What Day is the Sabbath? Do we still need to keep it?

Theology
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Leviticus 23

3 “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places.

So according to the bible the seventh day is the Sabbath. In the western calendar the seventh day is Sunday. If you’re in Israel obviously it’s Saturday.

And Paul speaking to the helenized world offered this:

Colossians 2

16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

So I don’t think we need to worry about Saturday or Sunday, because both are the seventh day and is a day of rest.

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@astandardchristian
This is the first time I have heard anyone suggest that Sunday is the seventh day of the week in the western calendar. How did you arrive at that idea? You would be correct if you were speaking of Asian culture, where Monday (xīngqī yī) is given the ordinal number one (yi). When The Bible speaks of “The first day of the week” (Matt 28, Mk 16, Lk 24, Jn 20, Acts 20, 1 Cor 16) These all mean the day following the seventh day (Sabbath), and in modern western culture that day is Sunday. Our modern western calendar, the table is laid out with Sunday being the first day of the week and Saturday being the seventh.

Just an observation
KP

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@ILOVECHRIST, I appreciate your thorough explanation, and your well thought-out understanding of this subject. I have a couple of questions for you, for my own curriosity, and to accommodate my brother @Samuel-23’s request for you to “keep Going”.

You seem well versed in this topic, and what you have stated in your post is in agreement with much that has ben posted previously.
You said:

You mention twice here that first century Christians gathered on first-day-of-the-week to “worship”, but in all of the references you note, “worship” (proskunéō, latreúō, or thrēskeía) is not mentioned once. Where (or when) do you see the idea that the first-day-of-the-week became thought of as a day (or time) of worship?

Did the first-day-of-the-week gathering also become the weekly time of worship for gentiles, since they had no other time sanctified for this practice of worship, as the Jews did? In our twenty-first century western Christian culture, we speak of Sunday as a day containing a period for worship, as in a worship service. Do you see anything like a worship service (similar to what we practice) being practiced by the first century Christians, either Jewish or gentile?

Some folks in our modern Christian culture also observe the first-day-of-the-week as a day of rest, taking their cues for this voluntary observance from Mosaic law. It appears from context most first century Jewish believers, including all of the Apostles, continued to practice Jewish traditions and follow Jewish laws, (i.e., Acts 3:1) including attendance at Synagogue (or Temple) for worship and they most likely continued their cultural labor restrictions on Sabbath as well. Surely the Apostles (and Jewish believers) did not see Sunday gathering as a replacement for Sabbath observations. I read the references to gathering on the first-day-of-the-week that you mentioned to mean they gathered on the first normal work day of the week, so I also don’t think it was thought of by the Apostles as a day of rest or as a replacement for the Jewish day of rest. Do you?

Thanks for considering these three questions.
KP

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Hey @KPuff , sorry I couldn’t respond earlier. I spent most of the day reading through the Real Presence vs. Memorialist thread and carefully cross-referencing all the sources and arguments that @Samuel_23 presented—they were surprisingly thorough and thought-provoking.

It is important to note that while the first-century texts describing Christian gatherings on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2) do not explicitly use terms for “worship” such as proskunéō, latreúō, or thrēskeía, the function and content of these gatherings indicate their role as acts of communal worship. Acts 20:7 states that the believers “came together to break bread,” a phrase that, in the New Testament, is consistently associated with the Eucharist (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:20; Luke 24:30). In 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul directs the believers to set aside offerings on the first day of the week, demonstrating a regular and organized practice of assembly. Early patristic testimony confirms this liturgical understanding: Justin Martyr, writing in the mid-second century, describes the Sunday gathering as including readings from the prophets and apostles, instruction by the president, prayers of thanksgiving, and the consecration and sharing of bread and wine (First Apology 67). While the modern vocabulary of “worship” is not employed, the structure and purpose of these gatherings clearly reflect the central elements of Christian worship.

It is also crucial to emphasize that these first-day gatherings were not intended to replace the Jewish Sabbath. Jewish believers, including the Apostles, continued to observe Sabbath practices, attending synagogues and observing customary labor restrictions (Acts 13:14; 17:2; 18:4). Sunday observance emerged as a distinct commemorative practice, centered on the Resurrection of Christ, which occurred on the first day of the week (Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). For Gentile converts, who lacked a pre-existing Sabbath structure, the first-day gathering naturally became the weekly opportunity for communal worship. This practice developed organically within the life of the early Church and should not be understood as a juridical replacement of Sabbath observance but as a theological memorial of the central event of Christian faith.

