What does the book of Acts reveal about the Sabbath Day?
The book of Acts repeatedly records that the followers of Christ, after Calvary, worshiped publicly on Sabbath even in Gentile lands (see Acts 13:5, 14, 42; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4; 19:8, etc. - at the end of this article), while it mentions the first day of the week only once.
“Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight” (Acts 20:7). Many believe that because this verse talks about “breaking bread,” it is referring to a worship service and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper on the new Christian Sabbath, Sunday, the Lord’s Day.
Is this true?
First, of the fifteen times that the phrase to break bread appears in the New Testament (in various verbal conjugations), refers to the Lord’s Supper only twice. The majority of references deal merely with eating. Acts 2:46, for example, talks about the followers of Christ “continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart” (emphasis supplied). Breaking bread” here doesn’t mean the Lord’s Supper; it simply means eating meals.
Also, Acts 20 suggests that Paul is breaking bread alone:
"When he had come up, had broken bread and eaten . . . he departed” (verse 11). The verbs are singular, so Paul is obviously not participating in a communion service, and nothing in the whole section ever mentions wine.
But the text does indicate a Sunday worship service in the early Christian church, doesn’t it?
If Luke used the Jewish (sundown to sundown) reckoning of days, this evening assembly on the first day of the week would actually have been on Saturday night (Paul talked “even till daybreak” [verse 111). The New English Bible even translates the) phrase as “Saturday night” (verse 7).
Even if Paul used Roman (midnight to midnight) reckoning, so that this meeting took place on Sunday night, it hardly sounds like a weekly worship service. The context suggests that this was a special all-night meeting because Paul was to depart in the morning. As historian Augustus Neander wrote, “the impending departure of the apostle, may have united the little Church in a brotherly parting-meal, on the occasion of which the apostle delivered his last address, although there was no particular celebration of a Sunday in the case.”
And finally, nothing in this verse even hints that the first day has either replaced or superseded Sabbath.
In all the rest of the New Testament, the first day of the week appears only once, when Paul wrote to the Corinthians about a relief offering for poor church members in Jerusalem and Judea. “On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come” (1 Corinthians 16:2). Does this verse prove Sunday sacredness?
As with every other New Testament reference to the first day, this verse says nothing about the first day being sacred or holy. It isn’t talking about a public worship service in which offerings are brought. It isn’t even talking about worship. Rather, Paul admonishes each believer to “lay something aside, storing [it] up,” probably in their own homes.
As F. W. Grosheide comments: “Paul trusts the Corinthians: he does not ask them to hand in their collection on a weekly basis, they are allowed to keep the collected money and thus little by [little a significant amount will be saved up.” Much speculation has gone into why Paul specified the first day of the week as the time for figuring and setting aside one’s offering. Some have suggested that the first day of the week was pay day, or perhaps they were to reckon this offering as the secular week began before the demands of secular life could absorb the week’s earnings.” Whatever the reason, the verse says nothing about Sunday being a sacred day of worship.
But what about Revelation 1:10, where John wrote, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day”’? Doesn’t that prove Sunday worship in the early church
How could it? No New Testament reference to the first day ever gives Sunday a sacred character or ever calls it the Lord’s day.
Just because Sunday has been called the Lord’s Day for years doesn’t make it the Lord’s Day, any more than the fact that people believed for centuries that the earth was the center of the universe makes it so.
We shouldn’t read back into this phrase the meaning of Sunday. Instead, we should use the Bible to read into the phrase its biblical meaning, and nothing in Scripture ever calls the first day of the week the Lord’s Day.
Another point—John’s Gospel is usually dated later than Revelation. Why would John in his Gospel call Sunday merely the first day of the week,” if, in an earlier book, Revelation, he had already referred to it as the Lord’s Day?
Scripture actually points to the seventh-day Sabbath as “the Lord’s Day.” In the Ten Commandments the seventh day is called “ ‘the Sabbath of the Lord your God’” (Exodus 20:10, emphasis supplied). In Isaiah, the Lord calls it” ‘My holy day’” Isaiah 58:13). In three Gospels, Jesus calls Himself “ ‘Lord even of the Sabbath’ “(see Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5). Jesus is, therefore, the Lord of the Sabbath day. It is His, the Lord Jesus’, day.
Or simply, the Lord’s Day.
Now let the following scriptures that clearly and undisputedly reveal the habit, practice and lifestyle of Paul and the early church concerning what day they had church;
Acts 13:14
But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.
Acts 13:37
For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.
Acts 13:42
And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.
Acts 13:44
And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.
Acts 14:1
And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.
Acts 15:21
For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
Acts 16:13
And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
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 17:17
Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
Acts 18:4
And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.
