Growing up in a Sabbathkeeping church, naturally I heard many sermons about why the Sabbath is to be observed by Christians.
To me, one of the arguments that boosted my confidence in the rightness of our practice was that the apostles observed the Sabbath.
Luke, who penned the book of Acts, records several occasions when the apostles frequented the synagogues on the Sabbath day — after Jesus ascended into heaven.
If the Old Covenant people of God, Israel, kept the Sabbath; and if Jesus, our perfect example, kept the Sabbath; and if the New Covenant people of God, the Church, kept the Sabbath, then who are we to say the Sabbath is not a Christian obligation?
Facts from Acts
It's true that the Acts of the Apostles records instances of Sabbath observance.
In fact, the Bibles in my childhood home were well marked, notably in the book of Acts, where every mention of the Sabbath was meticulously underlined and colored in red pencil. One could flip through the pages and say, “Of course the apostolic Church kept the Sabbath! Look at all the red!”
All references to the Sabbath in this Bible are marked in red — like a stop sign, to signify the Sabbath rest. If people would just read the red, then wouldn't they have to believe that the early New Testament Church kept the Sabbath — and admit it should be observed today?
I thought it was an air-tight argument. If anyone disagreed with the Christian obligation of Saturday Sabbath observance, then they just didn't believe the Bible. They weren't yet “called” to understand this truth, which we associated with “the Truth.”
My understanding of Sabbath observance, however, changed after a more careful, open-minded reading of the Bible.
Yes, the Acts of the Apostles gives authoritative witness to Saturday Sabbath observance at the very beginning of the Church, but let's notice what many overlook.
For your convenience, the passages under discussion are listed below.
The “Sabbath verses”
🛑 Acts 13:13-14:
Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.
🛑 Acts 13:42,44:
As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. ...The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.
🛑 Acts 15:21:
For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.
🛑 Acts 16:13:
And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.
🛑 Acts 17:1-3:
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
🛑 Acts 18:4:
And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.
Leading questions
A well-versed Sabbathkeeping Christian trying to persuade an average Sundaykeeping churchgoer can dominate him with these passages, accompanied by leading questions that are commonly asked:
- On which day did Paul and his companions come to the synagogue?
- On which day did the people want them to return? And who was it that came back the next Sabbath — only the Jews? Or was it “the whole city,” including Gentiles? Why didn't Paul say, “Hey, Gentiles, no need to wait a whole week. Just come back tomorrow — on Sunday, the Lord's Day”?
- In every city, on which day each week was the Law read?
- On which day did Paul go to the riverside looking for a place of prayer?
- On which day was it Paul's custom to reason from the Scriptures?
The obviously true answer to these question is: the Sabbath, or Saturday.
But that doesn't prove what our interlocutor thinks it proves.
Nevertheless, such an encounter can frustrate a person of simple faith, leaving him short of a good explanation. Most are not prepared to counter such non-traditional views.
This is not unlike the average Christian who might feel overwhelmed or tongue-tied by an articulate Jehovah's Witness citing Bible verses in a well-rehearsed presentation “proving” Jesus is not God.
The response
When faced with the claim that New Testament examples of Sabbathkeeping mean we, too, should be keeping Sabbath, remember these two hot-knife facts that cut through the soft butter of that argument:
🔪 #1: There is not one example in all the Bible of any established Christian church meeting together in observance of the Sabbath.
🔪 #2: Without exception, every time Sabbath meetings are mentioned in the book of Acts, it is in the context of evangelization — preaching the gospel of Jesus to the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles who associated with them.
I can't emphasize Fact 1 enough. It's a shocker to Christian Sabbathkeepers. They usually can't get beyond it, because they refuse to believe it. “What about all those red verses in Acts?” they might ask.
Fact 2 answers their question. While it's easy to understand intellectually, it's very hard to accept psychologically for the one who has defended Sabbathkeeping for years.
Go back and review the scriptures cited above. I trust you to dig deeper and see the truth for yourself in context:
Paul and his companions went on missionary journeys to preach the gospel, going first to the Jews. Where better to start spreading the gospel at that time than the synagogues — to explain how Jesus was Israel's Messiah, how he was the fulfillment of their entire religion?
And what better day than the Sabbath, when the synagogues were full of people (Jews and God-fearing Gentiles) who wanted to hear the Scriptures — those who deserved to understand them in light of the resurrected Christ?
They were following the precedent Jesus set in his instructions to the apostles when he first commissioned them to preach:
These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Matthew 10:5-7)
In his epistles, St. Paul emphasizes the importance of reaching the Jews with the gospel. Naturally they would be first, and then the gospel would advance to the rest of the world. It's how the early Church began.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16)
This is consistent with how even Jesus chose to reveal himself:
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.... (John 1:11-12)
“Another day”
When I came to understand these simple facts that I had overlooked for years — namely, that the Jews were evangelized by the first Christians at the synagogues on the Sabbath day, and that there is no biblical example of established Christian churches meeting together for the Sabbath — I was surprised.
But soon I was surprised again. I was surprised by Sunday.
Here, I share What I Didn't Know About Sunday.
The COG Catholic currently blogs at www.cogcatholic.org.
