Author Topic: First Day texts  (Read 3320 times)

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knightwithdignity

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First Day texts
« on: March 08, 2007, 12:53:00 PM »
As far as I have been able to determine, there are only 8 texts that have any mention about meeting on the first day.

Four of these are a reference to the Resurrection.  

They also gathered together in the evening of the first day but they were in fear of the Jews when Jesus appeared to them.


What is not talked about is that this day, the day of the resurrection of Jesus, was also the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  That may not seem significant, but it actually is.  This was a feast that all Male Jews were required to attend, and the first day of the feast, which was straight after passover, was considered to be a sabbath day.  This is the reason the disciples were still in Jerusalem.


There is another verse that talks about Jesus appearing to them after eight days.  This can be interpreted in several ways.  It can be eight days after the passover which would make it the last day of the feast of unleavened bread.  Or it could be eight days after the resurrection.  

If it is eight days after the passover, and therefore the last day of the week of unleavened bread, then this also was considered to be a sabbath day, and being part of the feast, the disciples would still have been required to be in Jerusalem.

There is argument given that the Church also met on the sunday being the day of Penticost.  However, this also was a day to be considered as a sabbath day, and was another day that the Male Jews were required to be in Jerusalem.

What I am trying to emphasise in this is that the argument of the church meeting on sundays just after the resurrection, does not stand.  There are scriptural reasons as to why the disciples were required to be in Jerusalem on these days.

It just happens to be that in the year that Jesus died, and rose again, these important days fell on a Sunday.  In the following years these days would have fallen on another day of the week.


In Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor 16:2 we have two other references to there being a meeting on the first day of the week.  Both of these are connected with Paul in his third mission trip which was about 25 years after the resurrection.  Paul was in a hurry to be getting back to Jerusalem before Penticost, with the collection he had gathered from the gentile churches, which he intended to present to the Apostles on the day of penticost.

The only other verse which is used as evidence of the church meeting on the sunday is the reference in Rev 1:10 where John is in vision on the Lords day, but in this verse it does not specify which day this was.


Mimi

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First Day texts
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2007, 01:21:00 PM »
Hi, KWD: Interesting observations. And you are right as far as I can determine. If you are pointing toward a rebuttal of first day sacredness, any other day just doesn't hold water, does it? Before the cross there were quite a few "sabbaths" - holy days.

What amazes me is that the apostles continued to keep these extra sabbaths after the cross. Maybe I am missing something, but it is still am amazement.

But was John's Lord's day vision on Sunday? No. There is only one day that can belong to the Lord and that is the seventh-day. He calls it His day in the fourth commandment. How it can be confused with Sunday is just amazing if one would take the time to make the connection with His day and the seventh day of the Ten Commandments. Too many verses refer to "His" Sabbath, "His" day.

[This message has been edited by Sybil (edited 03-08-2007).]

  For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119:89 

Sister Marie

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First Day texts
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2007, 05:11:00 PM »
I feel that a lot of the confussion comes when people listen to their minister/priest insteat of thinking and studing for themselves. The Bible is very plain on the Seventh-day Sabbath issue. It is the only day that God Sanctified it and made it holy at Creation. Never in any place in the Bible does it say this about Sunday, or that Sunday is any kind of Sabbath or Worship day. Paul met with the believers on the first day of the week for a departing meeting, as he was leaving them. If they used the Sunset to Sunset time yet that meeting could have been on Saturday night. This idea comes from the boy that fell out of the window at "midnight".

Common since helps, but study makes things very clear. I once rented a farm from a lady in Wisconsin. We got to talking about the Sabbath and she of course, thought that this was on Sunday. I stated that the Bible says that the Sabbath is on the seventh day. She looked at me and said, "Yes, and that is of course, Sunday!" I then walked over to her calender and counted off the days and low and behold, Saturday, and not Sunday, was the Seventh day. Now you want to see someone confussed and taken back, you should have seen her. These poor people are taught that Sunday is the Seventh day in many churches, can't believe they really think people would not catch on. But this proved to me how little people study on their own. When they are faced with Truth is blows them away.... all the way to their minister/priest and most come home with a pacifier at best.

:(

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With Christian Love,
Sister Marie

With Christian Love,
Marie

knightwithdignity

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First Day texts
« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2007, 12:42:00 AM »
Sabbath worship was not an issue in the early church, because for about 7 to 10 years after the resurrection, the church was only comprised of Jewish believers.  No Gentiles came into the church during that time.

From the resurrection to the conversion of Paul was a period of about 3 1/2 years.  Only Jewish believers were converted.

Paul then spent about 3 years in the wilderness learning from Jesus.

It is only after this period that Peter receives his vision and is instructed to go with the men who will call for him.  That was to the house of a Gentile.  When Cornelius was converted, and news got back to Jerusalem, Peter was censored for having gone into the house of a Gentile, something that was not lawful for a Jew.

This is a key to knowing that only Jews came into the church first.  We are also told that the Jews which had spread away from Jerusalem at the time of the persecution from Saul.

This is all around Acts 10 and 11.

This was a group of Jewish believers worshipping on the Jewish Sabbath.  That is why Sabbath worship was not an issue between the christians and the Jews.


stephen

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First Day texts
« Reply #4 on: March 09, 2007, 08:20:00 AM »
Act 4:24 And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou [art] God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is:

They lifted up their voice with one accord.  Note the language in this verse.  Compare with the language of Exodus 20:11, in His Fourth Commandment.
Also see Revelation 14:7.

God was, and is, specific concerning His Sabbath day.  

He is immutable and does not change.  
There is no text that indicates the perrogative of man to change the day.  He never added the words '...if you want to' to His commandments!

Zep 1:11 Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off.

Zep 1:12 And it shall come to pass at that time, [that] I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in