SUNDAYS – 8/24/20
Most people think of Monday as the first day of the week but it is actually the second. Sunday is the first day of the week and Monday is only the first day of the “work week”. Saturday is the Sabbath of the Bible and is celebrated by most Jews and some Churches. Most who don’t like their work usually despise Mondays because there are many days left before the weekend and time off.
The early Church decided to meet for worship on the first day of the week rather than Saturday because Sunday is the “Lord’s Day”—the day Jesus was resurrected. So for almost 2000 years the Church has celebrated the resurrection once a week on the “Lord’s Day”—Sunday.
John 20:1, “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.” John 20:19, “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Rev. 1:10-11, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last…”. I Cor. 16:2, “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income.” 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.”
Didache (an early church writing) 14:1, “But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving” Somewhere in the Second Century many referred to Sunday as the “Eighth Day”, because it was the day the Resurrection happened and the New Creation began. The New Creation was when Jesus, who had an earthly body made of dust and dirt, took on an indestructible, heavenly body.
Early Church Father, Justin Martyr, (wrote about 150 A.D.) wrote,
“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings.”
The Jewish day was from sunup to sundown, so often the early Church met on Saturday nights after sundown, which was the beginning of the first day of the week. At first, Sunday did not replace the Jewish Sabbath as a day of rest. It was only transferred as the “Christian Sabbath” in 321 A.D. when the Emperor Constantine declared Sunday to be the day of rest throughout the Roman Empire.
It was Puritan England that applied the rules of the Jewish Sabbath to Sundays and enforced the “blue laws” in the sixteen hundreds. Because of England’s influence on America, those same practices have shaped American Christianity. People 50 or older remember the “blue laws”. The Puritans were like the New Testament Jews in enforcing the Sabbath rules on the New Sabbath, Sunday. Remember, it was the Jewish idea of the Sabbath rules that they accused Jesus of breaking and their excuse for having Him murdered.
It was the Puritans who refused to let their children play on Sunday and the Puritans who refused to celebrate Christmas. Play and celebration were not a part of their lives.
Today, most Americans have lost the sense of a day set apart for the Lord but for Christians that day is Sunday, but not as a miserable day where children cannot do anything, but as a day of worship and celebration. The Lord’s Day is the first day (and the eighth) because we must celebrate His Resurrection and the New Creation of God’s Kingdom.
Jim
