Dear Editor,
Today I received the Thursday, April 9 issue of The Columbian-Progress and have felt the compulsion to comment on a statement you made in your column, “Leave closure decisions to churches.”
Your statement “... if they are faithfully following the commands of the Lord to assemble on the first day of the week ...” I have and am continuing to search the Scriptures for this commandment. To date, it has not been found. Rather, from Genesis through Revelation, I have found “Remember to keep the Sabbath (the seventh day of the week) holy.” Even the Christ whom we claim to follow kept the seventh day of the week.
I did, however, find in my Catholic faith and the Baltimore Catechism the following commandment: to keep the first day of the week. Personally, and to me, this was a commandment of man and not the commandment of the Lord, the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
Therefore, do we keep the commandments of our Creator or do we keep the commandments of man? The choice belongs to each person individually.
Margaret B. Miller
Pelham, Ala.
Editor's response: I certainly respect Ms. Miller's right to hold her own religious beliefs, but I would like to provide my reasoning for believing the Bible teaches to meet on the first day of every week.
While Christ was living, the Old Testament was still in effect, and Jesus kept it perfectly. He said he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17). When Jesus was crucified, the requirements of the Old Testament were fulfilled and nailed to the cross (Col. 3:14) and are no longer binding on mankind.
We can choose to live under the grace of Christ or the law of Moses but not both at the same time; if you choose the law, you must keep every commandment of it perfectly like Christ did (Gal. 3:10-14), including the Sabbath, ritual sacrifices and many others. Nehemiah 9:13-14 indicates that the Sabbath was made known at Mount Sinai along with the rest of the law of Moses and was thus not a universal commandment but part of the law of Moses only.
The only New Testament reference that indicates continuing keeping the Sabbath is found in Heb. 4:9, but it says that the Sabbath that remains for the people of God is an eternal rest that is coming in heaven, not on this earth.
Sunday is the day Christ rose from the dead (Luke 24:1) and is referred to in Rev. 1:10 as "the Lord's day.” The church was established on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), and that festival was always held on the day after the Sabbath, according to Lev. 23:15-16, which is Sunday. Christians were commanded to give to the church “on the first day of every week,” according to 1 Cor. 16:2. And Christians met to eat the Lord's Supper, according to Acts 20:7, on the first day of the week. The clear implication is that the early church, which operated under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit and the apostles, met on the first day of every week. That has been the practice of Christians since the first century based on the commands and examples found in the New Testament.
Whether you agree or disagree, I hope you will use this opportunity to search the Scriptures yourself to see whether these things are so (Acts 17:11).
— Charlie Smith
