Featured Is Sunday sacredness in the Bible?

Well, many have been fooled by these 'traditions' or ideas of man so we have to keep our eyes on Christ and His Word. Lets look at these questions that people have raised up on whether Jesus or the Apostles changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday the first day of the week? Here is a good study on this in this excerpt from a book by Kenneth A. Strand, The Sabbath in Scripture and History. I cant find the original link but here is the relevant part..

"...The word Sunday is not found in the Bible. In the New Testament the first day of the week is mentioned eight times. In none of the eight instances is the first day said to be a day of worship, never is it said to be the Christian substitute for the Old Testament Sabbath, and never do the texts suggest that the first day of the week should be regarded as a memorial of Christ's resurrection. Let us briefly consider each of the eight New Testament passages that mention the first day of the week.

Matthew 28:1, "After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake. . . ." Jesus was crucified on Friday. He rested in the tomb over the Sabbath and rose early on Sunday morning. The verse indicates that the women disciples returned to the tomb at the very first opportunity after the death and burial of Jesus. Because the Sabbath came so soon after His burial, they could not approach the tomb again until after sundown on Sabbath evening. (The Sabbath began at sundown on the sixth day and ended at sundown on the seventh day; compare Lev. 23:32; Neh. 13:19; Mark 1:21, 32) Early Sunday morning was the most convenient time for them to visit the tomb.

Mark 16:1, 2, "When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb."Mark records the same events as Matthew with the additional information that the women visited the tomb early on the Sunday morning for the express purpose of anointing Jesus' body with spices.

Mark 16:9, "Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons."This verse simply records that, after His resurrection early on the Sunday morning, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene.

Luke 23:54 ­ 24:1, "It [the day of Jesus' death and burial] was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared." The Sabbath came a few hours after Jesus' death on the cross. The women disciples "rested the sabbath day according to the commandment" (Luke 23:56, KJV). Then very early in the morning of the first day they visited the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. The fact that they observed the Sabbath rest is sufficient indication that Jesus had never attempted to change the day or to suggest that after His death the first day would replace the Sabbath. Writing years after the event, Luke gave not the slightest hint that, even though the women disciples of Jesus observed the Sabbath, such a practice was no longer expected of Christians. He simply recorded that the Sabbath day "according to the commandment," which Jesus' followers were careful to observe, was the day after the crucifixion day (Friday), and before the resurrection day (Sunday).

John 20:1, "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb."Mary Magdalene visited the tomb early the first day of the week. Nothing is said of Sunday as a day of worship or rest.

John 20:19, "When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.'" On the evening of the first day of the week the disciples were assembled behind locked doors "for fear of the Jews." Jesus appeared to them at that time. The passage does not say that henceforth Sunday was to be the day for worship. Since it was the evening of the first day of the week that Jesus appeared to the disciples, it was after sundown. According to Jewish reckoning this was actually the beginning of the second day (Monday; compare Gen. 1:5, 8). A week later when Thomas happened to be present, Jesus met with the disciples again (verse 26). But, writing years later, John records nothing regarding Sunday as a day of Christian worship. John's narrative gives no warrant for regarding Sunday as a substitute for the Sabbath or as a day to be distinguished by Christians above any other day of the week. And there is no indication in the passage that Sunday should henceforth be observed as a memorial of Christ's resurrection.

Acts 20:7, "On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight."Since the meeting was held at night on the first day of the week, it may have been Saturday night. According to Jewish reckoning, the Sabbath ended and the first day of the week began at sundown of the seventh day. If it were Sunday evening, the event gives no suggestion that Sunday should be observed as a day of worship. The following verses record that Paul preached a sermon on Thursday. The next day after the meeting recorded in Acts 20:7 (Monday), Paul and his party set sail for Mitylene (Acts 20:13, 14). The following day (Tuesday) they arrived opposite Chios (verse 15). The next day (Wednesday) they passed Samos (verse 15), and the day after that (Thursday) they arrived at Miletus (verse 15). The elders of the church of Ephesus met Paul at Miletus, and he preached to them (Acts 20:16-36). Because a Christian service was held on Thursday, do we conclude that Thursday is a day for regular Christian worship replacing the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath? A religious service on Sunday, Thursday, or any other day certainly did not make that day a replacement for the seventh-day Sabbath or a day of regular Christian worship and rest. There is no special significance in the disciples breaking bread at this first-day meeting, for they broke bread "daily" (Acts 2:46). We are not told that it was a Lord's Supper celebration, nor are we told that henceforth Sunday should be the day for this service to be conducted. To read Sunday sacredness or Sunday observance into Acts 20:7 is to do violence to the text.

