Could the Bible’s most common arguments for Sunday as the Sabbath be missing something? In this powerful teaching, we dive deep into the most common arguments used to prove Sunday is the Sabbath, tearing down centuries of human tradition to reveal Yahweh’s unchanging word.
You’ll discover the most common Sunday Sabbath proofs presented in Christianity today and why they fall short upon honest examination. This educational deep dive equips you with knowledge to discern truth for yourself, bringing clarity where tradition has clouded understanding and empowering you to honor God with confidence.
So join us as we examine the most popular arguments from scripture held up to allege a Sunday Sabbath and learn the God Honest Truth about if the Sabbath was moved to Sunday.
#BibleStudy #BiblicalSabbath #Messianic #SabbathDay #SabbathVsSunday #ScriptureStudy #SundaySabbath #TraditionVsTruth #GodHonestTruth
AI Reports
GHT Notes
Transcript
Teaching Introduction
Does the New Testament, the Brit Hadasha, tell us that the Sabbath has been changed to the first day of the week from the seventh day of the week? Well, that’s the idea that a lot of people put forth, and they have put forth several different arguments to substantiate such a claim. In this video, in this teaching, we’re going to look at several of these claims put forth from the New Testament, from the Brit Hadasha, and examine them in their context and in their grammar and their Greek and everything else to see if it’s actually true that the Brit Hadasha or the New Testament changes the day of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day. You don’t want to miss a moment of this. There’s a lot of good educational stuff coming your way about the Sunday arguments that are commonly used to support Sunday as the Sabbath. You won’t want to miss a single moment of this.
Video Start
So this episode is going to be all about arguments that are used for Sunday. And this is in the context of arguments used for saying that Sunday is now the Sabbath. So that is the context we’re going with, or we’re presenting what I think of as the top arguments during this particular episode. And then next episode, we’re going to be examining even more arguments that are commonly used to promote the idea that the Sabbath was changed unto Sunday. Now, if you’d like more information than what we can provide to you here in this particular video, make sure to go to our website at godhonesttruth.com. Click on the post for this particular episode and there you’ll be able to find the on demand video.
You’ll be able to see the drawing slides as you see here on your screen. You also have the AI research reports that we had generated as well as the notes that we have personally took and provided for you. And in addition, the transcript as well, once that becomes available. If that is of benefit to you, it’s all right there on our website at godhonesttruth.com. Now the easiest thing to do would be to go down below in the description and click on the convenient link that we provided for you down there. That’ll take you directly to that article post on our website where you’ll have the on demand video, the drawing slides, the research reports, the notes, and the transcript. It’s all right down there in the description, and it should be down there whether you’re watching on a video platform or an audio podcasting platform.
Series Overview
Now, before we get started into the main part of this teaching, let’s go over the series overview in this complete Sabbath series that we are doing. This particular series is broken up into various episodes so that we will be able to go more in depth on each particular area that we wanted to cover. Our first episode we went over Shabbat and the Tanakh, looking at the Sabbath in the Tanakh, or what mainstream churchianity refers to as the Old Testament. Then we looked in episode two at the Sabbath in the Brit Hadasha, or what mainstream churchianity refers to as the New Testament. Then we went on to look at the Sabbath in the early centuries, specifically the time frame of the apostles all the way up until about five hundred or so.
Then in episode four, we looked real quick at Shabbat, the Reformation, the Protestant Reformation, and various miscellaneous things. And some good information there, especially if you don’t know a lot about the Reformation. You may think that there is no Sabbath-keeping or Sabbath-realizing people in the Protestant Reformation and that’s just completely untrue. We actually highlighted one particular one, a very big powerhouse in the Reformation that recognized the legitimacy and the continuance of the seventh day Sabbath. So go check that out if you would like more information on that particular aspect. Now we’re getting into arguments for Sunday as the Sabbath. And this is going to be the top ones, or at least the top ones that I thought were the top ones. We’re looking at that tonight. And then next week, or next time, we’re going to be looking at some additional arguments that are commonly used for Sunday.
And then in our last episode, which has got moved up for this couple weeks because splitting this particular episode up, the last episode, we’re going to be looking at the lunar Sabbath. And if you don’t know what the lunar Sabbath is, that is absolutely okay. We’re going to go over what it is and also look at a lot of evidence and information and research surrounding the lunar Sabbath. So you’ll know all about it. And you’ll also be able to look at the historical information and the biblical information to decide for yourself whether you agree or disagree with this particular concept. All that’s coming up. I know there’s a few changes and I’ve got to get some of the stuff changed on the slides and also the calendar and all that good stuff, but lots of stuff coming up. Lots of good stuff.
Watch Out
Anyways, so now for this particular episode, some things I would like you to be on the watch for. Think about how many times in scripture that scripture itself explicitly states that the seventh day is the Sabbath. And then compare that to the number of times where scripture explicitly states that Sunday is the Sabbath or even the number of times that people put forth something as evidence that the Sabbath has changed to Sunday. Two different concepts there, I know, but count the number of times where it’s explicitly stated that seventh day is the Sabbath. And then the number of times where scripture explicitly states that Sunday is the Sabbath or the number of passages that people put forth to try and show that Sunday is the Sabbath.
Now as we went through this particular research for this episode, or additional research as well, we kind of come up with four different views when it comes to this whole idea of the Sabbath and also Sunday because not everyone has the exact same opinion when it comes to this particular subject. Number one, there is the thought or the theory that Sunday is now the new Sabbath for the people of Yahweh. Number two, that Sunday is the Lord’s day but not the Sabbath. We kind of seen that with people like John Calvin and Martin Luther and things like that, and we’ve seen that in some of the historical information we’ve looked through as well. Number three, there is also the people out there who hold to the seventh day Sabbath and how it remains binding, continuous, and things like that. That is the position that we are currently taking. Number four, there’s also the position out there that there is no required Sabbath to observe anymore, now that they say that we are in the new covenant. Take that for how you will, but that’s kind of what they say—that once Yeshua came and that he had his ministry, he died, was buried, and resurrected and ascended, now they say there is no more Sabbath observance.
And this is kind of more along the lines of Martin Luther as we looked at back then. Yeah, Martin Luther kind of thought there was no more Sabbath day observance that was binding and that Sunday was just convenient because everyone was already used to that. So yeah, there’s four different kind of ways of looking at this whole subject of Sunday and also the Sabbath. So keep that in mind. Try to think about where you are now, which position you are in at the moment. And then when we get done looking at some of the scriptures and looking at some of the exegetical information that we’re going to go over, think about where you are at that point as well.
Elementary My Dear Watson
But before we get into the actual scripture itself, I know you’re just dying for it. You’re most of you out there are nerdy as I am. Let’s go over some elementary matters to try and keep in mind as we go through this particular teaching. All right.
Hermeneutics
So, number one, there’s this concept called hermeneutics. And I’m not going to get into great detail on all these elementary things. So just for a reference, you can look more into this if you want to, but the principles of hermeneutics are—we’re going to boil them down for you—but there is the literal principle. This is where you take the literal meaning of what is actually stated. Then you got the contextual principle, and you want to definitely take everything into context. And that’s where a lot of people go wrong. And when we look at the particular passages that are put forth in this particular teaching, you’re going to see that context plays a big role in understanding what it actually says.
When we look at that, then you got the principle of scriptural harmony, where the basic concept is that scripture does not contradict scripture. The grammatical principle where you get really nerdy, you start looking at how certain things are put together with verbs and nouns and how they’re conjugated, et cetera. So yeah, this is going to play into going to play its part in one particular section coming up here as well. Well, you’ll be able to recognize that when we get to it. But another principle is the historical and the cultural principle. Understanding how when the particular passage was written, how the author meant it at the time in the cultural and historical context and how the readers who read it at the time would have taken it in their cultural and historical context.
Then you got the genre, whether it’s a poetic, a historical narrative, an apocalyptic, et cetera. Then you got the progressive revelation principle, which you definitely don’t want to take this too far. It’s not saying that, you know, things came about after scripture that contradict scripture and supersede scripture. No, nothing like that. It’s basically building on itself and it progressively builds on itself. You got the prophecies that are a lot of times not very specific about Messiah back in the Tanakh. But then when Messiah comes, that is an example of progressive revelation because we now understand more about what those prophecies were relating to, et cetera. Then you got the authorial intent principle and this kind of goes back into the historical cultural principle where you’re looking at what the actual author meant when they wrote whatever passage we’re particularly looking at.
Sola Scriptura
Then you’ve got the concept of sola scriptura and this is going to be very, very important. And there’s we saw that in the reformation episode where Johann Eck was coming against Martin Luther and the reformers, calling them hypocrites because they wanted to say sola scriptura but then not hold to sola scriptura. So for anyone who’s new out there that’s never heard this, sola scriptura is the principle that scripture alone is the ultimate infallible authority for our faith, our practice, our doctrine, and it serves as the final court of appeal for all doctrine. This is going to be very important when we look at the subject of the Sabbath because we want to know when the Sabbath is, how to celebrate and observe the Sabbath according to scripture, not the ever-changing, wavering traditions of man.
Descriptive Vs Prescriptive
Then we’ve got this is going to come into play really big, too, especially when we look at the various passages that we’re going to be looking at tonight. And this is the distinction between things, especially in the epistles and things like that. Distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive. You’ll see why when we go through these here in just a little bit. But descriptive is a passage that records or details what happened historically without necessarily commanding or approving of the behavior for everyone. You can think of many different examples in scriptures of that. But descriptive is just basically saying what happened. It’s not issuing a new command or telling you to do anything in particular. It’s just describing something. Prescriptive, on the other hand, is a passage that explicitly commands or establishes an ongoing rule for how readers should live, think, or act. Think of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are prescriptive. That is how you know the difference here between descriptive and prescriptive—where descriptive is just describing something, prescriptive is telling you to do something or how to do something, things like that. This is going to be very important as we look at these different passages that are concerning the Sabbath. You need to understand and distinguish between these passages being descriptive or prescriptive and prescribing a new day of the week for Sunday.
Exegesis Vs Eisegesis
Then we got the concepts of eisegesis and exegesis. Exegesis is the process of drawing out the original intended true meaning from a text based on what the author actually intended to communicate. Now this is something you can do with any literary work, but most of the time it’s done with the Bible. Then you got eisegesis, and this is just the exact opposite. We went over this in the past, but it does bear repeating. Eisegesis is the practice of reading your own bias, your own modern assumptions, or your own preconceived ideas into a text, forcing it to say whatever it is you want it to say. You can obviously think of various things that come into play here. Again, this is going to be very, very important as we go through these passages as well. Like with all doctrine, we want to exegete what the Bible is telling us, not read our own traditions and our own church ideas into the text. We want the text, the Bible, to change us, not us changing the Bible.
Anachronism
Then we got the concept of anachronism. And this is a word that you may or may not know, but basically anachronism is taking something and—well, let me read this. Anachronism is the act of placing a person, object, event, or modern idea into a historical time period where it did not yet exist. Now, one example of this is like saying that Abraham Lincoln had a Dell laptop. Okay, that’s anachronistic to say that. In this example, or in this subject, in this context, we know that in a particular section of time in scripture, the seventh day was the Sabbath. No doubt everyone completely agrees on that. Then nowadays modern Christianity, modern churchianity, holds to Sunday as the Sabbath. But at some point it changed. We got to find out when that point was and why it changed. But we cannot read our own modern ideas back into scripture and think it was always that way because it’s not true.
So keep that in mind. We want to pull out from what the text is telling us, not place our own ideas that we have nowadays back into the text because that would create circular reasoning. But that’s what anachronism is. And we want to be careful not to be anachronistic when we study this subject of the Sabbath.
Confirmation Bias
Then we look at confirmation bias. And this happens to every single person. No matter how much you say that you are not biased, every single human being has bias. Just admit it, put it out there, and understand and recognize that. But confirmation bias is the mental tendency to search for, favor, and recall information that supports your existing beliefs while completely ignoring or downplaying evidence that contradicts them. Now, a lot of times confirmation bias happens in the background—that we’re not really consciously aware of, a lot of times—but it does happen and we need to be aware of that and try to combat that and be understanding that you probably have, or you most definitely have, confirmation bias because everyone has confirmation bias. Then we got to look at context.
Context
We looked at this a little bit within the principles of hermeneutics, but context is examining a specific statement within its surrounding verses, historical setting, and literary genre to ensure its meaning aligns with the author’s complete message. If you take something out of context, you can use it to say a lot of different things that’s not what the author actually meant, and it’s not what the passage or the Bible is actually saying. This is going to be huge when we examine these various passages here in just a moment. And I’m going to show you what the verse is that’s put forth. And then I’m going to show you a lot of the context around it so you can actually see for yourselves. And it comes alive when you look at the context. And you’re thinking, “Oh, that actually doesn’t mean that. It means something completely different.” So that’s context—taking the passage or the verse within the context of the surrounding verses and the historical setting, the cultural setting, et cetera.
Sabbath Attributes
Now, another thing I want you to look at and keep in mind, too, when we look at this subject of the Sabbath is remembering what the various attributes are of the Sabbath as it’s described in scripture. In the Tanakh, the Sabbath is commonly described as a day of rest. Very big. That’s the biggest attribute that’s ascribed to the Sabbath is the day of rest. That’s the main point of the Sabbath. Then you got the Sabbath being a sign between Yahweh and his people. It’s directly described in connection with the creation in Exodus. And then also the Exodus itself and Deuteronomy. And then you have the Sabbath being directly described as being made holy by Yahweh. Actually, the very first thing made holy and set apart and blessed back during the creation week. And the first thing to be set apart, made holy, was a period of time—not a place, not a people, not a temple or a tabernacle, anything like that. It was the seventh day. So the Sabbath was directly described as being blessed by Yahweh and being made holy by Yahweh.
Gathering Times
Now, some other things to look at, too, is the Sabbath and how and why people gathered together because the Sabbath is not something where people always gathered together. You had Moses up on the mountain, Mount Sinai, for forty days and forty nights, came down, went back up forty days and forty nights, and during that time he was on the mountain obviously he didn’t come and congregate with the people down below. Yeshua likewise was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan for forty days and forty nights. He also, our Messiah, during that time did not come out and congregate with other people. So the Sabbath is not directly associated with getting together or assembling together. It’s a good idea, yes, but it’s not a requirement—obviously—but there are times when people do gather together, and it’s not always the Sabbath. There are times when people worship together and it’s not always the Sabbath. In fact, one of the biggest questions I like to ask people, especially mainstream Christians, when it comes to the subject of the Sabbath, is what day is the day of worship in the week? And you know, a lot of times they’ll say something like Sunday, or if they’re from a messianic mindset, maybe they even might say Saturday. But that’s not true. Every day should be the day of worship—the day we worship Yahweh—not just one day of the week. So keep that in mind, too.
But there are times people gathered together and times people worship that weren’t always the Sabbath. Israel, Yahweh’s people, they worshiped on many different days. The temple itself ran and functioned every single day without break. Seriously, that’s why they had the different courses of the priests because it went every single day, and people got together and went to the temple every single day. We looked at when we looked at the birth of Yeshua, and it talks about Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, being there and burning incense. And we looked at the information back in the Tanakh about the altar of incense, and that was burning morning and evening. So getting together at the temple, praying at the temple, making sacrifices at the temple—this is something that people did every single day. Temple ran every day. These sacrifices again were offered and were done morning and evening of every single day. People got together during those times. Prayer occurred throughout the day and people got together a lot of times to pray together.
Likewise, Christians nowadays may gather on any day of the week, not just one particular day. They did that back in the times of the apostles. We see in the book of Acts where it says that they got together and were breaking bread from house to house every single day, on a daily basis. Acts records gatherings on various occasions. Gathering on Sunday is not identical to declaring Sunday the Sabbath. So when you look at these passages and you see a group of people getting together, just because they get together does not automatically make that a Sunday worship church service. It doesn’t. That would be anachronistic to read that into these scriptures. That would be eisegetical to read that back into the scriptures. That’s egregious. The distinction here is definitely very crucial.
Notice that just because people get together, that doesn’t make it a worship service. And it doesn’t prove that whatever day they’re getting together on is the Sabbath because people got together all the time. Other times they got together for gathering times. One common misunderstanding is assuming that any religious gathering occurring on a particular day automatically establishes that day as a holy day. So just like getting together doesn’t make that day a Sabbath or the Sabbath, getting together on any particular day doesn’t make it a holy day. It doesn’t make it a moadem. What makes a day a moadem? What makes a particular day a moadem is what is commanded and set apart by Yahweh—not by us, not by a pope or a priest or a preacher or a reverend or anything like that. What makes the particular day in question a moadem is because Yahweh said so.
Hebrew life included gatherings throughout the week. We already discussed getting together with the temple in the morning and evening for the sacrifices and the incense and the prayers, et cetera. So once again, people got together throughout the week, not just one particular day of the week, not just the first day of the week, and not just the Sabbath day of the week. They got together almost every single day if they weren’t working or didn’t have anything else to do. There was synagogue gatherings. There was prayer times. We already went over that. There was festival assemblies. Now, think about that. Sometimes it does say to get together like when we go to Yom Teruah or Yom Kippur or Sukkot, Pesach—things like that. That is the recommended time to get together. So there’s other times, other than Sabbath, that people got together. There was temple services like we said earlier. There’s also study gatherings that they had even way back then. There was community meetings, obviously, for discussing various things of whether it be religious life or community life or national life, but they had community meetings just like we do nowadays.
The existence of a gathering does not automatically define that day as a Sabbath. Obviously, just because they get together, that does not mean that it’s a Sunday, that it’s a church service, that it’s a worship service, or anything like that. That would be completely eisegetical and anachronistic unless it says, “Hey, these people got together because it was the new day of the Sabbath and that’s why they got together, and they only ever got together on the Sabbath.” And you’re not going to find that. That’s not in scripture.
Acts 20:7
So now let’s go ahead and start with our first passage that I would like to bring up, and one of the things that I think is one of the most impactful passages that are put up by people who want to say that Sunday is the new Sabbath. And this is Acts 20 verse 7. The verse reads as such:
“And on day one of the week, the taught ones having gathered together to break bread, Shaul, or Paul, intending to depart the next day, was reasoning with them and was extending the word till midnight.”
Stop right there. This is all we’re going to look at right now. This is put forth a lot of times by Sunday proponents as saying this is an example of a church gathering, an example of how people were celebrating Sunday as the Sabbath instead of the seventh day as the Sabbath because it says here they got together on the day one of the week. They got together and they broke bread—this the Eucharist, right? And Paul was going to depart the next day on Monday. And they say that’s an example of showing how the early believers already were switching over to Sunday as the Sabbath. Lots of things wrong with that way of reasoning, and we’re going to flesh that out in more detail coming up. But first, keep in mind the whole issue of context.
So let’s read this in a greater context. Now looking at Acts 20 verses 1 through 2:
“After the uproar had ceased, Shaul called the taught ones to him and, having embraced them, went away to Macedonia. And having gone through those parts and having encouraged them with many words, he came to Greece, where he spent three months. When he was about to sail to Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia as a plot was made against him by the Yehudim. And he was accompanied by Sopater of Berea and Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians and Gaius of Derbe and Timothy and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. And these, going ahead, waited for us at Troas. And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread and came to them at Troas in five days where we stayed seven days. And on day one of the week, the taught ones having gathered together to break bread, Shaul, intending to depart the next day, was reasoning with them and was extending the word until midnight. And there were many lamps in the upper room where they were assembled. And a certain young man by name Eutychus was sitting in a window, being overpowered by a deep sleep. As Shaul kept on reasoning, he was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third story and was picked up dead. And Shaul, having gone down, fell on him and, embracing him, said, ‘Do not be upset, for his life is in him.’ Then, going up again and having broken bread and eaten, he talked a long while, even until daybreak, and so went forth. And they brought the young man in alive and were encouraged not a little.”
So hopefully that gives you a greater context to understand what exactly is going on here. So looking back all the way at verse one and then going all the way through to verse twelve, we see Paul and his traveling companions, which would also include Luke, who is the author—who is the commonly attributed author of the book of Acts. But anyways, Paul and his traveling companions are going from place to place. We go back and look here at verses one through six, and it says the various places he went through and the people he was traveling with him, and it really just makes reference as to where he was and then where he went to, and then who was with him. It doesn’t really set a precedent for much of anything. You can also see here it says that they sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread. Remember that as we go forward here. But hopefully this gives you a better context because now you start to see exactly what is going on when you don’t just take one verse out of context.
Now, one thing that could have been done is that this could have been put forth to establish a precedent for a new day of the Sabbath. The author could have described Paul as having had a first day meeting in each of the towns that are described, establishing an actual precedent, but he doesn’t. The main point relayed is the resurrection of Eutychus, showing that Paul was endowed with the spirit of the holy to work miracles. This emphasizes and illustrates Paul’s credentials as an apostle and also illustrates the spirit of the holy living within him, empowering him to do various miracles like resurrecting the dead. The same spirit of Yahweh that empowered others to perform miracles is evidenced in Paul through Paul resurrecting Eutychus—celebration of life over death, not a change in the Sabbath.
Notice that when it talks about each of these places that Paul went to, it doesn’t say that he met with them on the first day of the week and was teaching them how the Sabbath had been changed. No, it never mentions Paul doing anything on any particular day of the week until we get to Troas, and it just happened to be that particular day of the week. And the point of this whole passage—we just read it and you can see it a lot better when you look at it in context—the point is the resurrection of Eutychus. That’s the point, not a change in the Sabbath. And in fact, you start looking at getting really deep in the weeds and looking at some of the Greek grammar and Greek words here. The word, let me go back here in verse seven where it says that Shaul, intending to depart the next day, was reasoning with them. The word used there is a word to indicate and mean discourse—talking back and forth—not a sermon where you would just sit down, listen to somebody say something, and then go home. That’s not what it’s conveying here. That word used there is back and forth discourse, not a sermon. So again, more evidence that this is not saying that it’s a Sunday service that most people are used to nowadays.
And so that’s a bit of evidence there. But we’re going to go even deeper here. Again, realize that it does not say anything about what he did at the other places—just here. And that’s because Eutychus fell to his death. And think about the context here as well. These, looking into the academic reports that we had generated here, you can look and read those for yourself. But here in Troas, this building they were in was more like an apartment building that we’re used to now, where the lower class people would be confined or kind of packed in there against each other like they are now in apartment buildings, and the more wealthy people in the city would have a house all to themselves. But here they are on the third floor, and they don’t have electricity at this time. They’re using oil lamps and things like that for lights because it’s in the nighttime. It says he’s conversing and discussing with them until midnight. So they had to have these lights going on. There were many lamps in that particular room. So you’ve got carbon monoxide going as well. All these people crammed in there. It’s getting hot. They’ve probably tired at this point, especially Eutychus. So he’s got the physical exhaustion, he’s got the heat from everybody being in there, all that body heat and the carbon monoxide all together. And this makes him drowsy to where he falls out of the third story window. And then Paul goes and resurrects this young man. And that’s the point of this particular description in the book of Acts. It’s not a Sunday Sabbath change, nothing like that.
The author does mention something else though. The author does make sure to mention that they sailed to Troas after the days of unleavened bread. Obviously they were still keeping the feast—the feast of unleavened bread, or Pesach, whichever you want to call it—and not some new Easter resurrection memorial. This would have been a great time for the author, which is commonly attributed to Luke, and we have no reason to doubt that, to reference a new holiday to commemorate the resurrection. But he doesn’t do that whatsoever. There is no mention of a resurrection Sunday, no mention of a resurrection Easter, nothing like that. But they do mention unleavened bread. So keep that in mind.
But now considering the Sabbath, there is nothing in this passage about rest or worship. Now believe me, read it in your own translation or go back in these slides and look at it for yourself. Nothing in here that is about rest or worship. And what is the number one thing ascribed to the Sabbath in scripture? Rest. Day of rest. There’s nothing in here about rest or worship. Now it does say on day one of the week, and the Greek there is meta sabbaton—the first of the Sabbath, or first day after the Sabbath. And that was a common way for people back then to reference the first day of the week. What we would now call Sunday, if you’re in a more modern Gregorian calendar adhering kind of culture like we are here in America, it would be Sunday. But yeah, meta sabbaton was a way to reference the first day of the week. So that is true—it does say first day of the week—but it wasn’t about a Sabbath gathering. It wasn’t about a new day for the Sabbath or anything like that, or that the Sabbath been done away with. No, it’s just referencing the first day of the week.
Now, also keep in mind, too, that scripture itself delineates a day as starting at sunset. Goes from sunset to sunset according to the Bible. So what’s going on here is that when it got dark, that is the time frame that Acts 20:7 is referencing here—Paul got together with all these other people in Troas in the evening, at dark, and was preaching until midnight. Then he was going to be leaving and did leave on the next morning. So think about this. If Sunday was the actual new day of rest according to the theory put forth by some people, then why in the world would Paul go and do this teaching and this conversing back and forth with people on Saturday evening and then leave on a day and make this big long journey—big long, strenuous, dangerous journey—on what’s now supposed to be the new day of rest?
See, that doesn’t line up either. So again, this is not about a change in the Sabbath. Another thing: we took some various verses here around Acts 20:7 into context, but let’s take the entire book of Acts into context as well as we think about this particular subject. Luke in the first five chapters of Acts makes many, many different references to the Tanakh and also quotes from the Tanakh, illustrating where our faith came from and also continuity from what came before. And what came before was the Torah, and that included Shabbat. Then in chapter six, Luke makes sure to mention and detail the martyrdom of Stephen, who was the first martyr of the faith, to state that it was false witnesses that stated Stephen, and by extension Yeshua and the rest of the apostles, had done away with the Torah.
So let’s just take a moment real quick to read that. Acts 6:13-14:
“And they set up false witnesses who said, ‘This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this set-apart place and the Torah. For we have heard him saying that this Yeshua of Nazareth shall overthrow this place and change the institutes which Moses delivered unto us.'”
Okay, so let’s break this down real quick to see what’s going on here in Acts 6:13 and 14. It says specifically that they set up false witnesses. Stop right there for a moment. What is a false witness? It’s a liar. Plain and simple. A liar. So these Jews, they set up liars who then came and said, “This man, Steven, does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this set-apart place and the Torah.” This is what the liars are saying about Stephen and Yeshua and the apostles and everyone connected like that. These liars are saying that they are speaking against the Torah. They even say that they heard Yeshua and others say that he shall overthrow this place, in the temple, and they also said they heard Yeshua say that he was going to change the institutes which Moses delivered unto us. This is what the liars are saying.
So therefore, we know it’s the exact opposite of what they are saying. They’re saying that Steven and Yeshua and Paul and Luke, et cetera, are going against the Torah. And if liars are saying that, then we know for a fact that Paul and Yeshua and Luke, et cetera, were for the Torah. And there’s more evidence than just this. What is also included in the Torah? The seventh day Sabbath. So when we get to this point, Paul also proved his intentions and how he felt about the Torah as well in Acts 21:18-24. We’ll look at that in just a moment. Again, in the first five chapters of Acts, the sixth chapter of Acts, the twentieth chapter, and the twenty-first chapter, and all the chapters of Acts are attributed to Luke. And we see in the first five chapters that Luke is quoting from and referencing various passages from the Tanakh. We see that Luke is telling us that it was liars that said that Steven and the early believers were against the Torah. We also see, we’re going to read here in just a moment, that Paul proved himself to be Torah obedient. We see Luke describing and telling us all this. So why now in Acts chapter twenty would Luke then try to insinuate a change in the Sabbath or the Torah when he spent all this time showing that he was pro-Torah, pro-seventh day Sabbath? And then why is it just in chapter twenty that now Luke is a Sunday Sabbath keeper? It makes zero sense, and it’s more evidence as to why this is absolutely false and how Acts 20:7 does not show a change in the Sabbath for the believers.
Now addressing Paul, let’s look at that real quick. Acts 21:18-24:
“And on the following day, Shaul went in with us to James. And all the elders came. And having greeted them, he was relating one by one what Elohim had done among the nations through his service. And when they heard it, they praised the Master. And they said to him, ‘You see, brother, how many thousands of Yehudim there are who have believed and are all ardent for the Torah. But they have been informed about you that you teach all the Yehudim who are among the nations to forsake Moses, saying not to circumcise the children, nor to walk according to the practices. What then is it? They shall certainly hear that you have come. So do this, what we say to you. We have four men who have taken a vow. Take them and be cleansed with them and pay their expenses so that they shave their heads, and all shall know that what they have been informed about you is not so, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the Torah.'”
So what was going around about Steven was also going around about Paul. There were liars saying that Paul taught against circumcision, saying not to circumcise your children. There were liars saying that Paul taught against the Torah, to forsake the practices of the Torah that they had been raised with and had known all their lives. But they said to Paul, these elders, they said to Paul, “We want you to prove that this is not so. Go do this vow and prove that you yourself keep the Torah.” And what did Paul do? Paul took that Nazirite vow and proved that he did keep the Torah. This is the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul. And he’s proven that he’s setting the example of keeping the Torah, even to the Gentiles, who he’s hoping will come into the faith instead of continuing to be Gentile.
So take that into your thought process as you consider this particular passage of Acts 20:7.
Day Of Resurrection
One of the biggest things that is put forth a lot of times, and we saw this especially when we looked at the history of the early church and the change of the Sabbath day, is that people like Justin Martyr, et cetera, put forth the day of the resurrection as proof for the change in the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day. They say that because Yeshua arose on the first day, therefore the first day of the week is now the new Sabbath because it’s the beginning of the new creation and various sophistry like that. But is that true? Let’s look at four different passages, one from each of the gospels. Matthew 28:1:
“But late in the Sabbath, as it was drawing, dawning into day one of the week, Miriam from Magdala and the other Miriam came to see the tomb.”
Then we go on to Mark 16:2:
“And very early on day one of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen.”
Then in Luke 24:1:
“But on day one of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.”
And finally, John 20:1:
“And on day one of the week, Miriam from Magdala came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.”
Now we’re going to take each one of these and break them down into even further depth. So hang on with us if it doesn’t make sense right now. But it’s an established fact that Yeshua was first noticed—not resurrected, but first noticed as being resurrected—on the first day of the week. If you looked at or saw any of our teachings on Passover or Easter, you know that he did not resurrect on the first day of the week, not what we would call the first day of the week, but rather at sunset immediately after the Sabbath day—the seventh day of the week, what we call Saturday. But according to biblical reckoning, it would be the beginning of the first day of the week. Anyways, that’s getting really nerdy and specific, but I think it does bear repeating.
The way that many Christians or mainstream churchianity sees it nowadays, as far as this argument is put forth, is the way they reason is this: Creation was completed on the seventh day—the original creation. Redemption was completed in Christ. We’ve already discussed this a little bit earlier. Christ rose on the first day. So they believe. Therefore, the first day became the Sabbath. But that is faulty reasoning for several different reasons. This reasoning has been influential in many different traditions, and you could probably think of some on your own right now. We examined some of those as we went through the Reformation period and also the early church history and stuff like that. But we have to ask ourselves whether this connection, whether this type of reasoning, is actually made by scripture itself. The question is not which day the resurrection occurred—not in this particular study—but rather the question is whether the scriptures presents that as a change in the fourth commandment, as a change in the Sabbath commandment. That’s the actual question that we need to keep in mind.
So now let’s look at Matthew 28:1:
“But late in the Sabbath, as it was dawning into day one of the week, Miriam from Magdala and the other Miriam came to see the tomb.”
That’s how it’s rendered or translated in the Scriptures 2009 translation, which we commonly use here at God Honest Truth. Other translations such as the ESV, the King James, the LSB, and the TLV say “after the Sabbath.” And this is very interesting once you start to think about it. The resurrection, as we stated earlier, or at least as far as we can tell, happened after the Sabbath had ended, so after sunset, and probably right after sunset. Matthew does not say that the Sabbath was moved, altered, or replaced. Rather, he distinguishes between both the Sabbath and the first day of the week. And this is important because this is even after the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua. Matthew in his gospel is still making a distinction between the Sabbath day and the first day. He’s not making them one. He’s not saying that the first day is now the new Sabbath. Nothing like that. He’s making a sharp, clear distinction between the Sabbath and the first day.
Right there—look at it yourself. If Matthew intended to teach that the first day had become the Sabbath, though, one would expect some indication that the two days were now identified with each other. Instead, Matthew keeps them as distinct categories in the Gospel of Matthew. Very important to realize here. So Matthew obviously did not get the memo that the Sabbath had been changed. That’s the resurrection narrative from, or the resurrection argument from, the book of Matthew. Going on, looking at Mark 16 verses 1 and 2:
“And when the Sabbath was passed, Miriam from Magdala and Miriam the mother of James and Salome brought spices, bought spices, to go and anoint him. And very early on day one of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen.”
Once again, this—the book of Mark, the Gospel of Mark—is making a clear distinction between the Sabbath and the first day of the week. Again, it’s saying that the Sabbath was already gone and passed. It was over. Then they go into the first day of the week, thereby indicating that they did not think of Sunday or the first day of the week as the new Sabbath. Just like with Matthew, Mark did not get the memo that the Sabbath had been changed, for whatever reason. And one more thing, too: when we looked at the elementary matters back in the beginning of this particular teaching, we wanted to distinguish between prescriptive and descriptive passages. This is a descriptive passage. It’s not giving us any commands. It’s not telling us how to do something, when to do something, why to do something—anything like that. It’s just describing something. So this is a descriptive passage. All of these resurrection passages—they are descriptive, not prescriptive—not prescribing a new day of Sabbath.
Then going on, looking at Luke 23:55 through chapter 24 verse 1. This really gets it, really hits hard. We’ll say that. Luke 23:55 through 24:1:
“And the women who had come with him from Galilee followed after and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. And having returned, they prepared spices and perfumes, and they rested on the Sabbath according to the command. But on day one of the week at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.”
This is according to the Scriptures 2009 translation. Once again, notice—yet again—that this author Luke, who is also attributed with the book of Acts, he’s also making a clear and definite distinction between the Sabbath and the first day of the week. But he goes even further in his description of the resurrection narrative. He says that these women who had the mission or the intent of embalming and spicing and perfuming Yeshua’s body—they were going to do that. But then the Sabbath came up, and what does Luke say about these women? He says that they rested according to the command. So if you’re someone who says that the law has been done away with, that the Sabbath has been changed or done away with, exactly at which point did that occur? Because it’s not here. Because these women, as Luke says, rested according to the command. So they were still under the impression that the Sabbath was still in effect, was still ongoing, and they rested according to the command for the Sabbath. And then once the Sabbath was over, then they came to the tomb to anoint Yeshua’s body. Very, very powerful.
All these authors know that the resurrection occurred on the first day of the week—not Sunday, but on the first day of the week—and they make clear distinctions between the Sabbath and the first day of the week. These women knew that the Sabbath was still in effect, and they rested the way Yahweh told them to rest. They put off what can only guess was a very distressing time and very distressing job for them—to go anoint and oil and perfume the deceased body of Yeshua. But they still put it off for another day because of the Sabbath. Even though, you know, the way things normally go, the longer you wait, the more rot and stink stuff creeps in, and they could have said, “Oh, well, we don’t want it to stink so bad, so we’re just going to go do it on the Sabbath.” No, they rested on the seventh day according to the commandment.
