wait until after the Sabbath to prepare the food. Since this was in early spring, just after the feast of unleavened bread, sunset would bave occurred about six o’clock. Then, with an hour or two to cook the food, they could have gathered about eight or nine in the evening.
We also need to be aware that the phrase “break bread” is an idiom for having a meal together. It is used several times in the gospels and Acts. Nowhere does it clearly mean taking communion, and in some places it can’t possibly mean that. It’s more natural to take this event as a pot-luck supper on Saturday evening to celebrate Paul’s departure.
The passage does say that Paul talked until midnight, which might make us think of a long sermon, especially since somebody fell asleep and fell from a window. But the primary Greek word for Paul talking is the word from which we get the word “dialogue”. It’s likely that Paul was not giving a speech, but just conversing with other people there.
To repeat, the reason this gathering was held on the “first day of the week” was because hot food was not to be prepared on the Sabbath, so another day had to be chosen.
The other mention of the first day is in I Cor. 16:2 and the circumstance is similar. It was the understanding of Jews that money was not to be handled on the Sabbath. So Paul instructs his readers to put aside money weekly, i.e. on the first day of the week, so it will be ready when he comes.
This is not an offering in a meeting, but a setting aside of money at home on a regular basis, perhaps on payday. Paul is encouraging people to make a voluntary contribution toward the needy in Jerusalem.
There is one more passage that bears mentioning. In Revelation 1:10 the author writes, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” It’s true that Sunday began to be called “the Lord’s day”, but that was considerably later than this time. Since the subject of the book of Revelation is the events of the time the prophets called the “day of the Lord”, it seems best to take the statement as John saying that he was spiritually transported to a future day of judgment.
Those who try to use these passages to support a practice of revering Sunday as a special, divinely-favored day are doing it without any biblical warrant whatsoever. God designated the seventh day as the Sabbath at the time of creation, and reiterated it at the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Jesus and the apostles kept the seventh-day Sabbath, and as his followers, we are expected to do so as well. Even the writer to the Hebrews reminds us of this when he writes, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God.” (Heb.4:9)