Who decided that the Christians and the Christian Church should gather to worship on Sunday? Was it God that decided that or was it men?
Who decided to call Sunday “the Lord’s Day”? God, or men?
To what authority are we as Christians submitting? Is it to the Holy Scriptures, or to worldly ideologies?
Whose standard of truth is being followed by Christians? Is it God’s standard, or this world’s standard?
I ask these questions in order to really get to the truth regarding the claims made by Main Stream Christianity regarding Sunday and why Christians gather together to worship on Sunday.
My goal in this blog post [video] is to make the case and show how the Holy Scriptures do not support many of the major truth claims made by mainstream Christian theology regarding the doctrine of Sunday.
Truth Claims Made By Mainstream Christians and Mainstream Christianity about Sunday
For many years, Mainstream Christian theologians have made the following truth claims about Sunday and gathering together to worship on Sunday:
That Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2, are the proof texts which support the truth claim, argument, and theological position that the Church of God in the New Testament began using Sunday (the first day of the week) as their customary day for rest and coming together for weekly worship
That Revelation 1:10, is the proof text which supports the truth claim, argument, and theological position that the Apostle John is identifying and referring to Sunday as "the Lord's Day".
That Sunday is "the new Sabbath day" or the "Christian Sabbath".
That Sunday is the New Testament equivalent of the LORD's Seventh-Day Sabbath
That because the first Christians were Jewish Christians, they changed the day of worship from the Sabbath to the first day and called it "the Lord's Day".
That 1st Century Jewish believers gave up their Sabbath day of worship to join with Gentiles to worship on Sunday
Since Jesus Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday (Mark 16: 9, John 20:1), and since the Holy Spirit was also given on a Sunday, this was God’s way of telling Christians to dedicate Sunday (the first day) as the day to gather together weekly in order to commemorate these two major events.
Are any of these claims true?
In order for us to find the answer, we will need to carefully examine and exegete the Bible verses used by Mainstream Christian theology in order to "read out of' the text what the original author or authors meant to convey. My goal here is to refute these claims and help bring context and clarity to this controversial topic.
Does the New Testament report that the Church of God gathered to worship on Sunday?
Acts 20:7
In the book of Acts, we see some of the doctrines and practices of the Church documented. In Acts 20:7, this is the first and only mention of the first day in this book. The verse says the following (NASB):
“On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.”
The first thing we notice in this verse is that Paul and the disciples “came together to break bread”. In other words, they all came together to eat a meal. There is no mention or hint within this verse or later verses within this chapter that indicate or imply that they all came together to worship or “to break bread” for the eating of the Lord’s Supper. All we see in this instance is that they came together on the first day, they had a meal, and then Paul talked with the disciples for what would seem like all day and all night, until the morning of the next day (Acts 20:7-12).
Based on this information, we can’t assume that this was an established practice of gathering every week on Sundays to worship.
However, we can conclude that this verse does not provide any evidence to support the claim that the Scriptures report that the New Testament church established or practiced gathering together to worship on the first day of the week or on a Sunday weekly basis.
1 Corinthians 16:2
Now let’s examine 1 Corinthians 16:1-4 which says the following (NASB):
“Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you are to do as well. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save as he may prosper, so that no collections need to be made when I come. When I arrive, whomever you approve, I will send them with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem; and if it is appropriate for me to go also, they will go with me.”
The instruction Paul gave was for individual believers (v.2 - “each of you") to put aside savings every week for this special offering so that when he arrived it would be available. Notice that these verses say nothing about gathering for a weekly worship service to do this collection. This command given by Paul is no endorsement or establishment at all for gathering together for Sunday worship.
So as with Acts 20:7, we can confidently conclude that this verse does not provide any evidence to support the claim that the Scriptures report that the New Testament church established or practiced gathering together to worship on the first day of the week or on a Sunday weekly basis.
Do the Scriptures Report that Sunday is “The Lord’s Day”?
Revelation 1:10
Is the reference to “the Lord’s Day” in Revelation 1:10 speaking of Sunday (the first day of the week), and does this verse refer to worshiping on the first day of the week for that matter?
In Revelation 1:9-11, the Apostle John wrote the following:
“I, John, your brother and fellow participant in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, saying, “Write on a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”
This is the only place in the entire Scriptures where the phrase “the Lord’s day” is mentioned when the Apostle John was shown his vision of the end-times by the Lord Jesus. Supposedly this event occurred on a Sunday, the first day of the week.
At the beginning of this article, I asked the question, “To what authority are we submitting? The Holy Scriptures, or worldly ideologies?
I ask this question because we must read the Holy Scriptures for what it says rather than what our presuppositions impose. If you have read the Holy Scriptures, then you know that nowhere in the New Testament is Sunday, or the first day ever declared to be the Lord’s Day, not even in Revelation 1:10.