So yeah, they were still under the impression that the Sabbath had not been changed, just like Luke and Mark and Matthew. Luke’s gospel is also important because of the broader context as well. We discussed earlier that the book of Acts is commonly attributed to Luke as being the author as well. But there are several observations to make here. Luke calls the seventh day the Sabbath, as do all the gospel authors. He connects it to the commandment, as we saw there when describing the ladies keeping the commandment for the Sabbath. And when that was a clear reference to the Sabbath commandment—after mentioning the Sabbath, Luke then speaks of the first day of the week, making a clear distinction, just like Mark and Matthew did. He does not identify the first day as the Sabbath. He mentions the Sabbath, and then he mentions the first day. Luke is most commonly attributed as being the author of Acts and also one of Paul’s traveling companions. So he got to know Paul very, very well. And if Paul had done something against the Torah, if Paul had tried to change one of the commands of Yahweh, probably definitely would have heard it from Luke, if not one of the other authors of the Brit Hadasha.
So now let’s go ahead and look at John chapter 20 verse 1:
“And on day one of the week, Miriam from Magdala came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.”
Once again, John himself still doesn’t equate the first day of the week with the Sabbath. And John has no problem using that word Sabbath. In fact, John himself is the one who states that Passover in John 19:31 he states that Passover is a high day, a high Sabbath. But he doesn’t use the word Sabbath here. He uses “first day of the week.” Again, making a clear distinction between the seventh day Sabbath and the first day.
THE FACTS OF THE SABBATH AND SUNDAY IN SCRIPTURE
We’ve already looked at the resurrection accounts from the four different gospels, but the facts of the Sabbath and Sunday in the scriptures are as such. There is no evidence whatsoever that anyone in scripture regularly kept the first day as a remembrance of the resurrection either on a weekly basis, a monthly basis, a yearly basis, or even as an irregular event. So no keeping the first day of the week as a memorial of the resurrection. There was no monthly commemoration of the resurrection. There was no yearly commemoration of the resurrection that we find in scripture anywhere. Nowhere. Now the resurrection is important because Paul himself tells us that we are not saved if Christ did not arise—that is important—and that we will not be resurrected ourselves if Christ was not the first to be resurrected. So the resurrection is important, but no one in scripture ever commemorated the resurrection either on a weekly, monthly, yearly, or irregular basis whatsoever. That’s just the God honest truth.
Now is it wrong to commemorate the resurrection? No. No. I don’t see anything wrong with commemorating that. But it’s not commanded, and it’s not exemplified or illustrated for us in scripture. And that is the point. Yeshua’s resurrection validated his identity as Messiah. It did not abolish the law. It did not abolish the Sabbath. And it did not abolish the timing of his Father’s set-apart days, including the moadeem and the Sabbath.
THIRD DAY THEME
Jonah and the whale. Esther and preparing for the king. You know what do they have in common? Three days. It says that Esther fasted and prayed for three days. That Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. None of these have to do with a certain day of the week. Go back and read those particular stories. And there’s nothing in there about making important a particular day of the week. It was all just three days. They all had to deal with a certain amount of time. In Yeshua’s case, it was prophecy that had to be fulfilled in order to remain true according to the number of days, not the day of the week.
The third day in scripture is a theme that goes more than just Yeshua in the tomb. There are several other places in scripture that utilize this three days kind of theme. We have Genesis 22:4 with Abraham. We have Exodus 19:10-16. Oh, here we go. Jonah 1:17. There’s never a prophecy about which day of the week that Yeshua would rise—only about how many days he would spend in the tomb before he rose. Yeshua says that himself, and I’ll show you here in just a moment.
There’s never any importance placed on which day of the week, just that it would be on the third day. Now here’s some really powerful stuff that I’m going to show you and offload onto you. There’s a lot coming your way. I’m not going to read it out to you. So just write down the verses or go back and look at these slides yourself. But here, the third day is referenced by Yeshua, number one, as a sign of Jonah. In Jonah 1:17, it says specifically that he was in the stomach of the great fish for three days and three nights. That’s the sign of Jonah that Yeshua speaks about. And he specifically prophesies about this in Matthew 12:40, Matthew 16:21, Luke 11:29-30—three days and three nights as the sign of Jonah. Yeshua prophesies about his death, and this includes not a day of the week, but three days.
The day of the week is irrelevant. It’s the number of days between his death and his resurrection. That’s what’s always emphasized—the number of days. And he always uses three days or third day when he prophesies about his death. In Matthew chapter 16:21, Matthew 17:22-23, Matthew 20:18-19, Mark 8:31, Mark 9:31, Mark 10:34, Luke 9:22, Luke 18:33, John 2:19. And that’s just Yeshua talking about the time that he will be in the tomb between his death and his resurrection. It’s always “in three days” or “on the third day.” It’s always the number of days, not the particular day of the week. This goes on even after the resurrection by Paul, et cetera. These post-resurrection witnesses say the exact same thing in regards to the number of days, not the day of the week.
Here we look in Luke 24:6-7, the third day. Luke 24:21, the third day. Luke 24:46, the third day. Acts 10:40, the third day. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, again the third day. Never—not one single verse—ever emphasizes that it’s the day of the week that’s important. No, they always emphasize the number of days between his death and his resurrection. That’s what they always emphasize. When the apostles and early believers teach the resurrection of Yeshua in the rest of the scriptures, such as in Acts or the epistles, they never specify that Yeshua arose on the first day of the week. No, they always say that he arose three days after his death, that he arose on the third day. Never, not once, do they ever say that he rose on the first day of the week. You only find that in the gospel accounts describing the resurrection. That’s it.
PROBLEMS WITH THE RESURRECTION ARGUMENT
So there are some problems with trying to use the resurrection to justify Sunday as the Sabbath. And the problems with the argument, or this type of reasoning, go as such. No passage explicitly says the Sabbath was changed. You do not ever find that in scripture stated explicitly. It’s only read back into scripture. The resurrection narratives continue to distinguish the Sabbath day from the first day. And we saw that with our own eyes, actually. Luke 23:56 still calls the seventh day the Sabbath according to the commandment. The apostles nor anyone else in scripture ever record a command to keep Sunday as the Sabbath. The argument relies largely on theological inference rather than explicit biblical legislation.
So if the resurrection has nothing to do about the Sabbath or a change in the Sabbath, does it have to do with anything at all? Well, actually, yes, it does. And there is a proper and correct connection to make here with the resurrection. And it has nothing to do with the Sabbath. In fact, it has to do with the day of first fruits. Perhaps the strongest biblical connection with the resurrection and Sunday is not found in the fourth commandment, but in the feast of first fruits. The text does not exegetically teach that first fruits replaces the Sabbath or that Sunday became the fourth commandment or that weekly Sabbath observance moves to Sunday. Instead, the resurrection fulfills a festival, a moadem, that already points toward Messiah. Confusing the feast of first fruits with the weekly Sabbath mixes two separate and distinct moadeem. The resurrection argument should be understood primarily as a theological inference, an exercise in eisegesis and confirmation bias, rather than an explicit biblical declaration. And you should be able to see that by now. Do your own research, but again, you’ll never find something in scripture that says “let go of the seventh day and observe first day instead.”
1 Corinthians 16:2
So again, let’s go ahead and move on to another argument that’s commonly put forth for Sunday as the Sabbath. And this is 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verse 2. And the passage goes as such:
“Every day one of the week, let each one of you set aside storing up whatever he has prospered so that there are no collections when I come.”
