Expert: Sal - 8/21/2010

Question
Dear Sal:
You Catholics don't keep God's Sabbath. Don't you realize that the apostles including the one you believe was your first pope, Peter, kept God's Sabbath! So if your pope kept the Sabbath by what rational do you Catholics not follow Peter and keep God's Sabbath?
I await your reply,
Anthony

Answer
Dear Anthony:

There is no biblical evidence that St. Peter and the other Apostles observed the Sabbath after the Resurrection. In fact St. Paul gives evidence that St. Peter did not observe “God’s Sabbath”. “If you (St. Peter) who are a Jew are living according to Gentile ways rather than Jewish, by what logic do you force the Gentiles to adopt Jewish ways?” (Gal. 2:14). Living according to Gentile ways means, among other things, not observing the Sabbath. For the Gentiles did not have the Jewish law given to them by God.  “Indeed, when Gentiles, who DO NOT HAVE THE LAW, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they DO NOT HAVE THE LAW” (Rom. 2:14). In  that one verse St. Paul clearly says that the Gentiles did not have the Jewish law that includes the Sabbath. Pope Peter himself said that the Gentiles should not be asked to observe Jewish things that would naturally include the sign of the Old Covenant, the 7the day Sabbath (see Acts 15:10). St. James agreed with St. Peter that Gentiles should remain free from the Jewish law. But so as not to needlessly upset the Jewish Christians St. James asked that Gentile converts be asked to observe certain Jewish regulation. “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood” (Acts 15:19-20). Please note that this very first Church Council did not bind Gentile Christians to Sabbath observance. About six years later St. Paul was following this Council’s decree when he wrote about how he did not force Jewish things upon the Gentiles. “To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law” (I Cor. 9:21). Again St. Paul emphasizes that the Gentiles were never given the Old Covenant law and that they should not be required to observe those things given to the Jews including the 7th day Sabbath. So your belief that Pope Peter and the other Apostles observed the Sabbath has no biblical support.

God Bless You,
Sal