So then, what is the Apostle John referring to by using the phrase “the Lord’s day”?
Well, based on the content John wrote about within the book of Revelation, it can be safely concluded that John is using the phrase “the Lord’s day” as an all-encompassing term to describe other prophetic words and expressions used in Scripture that speaks of future periods of time such as:
“The Day of Christ”, “the Day of the Lord Jesus”, and "The day of Jesus Christ” as mentioned by Paul in Philippians 1:6,10 and 1 Corinthians 1:8.
The phrase “the Day of the Lord” is referred to many times in the OT (Joel 2.11; Zeph. 1.14; Mal. 4.5 etc.)
Also, “the day of the Lord” and “the Day of God” as mentioned in 2 Peter 3:10-12.
Therefore, the reference to “the Lord’s Day” in Revelation 1:10 isn’t speaking about Sunday, but to all of the Prophetic End-Time time events mentioned throughout Scripture that deal with the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, which John was seeing in his vision.
So, when it comes to answering the questions:
Do the Scriptures Report that the New Testament church gathered to worship on Sunday?
and
Do the Scriptures Report that Sunday is “The Lord’s Day”?
The answer is a resounding, ‘No’.
Therefore, what we can safely conclude is that worldly ideologies of men have been superimposed onto, and read into the text of Scripture, specifically with Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; and Rev. 1:10.
These verses have been misinterpreted through the practice of Eisegesis, which is defined by Merriam-Webster's dictionary as "the interpretation of a text (as of the Bible) by reading into it one's own ideas”.
Conclusion
To conclude, it is true, that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday (Mark 16: 9, John 20:1). However, something that Mainstream Christian theology ignores and/or fails to mention is the fact that this very important event didn’t occur on just any ordinary Sunday. This particular Sunday that Jesus was resurrected on, just so happened to be on one of God’s Annual Holy Days within the Feasts of LORD, known in Scripture as the Feast of Firstfruits.
Secondly, it is true that the Holy Spirit was given on a Sunday. Here again, though, Mainstream Christian theology ignores and fails to mention the fact that this very important event didn’t occur on just any ordinary Sunday. The New Testament clearly reveals that this very important event occurred during one of God’s Annual Holy Day Feasts known in Scripture as the day of Pentecost.
Thirdly, it is true that at some point in time, Christians decided to dedicate Sunday (the first day) as the day to gather together weekly in order to commemorate Christ Jesus' Resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit. Christians also decided to begin calling Sunday “the Lord’s day”; but as I just described in the sections above, these two things did not occur within the pages of the New Testament.
Therefore this refutes the claims that the first Christians, who were Jewish Christians, changed the day of worship from the Sabbath to the first day and called it "the Lord's Day" and the claim that the 1st Century Jewish believers gave up their Sabbath day of worship (the Seventh-Day Sabbath) to join with Gentiles to worship on Sunday.
There is also no type of evidence in the entire New Testament that supports those two claims nor the claim that the Body of Christ mentioned in the New Testament believed or thought that God endorsed, inspired, taught, or commanded Christians to dedicate Sunday (the first day) as the day to gather together weekly to commemorate the two events mentioned above or to begin calling Sunday “the Lord’s day”.
Lastly, it is also true that in the New Covenant, there is no specific day commanded to be kept as a Sabbath for Christians (Jew or Gentile) nor was there a specific day given in the New Covenant as a day to come together to worship. Christians are only told that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together (Hebrews 10:25). Therefore, there is nothing wrong with going to church on Sunday or any other day.
There's also nothing wrong with celebrating the resurrection of Christ Jesus and the giving of the Holy Spirit on Sundays either. However, it is wrong to teach and proclaim that there is evidence for this practice in the New Testament when there clearly isn’t.
These false claims cause confusion to non-believing Jews and Gentiles who may be wanting to know the truth about Jesus, as well as to professing Christians due to the fact that the Resurrection of Jesus and the giving of the Holy Spirit took place during God’s Spring Feast days of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Firstfruits and Pentecost according to Scripture.
If Mainstream Christianity actually gave the biblical interpretation of the verses mentioned and gave the true narrative about these matters completely, or even decided to celebrate these events each year during the time they actually happened, this would certainly eliminate the confusion and produce more clarity within the Christian church.
If Christians decide to go to church on Sunday, then that’s fine, because according to the principle mentioned in Romans 14:5-6, Christians have liberty before the LORD to use Sunday or any day as a weekly day to come together and worship Him.
However, it is not okay nor permissible to superimpose the ideologies and traditions of men on Scripture and then teach those ideologies and traditions as though they are commandments, customs, and teachings established and instituted in Scripture by God.
Doing this is a clear violation of what we see in John 4:23-24, when Jesus said, “But a time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
“Eisegesis.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eisegesis. Accessed 20 Jan. 2021.
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