The Sabbath Question

The Command

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God."

Exodus 20:8-10

The Fourth Commandment doesn't say "a sabbath." It says "the sabbath," a specific day. It is not the first day but the seventh day.

The Biblical Week

Sunday = First day of the week
Saturday = Seventh day of the week

The biblical and Jewish weekly cycle identifies the seventh day with Saturday, and later calendar reforms did not change that Jewish weekly sequence.

What Jesus Kept

"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day."

Luke 4:16

Jesus kept the seventh-day Sabbath. It was His "custom," His regular practice. Not once in Scripture did He suggest changing it.

What the Apostles Kept

"And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures."

Acts 17:2

Acts repeatedly shows Paul preaching on the Sabbath after the resurrection, and the New Testament gives no command transferring Sabbath sanctity to Sunday.

Who Changed It?

The post-apostolic shift toward Sunday was later claimed by Roman Catholic sources as evidence of Church authority. They say it openly:

"The Catholic Church...by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday."

The Catholic Mirror, September 1893

"Saturday is the Sabbath day. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."

Peter Geiermann, The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1910)

What the Church Fathers Recorded

Even in the fifth century, Socrates recorded widespread Sabbath celebration of the sacred mysteries, with Rome and Alexandria as exceptions:

“For although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this.”

Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History V.22 (c. 440 AD)

Socrates names Rome and Alexandria as exceptions while treating most other churches as Sabbath celebrants.

The Question

Scripture commands the seventh day. A fourth-century church order, the Apostolic Constitutions, witnesses to both-day practice. Later Roman sources claimed Sunday replacement as an act of Church authority.

No verse in all of Scripture authorizes this change. The transfer rests on human authority rather than a divine command. Every Christian has the right to examine the evidence and decide whose authority governs their worship.