While the form and social context of early Sunday gatherings differed from contemporary “Sunday services,” these assemblies established the foundational pattern of weekly Christian worship. They combined teaching, prayer, and Eucharistic celebration in a manner that integrated both instruction and devotion, reflecting the Apostolic understanding of the Resurrection as the defining event of salvation history. Consequently, both scriptural evidence and early Christian testimony demonstrate that first-day gatherings were recognized as legitimate occasions of worship, while Jewish Sabbath observance continued alongside them, and Gentile converts adopted this rhythm naturally, without legalistic imposition.

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@ILOVECHRIST
Thanx for your prompt and comprehensive response to two of my three questions. I sincerely appreciate it.

Gathering scenes from scarce Biblical references and a limited number of skeletal accounts that speak of early Church gathering practice and customs, it is difficult for me personally to coalesce a comprehensive understanding, or a mental picture of a “normal” early church gathering, without realizing I am filling in large blank segments with my imagination. Hearing others, like yourself, expound on what we DO know helps some, but still the picture is fuzzy. I believe it must intentionally be so; God has good reason for not prescripting something that He Himself would develop organically, His way. The difficulty I have developing a mental picture of a “normal” first-day gathering is partially because we have accounts of groups of Believers who come from Jewish stock, and surely incorporated some of their culture into their gatherings, while other came from Asian, Greek, or Latin/Sabine Roman cultures and surely did the same. It seems there may not have been a universally “normal” expression of the ecclesia gathering, but only one that contained some common elements. For instance, the letters to The Corinthians gives us a very different picture of their Church life than say what we know of the Jerusalem Church or of that in Antioch, or even the one in Rome.

I realize this is a bit tangential to the topic, so I won’t elaborate any further. The on-topic point is that the new Church, founded on the Resurrection of Jesus The Christ, and expressing the new Covenant by the manifest power of The Holy Spirit of God, attended by many miraculous validations of His presence and approval, never even slightly resembled any historic gathering held under the guidelines of The Mosaic Law. It was completely novel. Beyond the amazing demonstrations of “signs and wonders”, the powerful manifest presence of The Holy Spirit of God residing in men, women, slave, free, young, old, rich, poor, bold and meek, strong and weak, and especially in both those of righteous, and those of seriously sinful pasts was, to put it mildly, unprecedented. Lives were abruptly and permenantly changed; all things became “new”. This radical manifestation among the ecclesia of genuine love, compassion, communion, cooperation, collectivism, etc. was (and still is) unparalleled in the world. This abrupt change of character (new life) is seen in many examples, not the least of which is recorded in the strange and unexpected words of an Asian woman residing in Macedonia who’s name was Lydia., Speaking to an odd little man whom she had only recently met, but who had shared with her the words of life, (John 6:68) she said: “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.”

Acts 16:12-15

…and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days.
And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.

A spiritual connection had almost instantaneously developed between these praying women, and these two itinerant evangelists, a deep bond found nowhere else on the planet. All this to add testimony to your adroit explanation, that the first-day-of-the-week gathering of the ecclesia was never intended to resemble, replace, or replicate anything known previously. It was completely new!

Thanx
KP

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Indeed, the New Testament and patristic sources provide only fragmentary snapshots, and we must acknowledge that much of the practical detail is left unspecified, allowing the Church’s life to develop organically under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This diversity reflects both the cultural backgrounds of early believers and the adaptive character of the nascent ecclesia. Jewish believers naturally retained aspects of their liturgical and social practices, while Gentile converts brought elements from their own cultural frameworks. Yet, despite this variety, certain unifying features emerge: the breaking of bread, instruction in the apostolic teaching, prayer, and the testimony to the Resurrection of Christ.

Your point underscores an essential theological truth: the first-day gatherings were not mere continuations of Mosaic ritual nor reproductions of prior religious structures; they were a novel expression of covenantal life inaugurated by Christ and empowered by the Spirit. The manifestation of the Spirit’s presence in the early Church — through signs, conversions, communal charity, and radical moral transformation — marked these assemblies as unprecedented in human history. The narrative of Lydia (Acts 16:12–15) is exemplary, illustrating both the relational immediacy and transformative impact of the gospel: a spontaneous spiritual bond arising from faith in Christ, which reshaped domestic and social structures to accommodate worship, hospitality, and communal life.

