A Christian was recently trying to argue that Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2 reference Sunday ("First Day") meetings in the New Testament - that it was supposedly their habit to meet on the first day of the week...
He wrote: “In Acts 15, when the question of Gentiles following the Law came up, the Sabbath was not included in the list of things they had to follow. Sabbath observances is not
commanded anywhere in the New Testament. Colossians 2:16-17 says I shouldn't allow you to judge me for not keeping the Sabbath. “
OUR RESPONSE:
That is absolutely NOT true! Christians have confused as "Sunday meetings" the Havdallah (end of Shabbat) services with Paul's continuing to teach through sunset (end of Shabbat), on into the "first day." God's Sabbath has ALWAYS been on the Seventh Day - and that never changed. Sunday is "the first day.". It was never considered "holy" or God's required "Day of Rest!"
Acts 20:7 says "And on the first day of the week, when we assembled to break bread, Paul spoke with them, because he was to depart the next day; and he continued his discussion till midnight." (AENT)
Since "Jesus" was a Jew who taught only from the Tanach - the "Old Testament" - the earliest "Christians" were taught by him to observe HIS Sabbath, which was the 7th day. A study of early Christian writers reveals that Sunday observance of a Sabbath was a second century invention, not around in Paul's time. No, we can be sure that when Acts mentions the "Sabbath day", it is the 7th day and not Sunday.
Also, 1 Corinthians 16 does NOT suggest that anyone taught on Sunday! Please take a look at Scripture through the Hebrew instead of the Greek mindset:
1 Corinthians 16:1. And as to the collection for the Set Apart believers, as I directed the assemblies of the Galatians, so do you. 2. On each first day of the week, let every one of you lay aside and preserve at home what he is able; that there may be no collections when I come.(AENT)
NOTE: Here the Christian myth of Sunday replacing Shabbat is fully exposed for what it is! The fact is that Rav Shaul (Paul) asks people to make preparations on “the first day,” i.e. work, proving that neither he nor the Corinthians viewed the first day of the week as a Shabbat (Sabbath).
The fact that Rav Shaul wants to make sure they don’t need to prepare when he comes, speaks volumes towards Shabbat observance on the Seventh Day Shabbat! Acts records 84 occasions when he met in the synagogues on Shabbat.
Paul does not want his hosts to break the Shabbat and he counsels them to make ready for him in advance. All early Netzarim (Nazarene) believers like Rav Shaul RESTED on the Seventh Day Shabbat in Mashiyach (Messiah).
Read Numbers 15-13-16 which shows why Christians ARE bound to the Sabbath laws....In that passage God says four times in a row that ALL who accept Him are to do exactly as HIS people do.....
It's quite true. Most all Christians think Acts 20:7 "proves" the Sabbath was changed to Sunday because of the way it reads: "On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread,..."
However, if you look at the Aramaic, the verse actually begins: "oov'yom'a, d'chad b'shab'a kad..." which means, roughly: "After one Sabbath day when" ...(we gathered to break bread).
This is clearly the evening after the Sabbath when they would be eating, and has absolutely nothing to do with "meeting on a Sunday".
In other words, the verse has nothing to do with "Sunday" becoming the Sabbath day; rather, the importance is that the Sabbath had ended, and the apostles were simply gathered to eat. The verse is just a reference to the "motza'ei Shabbat meal" (meal after the Sabbath) - a perfectly normal event.
Since, after sunset of the Sabbath, it becomes the next day, technically it was the "1st day of the week," as the day-count in Hebrew terms changes at sunset; but the typical English translations of the verse obscure that it is only the evening meal they are holding, not a "meeting on Sunday".
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