1 Corinthians 16:1, 2, "Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave the churches of Galatia. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come. And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem."These verses may be literally translated from the Greek as follows: "And concerning the collection for the saints, as I instructed the churches of Galatia, so also you do. On the first day of the week let each of you place (or 'lay') by himself, storing up whatever he might be prospered, so that when I come there might be no collections." (Italics supplied.) The phrase "by himself" (par' heauto), followed by the participle "storing up" or "saving" (thesaupizon), rules out the possibility that this is a reference to an offering taken up in a worship service. The Christian believer was to check his accounts on Sunday and put by at home the money that he wished to give to Paul for the support of the church. When Paul arrived, then the offerings of each individual would be collected...."

 

"...None of these eight New Testament references to the first day of the week (Sunday), provides any evidence that Jesus or His disciples changed the day of worship from the seventh to the first day. Nor is the first day of the week represented as a time to memorialize the resurrection of Christ. Whatever special significance was given to Sunday in the later history of the church, it had no basis in the teaching or practice of Jesus and His apostles.

As pointed out in the previous chapter, Jesus instructed His disciples to observe the Sabbath after His death (Matt. 24:20). Jesus' instruction was incorporated into His interpretation of Daniel 8 (compare Matthew 24:15 ff.). Daniel predicted that the work of the little horn power would continue until the setting up of God's kingdom (Dan. 8:25). Hence, Jesus' instruction to flee from the little horn power was not confined to Christians at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70). Toward the end of time, during the great tribulation of Matthew 24:21, of which earlier tribulations were a type or preview, God's people will be obliged to flee again. Jesus' instruction that we pray that our flight will not be on the Sabbath day emphasizes His will that we engage in only those activities on the Sabbath that are consistent with worship and spiritual rest.

The record of the book of Acts (chapters 13, 16, 18) establishes that the apostles consistently kept the Sabbath day as a time for worship and fellowship. This observance was not merely a means of meeting the Jews in the synagogue on their Sabbath day. In Philippi, Paul and his companions met for worship by the riverside. Luke says, "On the sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed [or "thought" or "assumed" : Greek nomizo] there was a place for prayer. . . ." (Acts 16:13). The apostles selected a place by the river that they thought would be appropriate for their Sabbath worship service, and there they prayed and witnessed for their Lord.

Jesus and the apostles kept the seventh-day Sabbath and instructed others to do likewise, so it wasn't changed by them....."

So how about Paul as many christians feel he supports the changing of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday:

"...In his writings, Paul consistently accepted the authority of the Ten Commandments as the standard of righteousness. "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law" (Rom. 3:31). Paul identified the law that faith upholds as the Ten Commandments. "What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'. . . So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. . . . For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin" (Rom. 7:7, 12, 14). Christ died "so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).

It is inconceivable that one who had such a confirmed respect for the Ten Commandment law of God should summarily reject one of the commandments as no longer valid for Christians. Raoul Dederen pertinently comments: "It is to be noted, however, that the attempt to connect the Sabbath of the Decalogue with the 'days' mentioned in this passage is not convincing for everyone.(3) Who could have a divine commandment before him and say to others: 'You can treat that commandment as you please; it really makes no difference whether you keep it or not'? No apostle could conduct such an argument. And probably no man would be more surprised at that interpretation than Paul himself, who had utmost respect for the Decalogue, God's law, which is 'holy, and just, and good' (chap. 7:12). Christ, the norm of all Pauline teaching, was indisputably a Sabbathkeeper. And Paul himself, who evidently cannot be reckoned among the 'weak,' worshiped on the Sabbath 'as was his custom' (Acts 17:2, R.S.V.; cf. Luke 4:16).

