Do you observe the Sabbath?

Well that might be "modern Christians", according to yourself (I still haven't been able to find that in the Bible (KJB)), but what about the real historical Christians that we read of in Acts, and throughout history before 'modernity'?

because the Sabbath was a command for Israel only, thus it is jewish

and the 1611 version has no special authority or knowledge.

Seems the Catholic Church changed it to Sunday and most people just follow after that. Protestants adhere to a lot of Catholic traditions and doctrines without even realizing it. It’s rife on this forum.

I did, too, for a long time. It’s definitely been a growing process learning and detangling the mess of doctrine that the church has adopted.

My heart goes out to all of the people who were deceived, especially those who don’t know it, and resisted the help people offered for a long time, like me.

Looking back on it, I need to learn from how became deceived. Mostly through ignorance and blindness; never again!

so, all the reports of Christians meeting " before dawn on the first day of the week" in the late first century and into the second by roman records were made by the catholic church that did not exist at that time??

and yes, i know they banned Sabbath keeping, and that was wrong. should have never been done.

but, that does not change the fact that gentiles never were and are not under the Law and were never commanded to keep it.

You mean all of the two examples of Christians meeting in the first day of the week to donate money to Jerusalem or to share a meal? Thats descriptive rather than prescriptive.

The Sabbath is prescriptive.

As far as the law goes, I think the 10 commandments specifically still apply. There’s good precedent for this and they are prescribed in various places in the NT to Gentile Christians.

i am speaking of roman ruler pliny the younger , early Christian historian justin martyr, clement of alexandria , before 200 a d, all wrote that Christians met on sunday.
they called it the 8th day.

Why did they meet on the first day of the week? Were they gathering a collection of money to send to Jerusalem and share a meal? If not, they didn't follow the Biblical example.

Basically, death. Rom 6:23

Hebrew, Israel and Jew are distinct terms. For instance, Moses was an Hebrew Israeilte of Levi, not Judah.

The sabbath command is not for "Israel" only. It was from the beginning, as Jesus said, "made for [the] man":

Mar 2:27 και ελεγεν αυτοις το σαββατον δια τον ανθρωπον εγενετο ουχ ο ανθρωπος δια το σαββατον

Gen 1:27 καὶ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον, κατ᾿ εἰκόνα θεοῦ ἐποίησεν αὐτόν, ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτούς.

Moreover, Jesus is the real Israel, and the real Adam, for whom the Sabbath was made for.

Pliny the Younger, does not say 'first day of the week', neither '8th day'.

Here is what Pliny the Younger, states:


The "day" is not specifically given, nor specifically enumerated, and definitely doesn't say 'first day of the week', or '8th day' in English or Latin.

In the book of Acts, the discples would gather on sabbath (13:14,27,42,44, 15:21, 16:13, 17:2, 18:4), hundreds of times.

Luke specifically records the word ”sabbath” (the 7th day) 27 times (actually 29 times, with the koine Greek of Luke 24:1; Act 20:7 considered); Luke 4:16,31, 6:1,2,5,6,7,9, 13:10,14(x2),15,16, 14:1,3,5, 23:54,56; Acts 1:12, 13:14,27,42,44, 15:21, 16:31, 17:2, (3 consecutive sabbaths) 18:4 (“every sabbath”; also vs 11, a “year and six months”, which is 52 weeks + 26 weeks, being 78 consecutive sabbaths met together on by both Jew and Gentile with the Apostle Paul and others, and in Acts 18:23, “he had spent some time there” (several sabbaths); in Act 19:8, “for the space of three months” (12 sabbaths); in Acts 19:10, “continued by the space of two years” (104 sabbaths), “in Acts 19:22, “for a season” (several sabbaths), in Acts 20:3, “three months” (12 sabbaths), and in Acts 20:18,31, “all seasons, ”a space of three years” (156 sabbaths)).

Hebrews 4 (vs 9) also states the same, as does Revelation 1:10. More on those as needful.

The day begins with the "evening" in scripture:


Thus the disciples would eat, pray, and follow that by sleeping through the night, and awake before sunrise, as Jesus would (Joshua 3:1 (type); Mark 1:35), gather just before sunrise on Sabbath "morning" to worship their LORD, as He did (His Father), as given in "example" (1 Pet. 2:21).

There is no just before sunrise weekly meeting of disciples in the NT on the first day of the week. Even in Acts 20, Paul was up all night long, after sabbath was over, even until "midnight" (Acts 20:7) with a specific church of Christians in Troas, to 'confim' the church (as in Acts 15:41) as he had for the others as he travelled towards Rome. After the specical event with Eutychus, Paul continued his farwell with them until sunrise ("break of day") and left, for a 19 mile or so trip by foot to Assos. There is no repeat of this one time farewell event. It was not a weekly event, and there is no indication in English or koine Greek that it was so. The only weekly event in Acts 20, is the sabbath (vs 7), which occurs every seventh day, which is why Paul waited "seven days" (Acts 20:6) so he could keep sabbath with them, and would leave the following morning.

