You make the statement that Christians worship on Sunday “because of the Church”. Then you go into a long discussion including scripture that it was the Apostles who set that precedent. Which is it? I’ll tell you which it is. It’s because in Acts it is recorded that the desciples were gathered to eat and Paul preached. It does not call it the Lords day.
The Ten Commandments do however designate the Sabbath. Not even the RCC will claim that the Ten Commandments have been abolished.
Exodus 20:8-11: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, . . . For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
What is called “the day of the Lord” or “the Lords day”. Look at the rest of scripture. Never is any day of the week called the Lords day. It always refers to the “day of the Lord” being the time of the tribulation.
Joel 1:15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Joel 2:31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come.
Acts 2:20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come:
Zephaniah 1:14 The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. 15 That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,
The day of the Lord or Lords day is well established in scripture as the time of the tribulation. That’s what John was saying in Revelation 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
Neither reference nor any indication is given in all of scripture which day of the week it was. It was however as proven by prophecy and the words of the Apostles a reference to “the day of the Lord” or the tribulation. For anyone to claim a specific day of the week is not supported by scripture and in fact is contradicted by scripture.
>>But, we are never told in Scripture when that practice stopped, but we know it did and Sunday was the day Christians met and worshiped the Lord.<<
So you are saying that the establishment of Sunday over the Sabbath was instituted by man and not by God and recorded in scripture. (doctrine of man?)
John was a leader of the Church in Asia Minor. Specifically, Ephesus and Asia Minor. John, and a claimed follower of his named Polycarp, kept the Saturday Sabbath. There is no direct, nor indirect, historical evidence that John and other true Christians ever observed Sunday.
Now if you want to do a study on whom it was who did establish Sunday as the Lords day you may want to start with a couple writings. Thomas H. Greer wrote:
“Mithra was also associated with the sun, and his followers marked Sunday as his day of worship. They called it the "Lord's Day," for Mithra was known to them as Lord (Greer T. A brief history of Western man, 3rd edition. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977; Original from the University of Michigan, Digitized Apr 27, 2006, p. 121).
Even Martin Luther King understood and wrote in a letter about it in 1950.
Mithraism...was suppressed by the Christians sometime in the latter part of the fourth century A.D.: but its collapse seems to have been due to the fact that by that time many of its doctrines had been adopted by the church, so that it was practically absorbed by its rival.
...the Church made a sacred day out of Sunday partially because...of the resurrection. But when we observe a little further we find that as a solar festival, Sunday was the sacred day of Mithra: it is also interesting to notice that since Mithra was addressed as Lord, Sunday must have been "the Lord's Day" long before Christian use. It is also to be noticed that our Christmas, December 25th, was the birthday of Mithra, and was only taken over in the Fourth Century as the date, actually unknown, of the birth of Jesus.
To make the picture a little more clear, we may list a few of the similarities between these two religions: (1) Both regard Sunday as a Holy Day. (2) December 25 came to be considered as the anniversary of the birth of Mithra and Christ also. (3) Baptism and a ritual meal were important parts of both groups...
In summary we may say that the belief in immortality, a mediator between god and man, the observance of certain sacramental rites...were common to Mithraism and Christianity. (King ML. The papers of Martin Luther King, Jr, Volume 4. Clayborne Carson, Ralph Luker, Penny A. Russell editors/compliers. University of California Press, 1992, pp. 307, 309.)
Your “Church” claim of Sunday as the Lords day appears to have its roots more in paganism then scripture.
"seems" to whom? What doctrines? They're dualists. We ain't.
Well we did kind of drop the whole bathing in a bull's blood thing though....
Just want to say first hand, Cynical that this is not the first time you and I have had “discussions” on this forum and each time has been very respectful and interesting. I thank you for that.
You ask a good question as to “which is it” and the answer is very simple. We have been discussing how Catholic doctrine could be supported in Scripture though not specifically spoken of there.
Scripture specifically mentions meeting on Sunday to break bread. In Acts 20 they have met to break bread and Paul is speaking to them. The sermon is lengthy but Paul does not forget to break bread before he finishes. Breaking bread is used many time in Scripture and it refers to the Eucharistic meal. Though the new believers met daily to do this and Sunday is one of those days. Then Paul suggests that collections be taken every Sunday.
Jesus rose on Sunday, and first appeared to the Apostles on that Sunday and the subsequent one.
I did not say that Scripture called Sunday the Lord’s Day, I said that it came to be called that after John’s Revelations. The resurrection and the second coming are bound together and the breaking of the bread or the Mass as it is now called have evolved such that much of the Mass can be traced to Revelations and John’s vision of heavenly worship. Scott Hahn has a great book regarding that topic.
The point for this discussion however, was that Sunday worship is Scriptural. It was the tradition of the early Church that eventually led to Sunday being the day of Christian worship. It is not an establishment of man, but of His Church. It began when Jesus appeared to the Apostles on Sunday and evolved to what we have now. For the reasons I stated, Sunday became known as the Lord’s day and the breaking of the bread, the Eucharistic Mass became known as the Lord’s Supper.
Now as to paganism being the root of these things, in particular what you have said here, what follows is MY opinion regarding it. An opinion that has developed because of similar charges by nonChristians and atheists regarding the very story of Christ and Christianity which I have seen and read before.
As God has created all things, all things belong to Him to use for His will. All things work to the good of those who love Him as Scripture says and I accept that.
I see paganism, as well as other religious practices and other religions as proof that all of God’s creation desires to know Him and worship Him, because He is the one true God.
Throughout the history of man, in every age in every place the people have sought the same thing we seek. That is to know our Creator.
None of us does so perfectly and much of it is wrong, but the desire of our hearts is sincere in its longing.
God has written His law on our hearts and we cannot help but want to know Him, to praise Him and to please Him. As St. Augustine said so well in his Confessions, “You have created us for yourself Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.”
God revealed Himself to the Jews and through them He has given us our Savior. We may know Him because of Jesus and for this, I am grateful.
My love and praise may be imperfect, as I am imperfect, but I am made perfect through Christ whom I believe works in me and in His Church and has made all things new.
As I said, just my own thoughts on it.