The pastor at the church my family goes to sent me a few chapters from a book on the Ten Commandments. He sent me the three chapters on the Sabbath. The first two were pretty interesting, bringing up some of the questions i've been working through, which boil down to "What does the Sabbath mean in general?" and "What does the Sabbath mean in the Renewed Covenant?".
The third chapter wasn't so interesting. It attempted to prove that Sunday is the Sabbath, but it started off assuming that "the Lord's Day" from Revelation was Sunday. It basically said "Since the Sabbath is the 'Lord's' Sabbath, the 'Lord's Day' must be a Sabbath and since the 'Lord's Day' is a Sunday, the Sabbath is Sunday!" A great example of proving yourself right by first assuming your conclusion.
The only interesting part of the chapter was that it claimed that there were non-scriptural sources that talked about the conflict in the first or second century between Jewish "Christians" observing the Sabbath on Saturday and Gentile "Christians" observing Sabbath on Sunday. Because there is no Scriptural reference to the Sabbath being moved to Sunday, this would be the only evidence of such a thing.
This is the reference the author provides: "Didache 14:1, Ignatius to the Magnesians 9:1. For other references, see G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), under kuriakos" I was wondering if anyone knew anything about this because I certainly have no idea.
My mind isn't completely closed to the idea of a First-Day Sabbath, I just find that the evidence is rather weak. There are a few symbolic arguments for it, that I would like to investigate further, such as the 8th day symbolizing new beginnings, like the Renewed Covenant and how the Feast of Sukkot starts and ends on Sundays which are to be observed as Sabbaths.
Of course if it turns out to be true, the question stands: Were the Jewish believers right or the Gentiles? Christians say that in the act of rising from the dead on Sunday and then meeting with His followers, Yahshua was changing the Sabbath, but that doesn't make too much sense to me. Wouldn't this have been the perfect time for Yahshua to say something about this change? Like "Hey guys, keep doing this on Sunday instead of Saturday."
I'm doubtful of this evidence because his other arguments are pretty weak. Also, the author condemns buying or selling on the Sabbath, but he thinks it's ok to go to a restaurant... even though that is buying and selling of food and service. So I really question his reasoning. Maybe he's talking about dine-n-dash?
Quote:As with the case of infant baptism, Reformed theology assumes continuity between the covenants except where Scripture clearly indicates discontinuity.
Argh! sometimes this guy makes me so mad! Yahshua and all the early believers (in Scripture) were "baptized" as adults! How does that indicate that infant baptism should be the norm? And yet he completely ignores this principle of assumed continuity with the Sabbath! It is never "clearly indicate[d]" in Scripture that the Sabbath was changed.