Thus, Pliny's "stated day before sunrise" is the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week (the pattern of Genesis to Revelation, and especially Acts), not the first day of the week (as there is no weekly pattern of followers of God meeting weekly on this first day of the week).

As for Justin Martyr, the material under question is a forgery. A fake. A fraud.

https://archive.org/details/sda-william-h-shea-justin-martyr-forgery_202301/mode/1up

There are other such frauds.

https://www.pickle-publishing.com/papers/sunday-fraud.htm

Clement of Alexandria's "Lord's day" is also not a reference to the first day of the week, either:

https://archive.org/details/clement-of-alexandria-not-the-first-day-of-the-week

True there no righteousness to be gained by following the law.
There is no justification in following the law. Or salvation.

We are sinners and can't keep it perfectly, ... "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

So do we make void the perfect law of righteousness, and not follow it because we know that we fail.

No we exercise faith in the perect righteousness of Jesus.
We don't make void the law through faith. We establish it.

Our motive is not to earn or pay for salvation but to reflect the image of Jesus.

Follow our Lord.

Noah could not save himself and God told him to build an boat.
Faith could have said I'll let God save me, God will provide and Noah could have really believed God will save us. But when the flood came Noah would have died if he didn't do the hard word of building the boat.
God wants us to exercise faith.

While I agree with your sentiment, I need to point out that we don't "make void" the Law by any means.
God has written it on our hearts.

The thing is, we are no longer trying to keep written laws by our strength, as that is impossible. God is conforming us or sanctifying us through His Holy Spirit, into the image of His Son. And we learn to love Him, as Jesus commanded us, again by His power... it's Him working in us. Therefore, we "rest" in the fact that Christ is work in us to will and do His good pleasure. We have no need of rules and regulations because we are being guided by God Himself, if we are indeed of God.

As GotQuestions.org puts it:

"Christ became the end of the Law by virtue of what He did on earth through His sinless life and His sacrifice on the cross. So, the Law no longer has any bearing over us because its demands have been fully met in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ who satisfied the righteous demands of the Law restores us into a pleasing relationship with God and keeps us there. No longer under the penalty of the Law, we now live under the law of grace in the love of God."

I disagree, based upon:

QUESTION: DOESN’T 2 CORINTHIANS 3 TEACH THAT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS ARE THE MINISTRATION OF DEATH AND ARE “DONE AWAY”?

No. Again, read carefully:

2Co 3:7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:

Regarding 2 Corinthians 3:1-18, nowhere does the passage state that the Ten Commandments are the Old Covenant. Many simply assume, by a priori, that position, but no text is given to substantiate that the Ten Commandments are the Old Covenant. They will rightly link the Ten Commandments as they were written upon stone, as the ministration of death, but fail to see the opposite corollary, in that the Ten Commandments written upon the two fleshy tables of the heart, is the ministration of life and greater glory, thus seen reflected in the Christian's face, as it was in Christ's face. The “ministration” (how it was carried out in the life) needed to change. Not merely external laws written on stone tables, but internal and experienced laws written upon the heart. The Law remained the same. The ministration (how they are carried out, and seen) changes.

The law of God (The Ten Commandments, God's eternal covenant) merely written upon external cold stone tables, as duties to perform, based upon Israel after the flesh's old covenant agreement with God (Exo. 19) could never bring the change necessary to obey God in them fully. However, those same laws, as promises, in the New Covenant, written and sealed in the heart by the Holy Ghost would bring about the required change, even unto perfect obedience (Rev. 12:27, 14:1-12). Consider:

[1] The glory of the Law of God, the Ten Commandments


[2] The glory of Moses’ face, as reflecting the Law of God, the Ten Commandments on Two Tables of Stone (administration, ministration)




See Study 10: https://archive.org/details/study-1...ay-why-is-there-so-much-confusion-and-disagre

Can we keep it ourselves? No
Can we keep it through the Spirit in us? Yes.

I was talking about keeping the law in our own strength.
And if you manage to obey it in any way.....
Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him:...

Well, I'd I agree with you if I thought you were right... but I don't.

Your premise that the 10 Commandments aren't part of the Old Covenant, is incorrect. In fact, the 10 Commandments are called the stones or tablets of the Covenant.

Exo. 34:27 27 The Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

Deut. 4:13
So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.

Deut. 9:9-11
When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord had made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. The Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. It came about at the end of forty days and nights that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

So, when we read in the New Testament, we can know without question that when the writers are saying that we are no longer under the law, they are including the 10 Commandments.

2 Corin. 3:3
being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

2 Corin. 3:7-8
7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?

And it's to this end...

Eph. 2:
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,

You read into those texts the word 'old' which is not present.

Read Exodus 19 carefully, and you will see two covenants spoken of there.

[1] The "covenant" of God (Ten Commandments), eternal, and existing before Exodus 19.

[2] The covenant agreement between God and the peoples Israel, with Moses as Mediator, which is the 'old' covenant.

You do not understand Colossians 2, neither its connections to Ephesians 2, Hebrews 9-10, Ezekiel 45; Numbers 28-29.

https://ia804708.us.archive.org/26/...part-1/Colossians 2vs14-16 Nutshell Image.png