Why I'm Not a Seventh Day Adventist, Part 4
Posted by Matt Postiff February 26, 2019 on Matt Postiff's Blog under Theology Cults, Etc.
A fourth reason that I am not an SDA is that historic Christian practice has been to worship on the first day of the week.
Traditionally, the church has always worshipped on Sunday, following the New Testament example. This was always a clear point of distinction between the Christians and the Jews.
Sunday worship can be demonstrated as the practice of the first, second, and third centuries A.D. Clearly, as we have shown in the earlier posts, there was Sunday worship in the middle of the first century. This easily predates the claim that Sunday worship started in Rome in the third century.
Early on, some Christian groups began to interpret Sunday as the “Christian Sabbath” that replaced the Jewish Saturday Sabbath. We do not agree with this approach, as it invalidly mixes two categories—Law and Church—that should be kept separate. Some churches observed the Saturday Sabbath, though this practice has waned. But in practice, this Saturday and Sunday sabbath carries over in the "weekend" of western cultures. We treat both Saturday and Sunday as special days...the normal work-week is from Monday through Friday, and Saturday and Sunday are off days so that Jews and Christians can worship unfettered by the normal weekly schedule. Secularists simply take them as days off to do what they want, which is a form of rest from their normal work pattern.
On March 3, 321 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine I decreed that Sunday would be the day of rest. For Bible Christians, however, this is irrelevant. We take our direction from Scripture, not from secular sources.
Some Christians in history worshipped on Saturday night, following the Jewish pattern that the day opens with the evening prior.