This is commonly put forth as evidence for a Sunday Sabbath because they say that okay, it references the first day of the week. There is Christian activity. There is financial practice and there’s apostolic instruction. This must be a church tithe that is being taken up like we know of today. But that’s anachronistic reasoning, and it’s false. What Paul is describing here—think to yourself—is it a weekly gathering? A weekly worship gathering. Is it a private household practice? Is it a preparation for a future collection? Is it a replacement of the Sabbath or some combination or something completely different?
Well, like we told you at the beginning, context illuminates a lot of these passages when you take things into greater context. So let’s do that. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verses 1 through 3:
“And concerning the collections for the set-apart ones, you are to do as I gave orders to the assemblies of Galatia. Every day one of the week, let each one of you set aside, storing up whatever he has prospered, so that there are no collections when I come. And when I come, whomever you approve by your letters, I shall send to bear your gift to Jerusalem.”
Okay. So does that make any difference to understanding verse two? Well, hopefully it should. Number one, it says they are taking a collection for the saints, a collection for the set-apart ones. It’s not a weekly tithe like we’re used to now. This is a special one-time thing that’s going to the needy in Jerusalem. And it also says “each one of you”—this is not a collective public assembly type language here. It’s a personal private kind of language here: “each one of you set aside.” So keep that in mind as we go further.
But regarding this collection for the set-apart ones, let’s look at that real quick. This collection that is actually mentioned here in chapter 16 was not an ordinary offering—not a weekly every week kind of church tithe that we think of nowadays in modern churchianity kind of settings. No, this was not an ordinary offering. It’s not a weekly tithe like we’re used to in modern churchianity settings. This was a special one-off kind of collection that Paul was intending to do here. And it was not going to their local church or their local assembly, their local gathering. Instead, it was going from Corinth to Jerusalem. So that makes it different as well. This is not a church tithe that we’re talking about here. It was a special collection for the believers in Jerusalem because at this time, as far as I can find out, there was a famine going on in Jerusalem. So they were taking up a collection to send this money down to Jerusalem to buy food for the brothers and sisters in the faith to help them out.
We find in Romans 15:25-27:
“But now I am going to Jerusalem to serve the set-apart ones. For it pleased those from Macedonia and Achaia to make some contribution for the poor among the set-apart ones who are in Jerusalem. For they were pleased and they are their debtors. For if the nations have shared in their spiritual matters, their duty is also to serve them in material matters.”
So what’s going on here is that these believers in this congregation in Corinth and also other places that Paul had established were taking up a special donation, a special collection, to help feed the poor down in Jerusalem who were going through a famine. And this was very important—not only because we should help our brothers and sisters out, but also think about this time in history as well. They were just coming into the idea of not only having Judeans in the faith but also those who were not of ethnic descent from Israel, like the Judeans were—the Gentiles who were coming into the faith. So these Gentiles in Corinth were being asked to donate money to help feed the Judeans in Jerusalem. And how big of an impact would that have made back then if you’re a Jew or Judean and you’re seeing this money come in from Gentiles, or former Gentiles, to help feed you as a brotherly act of love? How would that change your opinion towards Gentiles coming into the faith? I mean, think about that. This was more than just helping people who need help. I mean, that’s important as well, but it’s also starting to bridge that cultural divide between those who were formerly Gentiles and those who were formerly of the Jewish religion.
There’s multiple aspects going on here, but that’s what the offering is for. It’s not a weekly church tithe that we think of nowadays. This passage in 1 Corinthians 16:2, like I mentioned earlier, is not a public matter. It’s actually a private matter. When you get into the weeds on the Greek language, or the Greek words and the grammar that’s going on here, again, it says here in 16:2: “Every day one of the week let each one of you set aside storing up what he has prospered.” This phrase right here—”let each one of you set aside”—when you look at it in the Greek, actually indicates something as personal and private, at home, and not a public congregational setting.
This gets really geeky here, but you can look and go look at this for yourself in the Blue Letter Bible and it will show you each of the tenses and it’ll actually describe it for you and everything else. And that’s what I copied for your benefit. I put it up here just straight copy from Blue Letter Bible. But “let each one of you set aside”—para, which is a preposition, then hautou, which is a reflexive pronoun of the third person dative singular masculine. Don’t worry about the rest of that stuff, but the singular part is definitely important here. Then you got ephoti, which is a verb, which is also a present active imperative third person singular verb.
So basically, what Paul is saying here is that let each one of you by himself in his own house set aside money or this collection. He is not saying pass around the offering plate at church every Sunday. That’s not it. This is a private personal matter, not a public assembly kind of context. Hopefully that clears it up a little bit more. Again, go and do your own research, study further into this. Go into the Blue Letter Bible here, go into your lexicons and your dictionaries and search this out for yourself. This is not a collective kind of context. This is a personal kind of context. And it’s only for a temporal collection, not an everyday or every week ongoing kind of thing.
WHY THIS REASONING IS WRONG
So, let me rephrase that. Here is some more on why this passage and this reasoning from 16:2 is wrong or incorrect. Number one, the proponents of Sunday as Sabbath, those who think that the Sabbath has been changed to Sunday, they put forth their reasoning sort of in this kind of fashion. They say that Paul mentions the first day, Sunday, right? He discusses giving—wink wink. Giving occurs in worship every Sunday at my church, right? So it only makes sense that therefore Paul was referencing Sunday as the new worship day, the new Sabbath. There’s all kinds of things wrong with that.
Number one, it’s anachronistic to begin with because just because you do something now doesn’t mean that’s how they did it back then. You have to look into how things were done back then, how it comes out of scripture, and not read into it. So not only is it anachronistic, but it’s also wrong on other things as well. Number one, it does not say this is a forever kind of thing. It’s only going to be temporary, actually. And number two, it’s not the day of worship. The Sabbath is not the day of worship. As we looked at earlier, every day should be the day of worship. The Sabbath is the day of rest. And there is nothing in 1 Corinthians 16:2 about rest, which would definitely distinguish it in some sort of Sabbath context. Again, this thinking about how you do it now at your particular church on Sunday and then reading that back in—that is anachronistic, and that actually contributes to it being a type of circular reasoning as well. So it’s faulty on those things also.
The text does not say believers were gathered. It does not say that. It references a private personal situation, not a collective congregational kind of setting. It does not say that worship occurred here in 1 Corinthians 16—not verse two, not verses one or three either. We looked at it in context. It does not say a teaching or a sermon occurred here in 16:2. It does not say that communion occurred either in this passage. So again, saying that this passage points to Sunday as being the new Sabbath—yeah, it does not do that. Not at all. It’s not even describing the believers as having belief that Sunday is the Sabbath. Nothing like that. So like the other passages we looked at, 1 Corinthians 16:2 does not indicate a change in the day of Sabbath.
So that’s the passages I thought were the top ones, anyways, at least in my opinion. We’ll get into some more next time.
Closing Thoughts
But just my closing thoughts for this particular episode. Number one, the silence on the change in the Sabbath in the scriptures is deafening. The silence can be deafening. And this is one of those instances. Given the absence of any such statement on the Sabbath—such as “the first day Sabbath”—you have not heard it that said, “Thou shalt keep the seventh day of Sabbath, but I tell you to keep the first day.” Or, “No longer keep the seventh day, but rather keep thou the first day.” Or, “Yeshua overcame the death and the grave and also overcame the command of the Sabbath.” Or you don’t find this either. You don’t find this quote: “The first day is now the Sabbath” or “Remember the first day to keep it holy” or “The fourth commandment has been transferred to Sunday” or “Sunday shall now be the sign between God and thee” or “Because Christ rose on the first day, believers must now keep Sunday as a Sabbath.”