From a theological perspective, this novelty does not undermine the significance of the first-day assembly as a locus of worship. Rather, it emphasizes that Christian worship is defined primarily by the content of faith — the proclamation of the Resurrection, participation in the Eucharist, prayer, and mutual edification — rather than by rigid formal structures or mimicry of the Mosaic Sabbath. The flexibility and cultural adaptability of these early gatherings reflect a principle that continues in Catholic theology: the Church’s liturgical life is both faithful to apostolic precedent and capable of contextual expression, always oriented toward Christ as the center of worship and the fulfillment of the Sabbath typology.

In this light, the first-day-of-the-week gatherings, though diverse and novel, are clearly recognizably worshipful, anchored in Resurrection theology, and foundational for the development of Sunday as the Lord’s Day in the life of the Church. The early Church’s innovation was not an abandonment of God’s law, but a faithful and Spirit-guided fulfillment of the divine plan inaugurated in Christ.

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If Sunday observance is so important, any thoughts on why, with the exception of two instances, scripture is silent with regard to meetings on the first day of the week?

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@Rstrats

With men, the more often they mention something, the more likely the hearer is going to think that it is important to them. This repetition is a way our human communication compensates for the intrinsic imprecision of understanding one another. It is not so with The Perfect One. When God says something once, it is a full expression of pure truth; it has no need for reiteration to make it clearer, or to make it truer. Faith is the expression of “taking God at His word”, and so being mentioned once or twice in Holy scripture is sufficient for a man of faith to sit-up and take serious notice, therby forming the opinion that it is important.

Furthermore, your question:

Is similar to saying, “with the exception of the air assault and the land assault, why is Russia silent with regard to the Ukraine? The two military actions, like the two mentions of Christians meeting on the first day of the week is sufficient to form a reliable opinion (IMHO)

KP

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ILOVECHRIST, your words are elegant, but elegance isn’t exegesis. You talk about “fragmentary snapshots” and organic development, but the New Testament doesn’t leave us wandering in a fog. It gives us Spirit-breathed clarity (2 Timothy 3:16), and what it reveals is not ambiguity but a deliberate shift from the Old Covenant Sabbath to the New Covenant reality of the Lord’s Day.

Yes, the early Church gatherings were new, because the Resurrection reset everything. Jesus rose on the first day (Mark 16:2), met with His disciples on the first day (John 20:19 and 26), and the Church broke bread and received teaching on the first day (Acts 20:7). That’s not cultural adaptation. That is apostolic rhythm in response to the risen Christ.

You say this was not an abandonment of God’s law. Agreed. It was the fulfillment. The Sabbath was a shadow. Christ is the substance (Colossians 2:16–17). The true rest is no longer tied to a day. It is found in a person. Hebrews 4:9–10 makes that crystal clear.

So no, the apostles weren’t dabbling in liturgical flexibility. They were proclaiming the gospel with resurrection authority. The first day gatherings were not just novel. They were necessary. Not tradition. Testimony.

We do not keep the shadows when the Light has come.

We do not hold to the signpost when the destination has arrived.

We do not chase typology when the fulfillment is seated at the right hand of God.

We worship Christ on His day, because He is our rest, our resurrection, and our reason.

That’s not adaptation. That’s fulfillment.

—Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.

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KPuff,

re: “When God says something once, it is a full expression of pure truth; it has no need for reiteration to make it clearer, or to make it truer.”

But it’s not said even once that folks met on the first day of the week for rest and worship, nor is it said even once that folks met on the first day of the week in honor of the resurrection.

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Just so it’s understood that scripture is silent about anyone doing that.

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@rstrats
I hear you; I understand your point. I think I clearly get where you are coming from. I have no inclination for contention, as contention is an evident work of the flesh, and we are not of the flesh, if The Spirit of God resides in us.

In my experience, some folks may read their bible looking to find support for an idea they hold dear. I call this looking for inclusion; they are trying to demonstrate that their dear-idea is “included” in the Holy Word. Some call this practice “eisegesis”, a personal interpretation that reflects personal ideas or a specific viewpoint of the interpreter; i.e., reading something into a text that is not there. Sometimes some may look for “exclusion”; trying to demonstrate that the Holy Word never actually says something that would challenge and idea that they hold dear. This is also a form of eisegesis, but is called “an argument from silence”. In this logical fallacy the absence of evidence is treated as evidence of absence. Trying to interpret silence is dangerous, because it can lead to inaccurate understanding, because the Bible does not explicitly address every potential question or concept. A disciple reads the Bible for understanding, intentionally yielding to what it says; a disciple does not try to master the Bible, but desires The Bile to master them. Yielding to the teaching of The Holy Spirit, through The Holy Word brings one to accept the clarity implied in a thorough contextual reading of that word.
I assume you agree with all this, so far.