The Bible records no dispute between the Christians and the Jews concerning the observance of the Sabbath day. There was a dispute whether the Gentile converts to Christianity were to be circumcised or not. A dispute so great that a general church council was held to settle the matter.(Acts 15) The fact that there is absolutely no council held nor dispute concerning Sabbath observance proves that Christians kept the same day as the Jews did.

The Apostle Paul was accused by the Jews of teaching against the Law, but other than saying circumcision is no longer of the flesh but of the heart, he denied this allegation against him. Paul was arrested on this charge, notice his own defense before the governor Felix, Acts 24:13-14 -"Nor can they prove to you the charges of which they now accuse me. But this I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect (Christianity) I do serve the God of our fathers, BELIEVING EVERYTHING that is in ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW and that is written in the Prophets." Sabbath observance was Law.

Never in the Scriptures was Paul accused of teaching against Sabbath observance. The Sabbath is mentioned fifty-nine times in the New Testament alone, and always with respect, bearing the same title it had in the Old Testament, -"the Sabbath Day."

"There is no conclusive evidence to the contrary. Paul was in no doubt as to the validity of the weekly Sabbath. Thus, to assume that when they were converted to Christianity by Paul, Gentiles or Jews would be anxious to give up the 'Jewish' Sabbath for their 'own day' is hardly likely. This could be expected only at some later time in the history of the Christian church, and for other reasons."..."Kenneth A. Strand, The Sabbath in Scripture and History.

 

And yet we find this...

Acts 13:44
And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.

Acts 18:4
And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.

 

This study shows the origins at Rome...
"the church at Rome
The church at Rome, the most powerful church in the Roman Empire, played a major role in this matter. We find in it the social, religious and political conditions that permitted and encouraged the abandonment of Sabbath keeping and the adoption instead of Sunday worship.

Unlike most Eastern churches, the church at Rome consisted primarily of Gentile converts. This factor apparently contributed to this church's early differentiation from the Jews. We note as evidence, for instance, that in A.D. 64 Nero placed the charge of arson exclusively on Christians, thus recognising at that early date their distinction from the Jews.

The church at Rome adopted concrete measures to wean Christians away from Sabbath keeping and to encourage Sunday worship in its place. Justin Martyr said the observance of the Sabbath was a temporary Mosaic ordinance that God imposed exclusively on the Jews as "a mark to single them out for punishment they so well deserve for their infidelities."

This kind of negative reinterpretation of the Sabbath led Christians to transform their Sabbath observance. They turned the day that earlier believers had observed with feasting, joy and religious celebration into a day of fasting in which no eucharistic celebration or religious assemblies were permitted. This Saturday fast served not only to express sorrow for Christ's death, but also, as Pope Sylvester (pope from A.D. 314-335) emphatically stated, to show contempt for the Jews and their Sabbath feasting. The sadness and hunger resulting from the fast would enable Christians to avoid "appearing to observe the Sabbath with the Jews" and would encourage them to enter more eagerly and joyfully into the observance of Sunday.

Because the basic function of the Saturday fast was to discourage Sabbath keeping and to enhance Sunday worship, it seems likely that the Saturday fast and Sunday worship both originated contemporaneously and at the same place. There is no question that the church at Rome introduced the Saturday fast.

Moreover, since the church fathers frequently presented the weekly and the annual Saturday fasts and the weekly Sunday and Easter Sunday observances as interrelated in their meaning and function, presumably all these practices originated at the same time.

Late in the second century A.D., a dispute arose in the Christian church as to whether to celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection on the Jewish Passover (the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, which rotates through the days of the week) or on Sunday. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, who intervened as peacemaker in the controversy, mentions Bishop Sixtus, bishop of the church at Rome (about A.D. 116- 126), as the first bishop who did not follow the Passover date. That suggests the possibility that the feast began to be celebrated on Sunday in Rome at about that time.

While the exact date of the origin of Easter Sunday may be a subject of dispute, most scholars agree that the new custom was introduced in Rome to avoid "even the semblance of Judaism." Constantine, in his letter to the Christian bishops at the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) exemplifies the marked anti-Judaic motivation for the repudiation of the connection between Passover and Easter. He wrote, "We ought not therefore to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Saviour has shown us another way. . . . In unanimously adopting this mode [i.e., Easter Sunday], we desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews."