You don’t find any of those statements in scripture. Not directly or even indirectly. None of that. When it comes to a change in the day of the week for the Sabbath, the silence is absolutely deafening. Any passage put forth as evidence for a change in Sabbath requires one to really eisegete a command for Sunday observance. In other words, to read it back into the passage that you are putting forth because you cannot draw that kind of command or inference out of scripture. You can only read it back into scripture.
Such a proclamation of a change in the day for the Sabbath would have been extraordinarily controversial in the Jewish world and would likely have generated major recorded disputes. The New Testament records many controversies, but no explicit controversy over an apostolic announcement changing the Sabbath day. Also, keep this in mind, too. Think about this. When the Pharisees and the Sadducees were seeking a way or a reason to kill Yeshua, if Yeshua had actually broken observance of the Sabbath or if Yeshua had actually said that the Sabbath had been changed, that would have been violation of the Torah. And when it comes to the Sabbath day, what is the penalty for breaking the Sabbath? It’s death. So if Yeshua had actually changed the Sabbath day or broken the Sabbath in his observance, they would have had a foolproof reason to kill him. But they never bring that as a charge against Yeshua. So keep that in your thoughts as well when you go through this particular subject of the Sabbath and whether or not scripture has changed it to Sunday.
ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE
Considering how controversial such a declaration about the change in the day of the week for the Sabbath would have been, its absence, its silence, is definitely noteworthy. Silence alone cannot prove a doctrine false. This is called the argument from silence. But sometimes it can illuminate stuff and can be beneficial and used in a positive light. When silence is there where one expects repeated explanation, it does deserve consideration. If such a doctrinal transition—such as the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day—if that had actually occurred, one would expect Yeshua or the apostles to explain it carefully and in no short order.
The apostles, as we see in the scriptures, they repeatedly proclaim the death of Christ, the resurrection, repentance for sins, the forgiveness of sins, the faith, the coming kingdom. But never a change in the Sabbath, though their sermons consistently emphasize that Yeshua brings salvation, repentance, the gospel, et cetera. But rather than a change in sacred time, they never say that the Sabbath has been changed. They never say that the Passover has been changed or Sukkot or et cetera. They don’t state anything about a change in the times for the moadeem, including the Sabbath. That’s not their mission. That’s not what they preach. They preach the death of Christ. They preach the resurrection. They preach the gospel, et cetera. Never a change in the Sabbath, though.
In fact, one important distinction to make, too, is that we looked at the early church history—the first five hundred years or so—we saw that one of the reasons that the early believers tried to make a change in the Sabbath or try to rationalize a change in the Sabbath was because they said the Sabbath was the Jewish Sabbath. Remember, Justin Martyr said that the Sabbath was instituted as a punishment for the Jews’ transgressions. And even nowadays, that same false thinking about how the Sabbath is the Jewish Sabbath continues. That’s not what scripture says. Scripture does not call the Sabbath the Jewish Sabbath. The appointed times, including the Sabbath of Yahweh, are listed in Leviticus 23. You can go look at this for yourself.
These were not merely cultural celebrations that were assigned to one specific tribe that descended from Judah—wink wink. These were presented as divine appointments from Yahweh himself. They’re called Yahweh’s moadeem, Yahweh’s Passover, Yahweh’s Sabbath, et cetera. Leviticus 23:2 states as such:
“The feasts or moadeem of the Lord, the feast of Yahweh, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations. These are my appointed feast, not the Jewish feast. These are Yahweh’s appointed feast.”
And then goes on to list these particular and specific moadeem, including the Sabbath. The list goes as such in Leviticus 23: The Sabbath, number one. Passover. Unleavened bread. First fruits. Weeks, or Shavuot. Trumpets, or Yom Teruah. Atonement, or Yom Kippur. And Tabernacles, or Sukkot. These are listed as Yahweh’s feast, not Jewish feast. That’s scriptural. Can’t get around that.
Summary
So now in summary, Acts 20:7 does not describe a change in the day for the Sabbath. We looked at the ins and outs of that in great detail, and there’s a lot more detail in the information we provide for you on the article post as well. Acts 20:7 focuses on apostolic authority and miracles and is descriptive, not prescriptive. There is nothing in Acts 20:7 about rest or worship. Or let me go one step further—I didn’t mention this earlier—but Acts 20:7 does not mention anything about that being a regular, weekly, daily, monthly, yearly, any kind of regular meeting. It was just a one-off thing to say goodbye to Paul before he left Troas.
Both Luke and Paul emphasized their obedience to the Torah, including the Sabbath. We saw those verses there, too. The resurrection is no justification for a change in the day of the Sabbath. The apostles, disciples, nor the believers in the Brit Hadasha taught that the Sabbath had changed to the first day due to the resurrection. The resurrection is always emphasized around three days, never to a specific day of the week. The resurrection is connected to the feast of first fruits, not the Sabbath.
1 Corinthians 16:2 concerns a private personal setting, setting aside of funds for the needy, not a change in the Sabbath. To state that the Sabbath has changed to Sunday or that the Sabbath is done away with violates several hermeneutical principles. To state that the Sabbath has changed to Sunday or that the Sabbath is done away with contradicts sola scriptura as well. To state that the Sabbath has changed to Sunday or that the Sabbath is done away with is an exercise in eisegesis and is fallacious.
Context generally illuminates the fallacy that the Sabbath has changed to Sunday or that the Sabbath is done away with when examining the passages that are used. The Sabbath has not been done away with, and the Sabbath has not changed to Sunday. And that’s just the God honest truth.
So, thank you for joining us for this episode in our Sabbath series, examining just a few of the passages that are put forth to put forth this idea that the Sabbath has changed to Sunday. We’re going to be examining more in our next episode, but these are the top ones that I thought were either the most convincing to the greatest majority of people or most commonly used, or something like that. But we’ll be examining some more coming up in our next episode.
If you have any that you would like to see examined, then please make sure to suggest those either in the chat box or in the comment section down below. Also, make sure you go down below and let us know what you thought of this particular video. If there’s anything that stuck out in your mind, let us know what stuck out. If you liked it, then make sure you hit that thumbs up button. If you didn’t like it, hit that down vote button, but let us know so that we can improve future videos. Make sure you also hit that subscribe button and ring the bell so that you’re notified every time that we go live or upload a new on demand video.
And hit that share button and share this around with someone that you may know. And also before we leave, oh, don’t forget to go down below in the description and click on that link that’ll take you directly to the article post on our website where you’ll be able to find the on demand video. You’ll be able to find the drawing slides that you can go through at your own pace. You’ll also be able to find the AI generated research reports as well as the notes that we personally took and have provided for you. And you’ll also be able to find the transcription as well, if that is of benefit to you.
Thank you for joining us for another production from God Honest Truth Ministries. We really do appreciate your time and hope that we have been of service to you. If you have any feedback, then please reach out to us by writing to team at godhonesttruth.com and make sure to visit our website for more information on our social media links, audio Bibles, teaching resources, and so much more.
