Question I’m searching for a certain denomination and was hoping that by contacting you, you could help me in my search. This denomination or church will need to have God’s law, the Ten Commandments, and the second coming of Jesus as the basis for their beliefs.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Jesus write the following Ten Commandments with His own finger and give them to Moses and the Children of Israel?
1) Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
4) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
5) Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
6) Thou shalt not kill.
7) Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8) Thou shalt not steal.
9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's
Some people have mentioned to me that this is the Jewish Law and does not apply to Christians in general. What do you think? After creating the first man and woman, Adam and Eve kept the Sabbath holy with Jesus. Adam and Eve were not Jewish. Do you think that God was only applying these Ten Commandments to one certain group of people or to all people?
I have found in Genesis that when God created the earth, He created something on every day and then on the seventh day, He created the Sabbath. Also found that Jesus worshiped on His Sabbath day. His disciples worshiped on the Sabbath day. John 14:15 says “If you love me, keep my commandments”. Revelation 14:12 says, “Here is the patience of the saints, here are they that keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus”. It seems to me that these two texts, which both are found in the New Testament, point back to the law, the Ten Commandments, which God gave to the Children of Israel at Mount Sinai. God did not just give these Ten Commandments to the Jews, but to the whole world.
I understand that Jesus was raised from the grave on the first day of the week. This event, in itself, is very important and has great meaning to the salvation of mankind, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that Jesus changed the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day because of His resurrection. Matthew 5:18 says “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled”.
When God made the Sabbath on the seventh day, He blessed and hallowed it (to make holy). As I see in the Scriptures, nowhere does God bless and hallow the first day of the week because of His resurrection. As I can see, the disciples were meeting on the first day of the week sometimes just like we meet in church in the middle of the week for prayer meeting.
Man has no right to change God’s commandment’s to meet his/her needs or wants. God is infinite and eternal. Man is sinful and mortal. It seems like the Sabbath has been changed by man and not by God. Why should a God who “changes not” change His own commandments. Is it better to obey God or to obey man?
Why do most denominations, Baptists included, worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, and not on Saturday, the seventh day of the week which God has pointed out as the Sabbath?
God wrote His commandment’s in stone so that man would know that they do not change just as God Himself does not change.
Why does it seem like that the only commandment that people don’t keep is the one that starts with the word “Remember”?
I’ve seen other versions of the fourth commandment which only say, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”. Man changes it to fit his needs. The full text is as above and was given by God Himself. The text points out that the seventh day is the Sabbath.
A person told me once, who really knows what day is the seventh day. God made the seven day week and I believe that He has kept a meticulous eye on the days of the week and that Saturday, the seventh day, is the Sabbath.
Do you worship on the Bible Sabbath? If not, I would like to ask why not and do you think that the Ten Commandments, God’s Law, are still prevalent today.
I am again looking for a church that worships God and follows all Ten Commandments. I would like to have your input in this matter.
Sincerely,
Craig E. Latham
Answer In the early centuries, Christians everywhere worshipped on Sunday. We know that from Christian writers who described ancient worship, such as Justin Martyr, who died in 157. All ancient churches, from Gaul to Armenia, had their main worship service on Sunday.
Why did ancient Christians worship on Sunday?
Sunday was the universal day of Christian worship because it is the day of the Resurrection, the day after the Sabbath, and the Feast of Firstfruits—which is why Paul calls Jesus’ resurrection the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20). Since it is the first day of the week, it is also the eighth day of the previous week, the day of the new creation (the allusion in 2 Corinthians 5:17).
The Sabbath commandment does not require worship, it prohibits work. Worship can occur on any day. The synagogue originated during the Babylonian Captivity, not as a place of worship, but as an school to preserve their heritage and their religion in a foreign land.
In the first century, many Christians, both Jews and gentile “God-fearers,” continued to attend synagogue instruction on the Sabbath and then attended Christian worship on Sunday. Since the Roman week was ten days long at the time, Sunday didn’t always fall on the Roman weekend, so services were held before sunrise. In the 90s, the rabbis excommunicated the Christians and inserted wording into the synagogue liturgy that would make Christians very uncomfortable, even if they did attend. So we were left with just Sunday.
When Christianity became dominant in an area, it was common for larger churches to hold worship services on all days of the week.
Why do some people call Sunday the Sabbath?
The Sabbath is, of course, Saturday. As the Church grew and Christians came to outnumber Jews, there was talk of Sunday being like a Christian Sabbath. From there it was a short step to talk of Sunday as if it were the Sabbath. That’s not a bad comparison of the church and the synagogue. Sunday is not and it never has been the Sabbath.
How does one keep the Sabbath holy?
The word “Sabbath” is related to the Hebrew word for “rest,” and the primary duty of a Jew is to stop working on the Sabbath. Biblically, you keep the Sabbath holy by not working. In Orthodox Judaism, it is a sin to drive a car on the Sabbath, because the Law of Moses prohibits making fires on the Sabbath and cars have internal combustion engines—so driving a car amounts to making a series of little fires. Therefore, if you are an Orthodox Jew, and you live beyond walking distance of the synagogue, it is a sin to attend worship if you have to drive to get there.
Saturday is the Sabbath. Sunday is the Lord’s Day, because Jesus rested in the tomb on the Sabbath and rose on Sunday. Therefore the principal day of Christian worship has always been Sunday—until the 19th century when some Christians innovated the custom of worshiping on the Sabbath.
What’s a Christian to do?
The apostles had a meeting to decide which of the Jewish laws apply to non-Jewish Christians. Their decision is recorded in Acts 15:24-29. If you read it carefully, there is nothing in there about the Sabbath. Any modern Jewish rabbi would agree—the Sabbath law only applies to Jews. If you want to keep the Sabbath holy, you can follow Jesus’ example—you don’t have to go so far as to rest in a tomb, just do the resting part and abstain from work. Since Jesus rose from the grave on Sunday, that is the best day to celebrate it in worship.
However, there is no day of the week on which you must not worship. Your church can have its principal day of worship on Saturdays, if it likes. Your church could even have its principal day of worship on Tuesdays, for that matter. I admit, that would be a little odd, and it would be a break with the ancient church, but don’t let anyone tell you it is wrong. There is also nothing stopping you from worshiping every single day, and in fact I strongly recommend it. You can set up an oratory in a spare room or some other space and have personal or family devotions as often as four times a day using the Book of Common Prayer, other resources, or the Prayer Builder on this web site.
