Christians began meeting on Sunday for several reasons: to set themselves apart from the Jews, the predominance of Gentile converts in the church in Rome, and Pagan sun worship, among other factors.
At first, the church is Jerusalem was the dominant church. After the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70 and the scattering of the Jerusalem Jews, including the Christian Jews, the church in Rome, comprised primarily of Gentiles, became the dominant church.
Sun worship also played a part. In order to help get more pagans to accept Christianity, it behooved the church to move services to a day when the Pagans were already used to worshipping - Sunday, the day of the sun.
Emperor Hadrian also played a part. He outlawed Sabbath keeping in 135, making it expedient to change the day of worship to avoid the persecution that the Jews were undergoing.
These reasons are covered in much more detail in Biblical Perspectives, Issue 64 (Seventh-day Adventist site), which is itself a short synopsis of the 350 page book From Sabbath To Sunday.
Technorati tagged: Bible, Bible study, God, Jesus, Christ, Christian, Christianity, Sunday, Sabbath
2 comments:
Keeping the Sabbath, a day, is not required in the New covenantin His precious blood, because He is our Sabbath, He is our Rest. If your bound up in Days your under the Law. Our rest is no longer in are on a day, but in Christ. Paul's word to the Church at Galatia was "You observe days and months and seasons and years." Why? Because even though they had begun their Christian life in the Spirit they had gone back under the Law.
If you remain under the Law in keeping the Sabbath, you then are obligated to keep the whole Law. Jesus came to deliver us from the curse of the Law.
(Gal. 4-5:1-4)
If you feel justified in keeping the Sabbath, a day, then your justification is in a day, your under the Law and fallen from grace.
I am justified by GRACE through FAITH plus NOTHING (Eph.2:8-9). :) But because I am justified by grace, I wish to obey Him and do what He says, and He says to keep the commandments (Matthew 19:17). I want to make my Lord Happy because He saved me. Grace and justification are not license to sin.
I'll be getting into the "Christ is our rest" argument in the Common Proof Texts section, post #8. Stay tuned. The proof texts will be posted in the order they occur in scripture and since that argument in based on the book of Hebrews, it'll be one of the last I'll get to.
But check back. I will address that concern. :)
I'll also be getting into Galatians 4. That will be post #6 in the "Proof Texts" section.
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