Sunday is Sunday, the first day of the week per the common calendar.  It is not the Sabbath.  It is not the so-called Christian Sabbath.  It is Sunday — period, end of story.  It is a day, like any other day, 24 hours long.  The sun will appear to rise and set, although, in actuality, the earth will revolve on it’s axis as it continues its orbit around the sun.

By Custom or tradition, for the Christian church, although not for all Christian churches, it is a (the) Day of Worship.  That is, it is a day, which at some point in the time continuum, it was decided by someone or some group that the church, i.e. the body (congregation) of believers would meet together on Sunday, the first day of the week, following the tradition (custom) of the first group of Christians in Jerusalem, designated in many written commentaries as the first Church or early church, namely the disciples of Jesus along with the other first believers.  They met to devote themselves to the apostle’s teaching, which i assume to mean teaching based on the teachings of Jesus.  They also met for prayer, fellowship and the breaking of bread.  I’m not going to spend time here discussing how the phrase, “breaking of bread” might be interpreted.

In the Pauline epistles, letters by Paul the Apostle to various early churches , churches which he founded during his missionary journeys, the churches (or gathered groups of Christians), throughout the early Roman empire, they became more organized and continued to meet, presumably on the first day of the week, and included the singing of hymns and spiritual songs, teaching, and preaching and whatever else they did during their meetings.

Nowhere in the New Testament is there any mention that the official day set aside to honor YahWeh (the Lord) was officially changed by God to Sunday.  In fact, and here is the kicker, for Christians, followers of Jesus of Nazareth, there are only two commandments (or divine laws).  If you don’t know what these two commandments are, look them up.

So, you, or your group, are free to choose to gather together for worship at anytime, any day, in the morning, afternoon, at dawn or dusk or during the night.  It doesn’t matter to God when, other than being a convenient time for the group to meet together.

Now, the purpose of this writing is not to discount the importance of a time set aside for worship, be it on the Sabbath, or Sunday — teaching, preaching, singing Christian-oriented music, breaking of bread, etc — nor is it to discount various practices followed by individual Christians or groups of Christians following various other teachings in the New Testament.  It is simply to provide a short to-the-point commentary concerning the facts that, (1.) the day of worship was never changed from the Sabbath to the first day of the week, and (2.) the Christian church is free to choose how it is to conduct its activities keeping in mind the two “laws” that Jesus set forth for Christians to adhere to.

Every day is the Lord’s Day.

© Copyright Feb. 2020
Robert A. Haines, Chaplain Haines
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED