Oftentimes Christians try to say that only nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament. Therefore, we only have to keep those nine. What one can we ignore? The Sabbath of course. But what they are overlooking is one of the most obvious features of the New Testament.
The Sabbath is talked about a great deal in the Gospels. Why, if the Sabbath had been done away with, are there so many mentions? Why mention something that has been done away with, mention it often, and mention it with no direct command from Christ to stop celebrating it?
The Gospels were written between about AD 60 (Mark) and 90 (John). It is generally recognized that far from being mere biographies, the Gospels were handbooks for the early church. If the Sabbath had been done away with by Jesus or the apostles, it would seem likely that the Sabbath would be de-emphasized in the writings, and likely Sunday given some "boost."
Yet we don't find that. We find numerous references in these writings to a practice that some say was no longer observed. Why mention the Sabbath so much if it didn't matter anymore?
The Gospels were all written after the epistles, and if the Sabbath had already been abandoned by then, why include so many instances of it in the writings? It would have been irrelevant to the early church, so why make so much mention of it? It was mentioned so much precisely because the church was still keeping it. In the stories of Jesus the early church saw how the Sabbath should be kept and the original meaning that Jesus brought back to it.
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