Acts 19:18
And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
The book of Acts repeatedly records that the followers of Christ, after Calvary, worshiped publicly on Sabbath even in Gentile lands (see Acts 13:5, 14, 42; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4; 19:8, etc. - at the end of this article), while it mentions the first day of the week only once.
“Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight” (Acts 20:7). Many believe that because this verse talks about “breaking bread,” it is referring to a worship service and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper on the new Christian Sabbath, Sunday, the Lord’s Day.
Is this true?
First, of the fifteen times that the phrase to break bread appears in the New Testament (in various verbal conjugations), refers to the Lord’s Supper only twice. The majority of references deal merely with eating. Acts 2:46, for example, talks about the followers of Christ “continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart” (emphasis supplied). Breaking bread” here doesn’t mean the Lord’s Supper; it simply means eating meals.
Also, Acts 20 suggests that Paul is breaking bread alone:
"When he had come up, had broken bread and eaten . . . he departed” (verse 11). The verbs are singular, so Paul is obviously not participating in a communion service, and nothing in the whole section ever mentions wine.
But the text does indicate a Sunday worship service in the early Christian church, doesn’t it?
If Luke used the Jewish (sundown to sundown) reckoning of days, this evening assembly on the first day of the week would actually have been on Saturday night (Paul talked “even till daybreak” [verse 111). The New English Bible even translates the) phrase as “Saturday night” (verse 7).
Even if Paul used Roman (midnight to midnight) reckoning, so that this meeting took place on Sunday night, it hardly sounds like a weekly worship service. The context suggests that this was a special all-night meeting because Paul was to depart in the morning. As historian Augustus Neander wrote, “the impending departure of the apostle, may have united the little Church in a brotherly parting-meal, on the occasion of which the apostle delivered his last address, although there was no particular celebration of a Sunday in the case.”
And finally, nothing in this verse even hints that the first day has either replaced or superseded Sabbath.
In all the rest of the New Testament, the first day of the week appears only once, when Paul wrote to the Corinthians about a relief offering for poor church members in Jerusalem and Judea. “On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come” (1 Corinthians 16:2). Does this verse prove Sunday sacredness?
As with every other New Testament reference to the first day, this verse says nothing about the first day being sacred or holy. It isn’t talking about a public worship service in which offerings are brought. It isn’t even talking about worship. Rather, Paul admonishes each believer to “lay something aside, storing [it] up,” probably in their own homes.
As F. W. Grosheide comments: “Paul trusts the Corinthians: he does not ask them to hand in their collection on a weekly basis, they are allowed to keep the collected money and thus little by [little a significant amount will be saved up.” Much speculation has gone into why Paul specified the first day of the week as the time for figuring and setting aside one’s offering. Some have suggested that the first day of the week was pay day, or perhaps they were to reckon this offering as the secular week began before the demands of secular life could absorb the week’s earnings.” Whatever the reason, the verse says nothing about Sunday being a sacred day of worship.
But what about Revelation 1:10, where John wrote, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day”’? Doesn’t that prove Sunday worship in the early church
How could it? No New Testament reference to the first day ever gives Sunday a sacred character or ever calls it the Lord’s day.
Just because Sunday has been called the Lord’s Day for years doesn’t make it the Lord’s Day, any more than the fact that people believed for centuries that the earth was the center of the universe makes it so.
We shouldn’t read back into this phrase the meaning of Sunday. Instead, we should use the Bible to read into the phrase its biblical meaning, and nothing in Scripture ever calls the first day of the week the Lord’s Day.
Another point—John’s Gospel is usually dated later than Revelation. Why would John in his Gospel call Sunday merely the first day of the week,” if, in an earlier book, Revelation, he had already referred to it as the Lord’s Day?
Scripture actually points to the seventh-day Sabbath as “the Lord’s Day.” In the Ten Commandments the seventh day is called “ ‘the Sabbath of the Lord your God’” (Exodus 20:10, emphasis supplied). In Isaiah, the Lord calls it” ‘My holy day’” Isaiah 58:13). In three Gospels, Jesus calls Himself “ ‘Lord even of the Sabbath’ “(see Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5). Jesus is, therefore, the Lord of the Sabbath day. It is His, the Lord Jesus’, day.
Or simply, the Lord’s Day.
Now let the following scriptures that clearly and undisputedly reveal the habit, practice and lifestyle of Paul and the early church concerning what day they had church;
Acts 13:14
But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.
Acts 13:37
For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.
Acts 13:42
And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.
Acts 13:44
And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.
Acts 14:1
And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.
Acts 15:21
For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
Acts 16:13
And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
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 17:17
Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
Acts 18:4
And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.
Acts 19:18
And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