If you maintain that:

…, then you would be technically correct. But in doing so, you expose your own dearly held beliefs to the same kind of scrutiny, and in so doing you will find many of those dearly-held beliefs are likewise not spelled out in so many words. I prefer to not go down that vain path, and I suppose you would prefer to avoid it as well.

I concede that Christians meeting on the first day of every week is a tradition. It is not a law, but a traditional practice, which appears to have begun on the very day of Jesus’s resurrection, and continued weekly ever since. Putting all the pieces together, there is a strong assumption that the focus of the weekly meeting was for communal prayer, apostolic teaching, collective fellowship, and remembering the basis of the common faith through ritual thanksgiving (the eucharist); breaking of bread, and sharing of wine. Our attempt at understanding insists we put all the pieces together; to look at all the shards of information about Christian gathering practice to form our best idea of what The Holy Spirit of God brought about in the new living ecclesia called The Body of Christ.

I concede that the ideas of “rest” and “worship” are not technically implied as early Church foci. These practices may have been borrowed from Judaism, or they may have grown on their own organically, as Christians sought ways to express their devotion. But, turning our eyes away from the outward appearance, but trying to understand the compelling heart of the Christian, it is not difficult to see how these practices developed as ways devout believers attempted to outwardly express the new inward life they found living in their hearts. Jesus taught a new way of perpetual rest, and perpetual worship, and it is assumed those new daily lifestyles were expressed in aggregate once a week at a communal gathering focused on thanksgiving. There was no legal compulsion, but a new freedom to express the new life of the new covenant, with others of newly like precious faith. We should still meet in this same vein.

If you would suggest that the normative Christian weekly gathering practice in 21st century America no longer looks like this, and no longer seems to focus on these same ideals, you will get no argument from me.

If understanding and yielding is our goal, I trust God’s Holy Spirit to bring us together on these important topics. If contention is our goal, then we have no such leading from God, but we are on our own.

Peace in Jesus
KP

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:grinning_face: :saluting_face:
Reading it set my heart ablaze. Amazing, Brother

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You’re right that Scripture doesn’t say, “Thou shalt worship on Sunday,” but guess what? It also doesn’t say, “Thou shalt stop gathering on the Sabbath and switch to the first day.” Yet what it does show is this: the Church gathering on the first day (Acts 20:7), giving on the first day (1 Corinthians 16:2), and Christ appearing to His disciples on the first day… twice (John 20:19, 26). That’s not silence. That’s a pattern.

We don’t worship Christ on Sunday because we found a verse that reads like a Gregorian calendar appointment. We worship on Sunday because He got up on that day, showed up on that day, and the early Church gathered on that day. Not because of law, but because of resurrection life.

The Sabbath was commanded. Sunday is celebrated.

So yes, the New Testament may not shout it like Sinai, but it shows it in action. And we follow the risen Lord, not the shadows He fulfilled.

Silence? No. That’s the sound of a torn veil and an empty tomb.

—Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.

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SincereSeeker,
re: “You’re right that Scripture doesn’t say, ‘Thou shalt worship on Sunday,’…”

Actually, my comment was that scripture is silent with regard to anyone getting together on the first day of the week for the purpose of rest and/or worship, or in honor of the resurrection (I added a few extra words to it).

re: "…but guess what? It also doesn’t say, “Thou shalt stop gathering on the Sabbath and switch to the first day.”

I didn’t say that it did.

re: "Yet what it does show is this: the Church gathering on the first day (Acts 20:7), giving on the first day (1 Corinthians 16:2), and Christ appearing to His disciples on the first day… twice (John 20:19, 26). That’s not silence. That’s a pattern.”

1 Corinthians 16:2 says nothing about gathering on the first day of the week. So that leaves two instances. John 20:19 and Acts 20:7. John 20:26 can’t be one because “after eight days” would be on the second day of the week at the earliest.

The John 20:19 reference has them together in a closed room after the crucifixion because they were afraid of their fellow Jews. Nothing is said about a worship service or day of rest. And it couldn’t have been in recognition of the resurrection because at that time they didn’t even believe that the resurrection had taken place.

And regarding Acts 20:7, it merely says that the disciples met to break bread which would be nothing special since Acts 2:46 says that they broke bread every day. Also, it may have also been because they knew that Paul happened to be in town on the particular day and wanted to talk them before he left again.