The same anti-Judaic motivations that caused the replacement of the Jewish Passover with Easter Sunday also accounts for the contemporaneous substitution of Sabbath keeping with Sunday worship. This argument is supported not only by the fact that the Jewish Sabbath shared the same anti-Judaic condemnation as the Jewish Passover, but also by the close connection between the observance of the annual Easter Saturday-Sunday (a fast followed by a day of joy) and that of its weekly counterpart (the Saturday fast followed by Sunday worship). The church fathers explicitly affirmed the basic unity between these annual and weekly observances, further suggesting a common origin in the church at Rome.

Another important consideration is that the bishop of Rome exercised "preeminent authority" among the Christian churches. He was the only one capable at that time of influencing the majority of Christians to adopt new religious observances.

So, it seems clear that Sunday observance in Christianity originated in Rome in the early part of the second century (about A.D. 135)."..From Saturday to Sunday

And even more .. "The influence of sun worship with its "Sun-day" provides the most plausible explanation. The cult of Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun, became "dominant in Rome and in other parts of the Empire from the early part of the second century A.D."30

We know that the Roman sun-cults influenced Christian thought and liturgy. The Church Fathers frequently rebuke Christians for venerating the sun.31 In early Christian art and literature, the sun is often used as a symbol to represent Christ.32 The orientation of early Christian churches was changed; instead of facing Jerusalem like synagogues, churches were orientated to the East.33 The dies natalis solis Invicti (the birthday of the Invincible Sun) was chosen as the Christian Christmas.

A second century change in the Roman calendar also suggests that Sun worship influenced the Christian adoption of Sunday as the new day of worship. The seven day week was first adopted by the Roman Empire in the first century A.D. At that time the days of the week were named after the planets (as they still are). Saturn's day (Saturday) was originally the first day of the week, followed by Sun's day. Under the influence of the Sun worship, however, a change occurred in the second century: The Sun's day (Sunday) was advanced from the position of second day of the week to that of first and most important day of the week.34 This required each of the other days to be advanced one day, and Saturn's day thereby became the seventh day of the week for the Romans, as it had been for the Jews and Christians.

The advancement of the day of the sun to the first and most important day of the week presumably influenced Roman Christians with a pagan background to adopt and adapt the Sun's day for their Christian worship. This would serve to emphasize to non-Christian Romans the Christian similarity to Roman practices and the dissimilarity to Jewish customs. All of this supports, if only indirectly, the suggestion that Sunday was chosen for Christian worship because it was the Sun's day.

A more direct indication is provided by the use of the sun as a symbol to justify the actual observance of Sunday. The motifs of light and of the sun are frequently invoked by the Church Fathers to develop a theological justification for Sunday worship. Gods creation of light on the first day and the resurrection of the Sun of Justice which occurred on the same day coincided with the day of the sun.

The day of the Sun, then, may well have been viewed by Christians familiar with its veneration, as a providential and valid substitution for the seventh day sabbath, since the substitution could well explain Biblical mysteries to the pagan mind by means of effective and familiar symbols.

Both anti-Judaism and Sun-worship contributed to the change from Sabbath to Sunday. Anti-Judaism led many Christians to abandon the observance of the Sabbath to differentiate themselves from the Jews at a time when Judaism in general and Sabbathkeeping in particular were outlawed in the Roman empire. Sun-worship influenced the adoption of the observance of Sunday to facilitate the Christian identification and integration with the customs and cycles of the Roman empire.

The change from Sabbath to Sunday was not simply one of names or numbers, but of authority, meaning and experience. It was a change from a holy day divinely established to enable us to experience more freely and more fully the awareness of divine presence and peace in our lives, into holiday which has become an occasion to seek for personal pleasure and profit. This historical change has greatly affected the quality of Christian life of countless Christians who throughout the centuries have been deprived of the physical, moral and spiritual renewal the Sabbath is designed to provide.'...in this study by Samuele Bacchiocchi 'From Saturday to Sunday'.

 

Yes, He set an example and sanctified the day on the gift He made for man..