Sabbath

God gave us the gift of Sabbath, knowing that to cultivate a relationship of loving union with God requires time.

**BTW, the Sabbath day was the 7th day of the week for the Hebrews and the Lord’s Day was/is the 1st day of the week for the early church – two different things. This is clear in most languages not based on a pagan calendar that centered around deities such as the Roman god Saturn and the worship of the Sun.

The Lord’s Day, a day of Worship and Community for the believer, was never intended as a day of physical rest but of a celebration of both the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the New Creation, the regenerated, redeemed life…a life once dead in trespasses and sins made alive by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, and the Bride of Christ, the assembly of all the redeemed in worship of their Redeemer and Savior.

The Early Church found time to make the first day of the week about the Lord even though it was still a day of work and commerce for most of them. They would gather in the Temple courts for morning and evening prayers, going to their places of labor and commerce between, and THEN gather afterward in the evening for fellowship, the breaking of bread, and continuing steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine and teaching.

It wasn’t until the 3rd century, when Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire that there was a merge of the ideas of Sabbath and the Lord’s Day as a “christian sabbath”.