So, I don’t see how those two instances could be considered a pattern.

re: “We don’t worship Christ on Sunday because we found a verse that reads like a Gregorian calendar appointment. We worship on Sunday because He got up on that day…”

I know that is the reason usually given. It’s just that scripture never mentions anyone doing that.

re: “So yes, the New Testament may not shout it like Sinai, but it shows it in action.”

Nowhere mentioned in the NT that I know of.

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Confidential to @rstrats
You said:

First-century cultures, and specifically the Hebrew culture, marked time using an “inclusive counting” method. When a period was described as “after eight days,” the idiom included both the first and last day of the interval, making the total seven days. An event that happened “after eight days” would thus occur on the same day of the week. Our 21st century idiom for this same idea would be “a week later”.

Refer to: Gen 7:12, and Luke 9:28. these references to eight days are the same as saying a week later.

KP

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1 Corinthians 16:2 – You say it says nothing about gathering? It says, “On the first day of the week let each of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper.” Now, why designate the first day for a collective act if they weren’t already gathering? Paul didn’t say, “Do it on the Sabbath,” or “whenever you feel like it.” He anchored it to the first day, because by then, the Church was already recognizing it as the rhythm of new covenant life.

John 20:19 – You claim they were hiding, not worshiping. Fair. But Jesus chose to appear to them on the first day anyway. And then again, “after eight days” (John 20:26). You insist that can’t be a Sunday, but you’re importing a modern counting system into a Jewish context. Inclusive reckoning was the norm—day one counts as the first day. “After eight days” from Sunday? That’s Sunday again. You may not like it, but that’s how the calendar worked in their world.

Acts 20:7 – Yes, they broke bread daily in Acts 2, but Luke goes out of his way to mention this meeting happened “on the first day of the week.” Why highlight that if it was just one of many ordinary meals? And Paul preached until midnight. That’s not lunchtime fellowship… that’s church. The early Church didn’t throw all-night gatherings because Paul liked the ambiance. They gathered with purpose.

So you say, “That’s not a pattern.” But let me ask you this:

  • Jesus rose on the first day.
  • Jesus appeared to His disciples on the first day.
  • The Church gathered to break bread and receive teaching on the first day.
  • Paul instructed giving on the first day.
  • The book of Revelation calls it the Lord’s Day… a term already understood by the time John wrote it (Revelation 1:10), even though no calendar label is attached.

Is it Sinai-level explicit? No.
Is it a God-ordained shift in worship centered on the resurrection? Yes.
The Law was given in thunder.
The Gospel spread in footsteps.

You’re demanding Old Covenant clarity in a New Covenant reality that operates by Spirit and truth (John 4:24), not stone tablets and schedules.

So no, we’re not looking for a verse that says, “And thus began Sunday church.” We’re looking at what the Spirit did, what the Church practiced, and what the Resurrection redefined.

That’s not silence. That’s Scripture in motion.

—Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.

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Regarding this:

The practice of bringing in offerings and entrusting the apostles to distribute them as needs arose is anchored in this early outpouring of The Holy Spirit.

Acts 4:32-37

Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.

And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.

And Joses, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles (which is translated Son of Encouragement), a Levite of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

This abrupt, unnatural desire for communal care was unprecidented, and miraculous, and it continued to occur, as an expression of the indwelling Spirit, in Christian gatherings as they were organized in other cities, and still happens (to some extent) today.

KP

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re: "First-century cultures, and specifically the Hebrew culture, marked time using an “inclusive counting” method. When a period was described as “after eight days,” the idiom included both the first and last day of the interval, making the total seven days. An event that happened “after eight days” would thus occur on the same day of the week”.

If verse 26 had said “And after one day His disciples were again inside…”, on what day of the week would it have been?

re: “Refer to: Gen 7:12, and Luke 9:28. these references to eight days are the same as saying a week later.”

Gen 7:12 says - “12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.”

I don’t see the relevance.

Luke 9:28, - “Now it came to pass, about eight days after these sayings, that He took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray.”

Nothing is mentioned as to which day of the week it was eight days after.

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OOops, my decrepit fingers strike again. So sorry for the flub

The reference I was trying to share was supposed to be Genesis 17:12. The idiom “eight days” here…

"He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant. "

…can also be accurately rendered “He who is a week old among you shall be circumcised…”

I am only saying that this Genesis passage, and Luke 9:28 are only a couple of examples of English translations of “eight days” that could also be accurately translated “a week”. This is a very universal understanding among Bible scholars. (IMHO)

Your question…

…is hypothetical. If you have an actual example of this, I’d be happy to share my opinion.

Thanks for catching my flub.

KP