The Sabbath

The Gospels report that Jesus conflicted with the Jewish leaders several times over Sabbath issues. Jesus rejected the restrictive traditions of the elders. He allowed his disciples to pluck grain, he healed, he taught, and he told a man to carry his sleeping mat (Matthew 12:1-12; Luke 14:1-6; John 5:1-18).  Jesus noted that priests worked on the Sabbath, that animals could be rescued or taken to water, and circumcisions could be performed (Matthew 12:5-6, 11; Luke 13:15; John 7:22). Jesus claimed to have authority over the Sabbath, to set people free on the Sabbath, and to work on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:12; Luke 13:16; John 5:17).


But Jesus did not break the Sabbath, since he was born under the law and lived under the old covenant requirements (Galatians 4:4; Hebrews 4:15). His activities broke Pharisaic rules, but not the law of God. Early Christian writers did not claim that Jesus broke the Sabbath.

The first disciples of Jesus were pious Jews in a Jewish culture. They apparently kept the Sabbath according to contemporary Jewish customs. Luke tells us that some female disciples rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment (Luke 23:56), and that the apostles taught in the temple courts (Acts 3:1; 5:12, 25). Paul customarily preached in synagogues on the Sabbaths (Acts 13:14; 16:13; 17:2; 18:1-11).

We are also told that the disciples met daily (Acts 2:46), and that Paul preached daily (Acts 19:9). There is no record that Paul taught his converts to keep the Sabbath. Actually, he taught that special days were something about which Christians should not be judged (Colossians 2:16), and he asked the Roman Christians to tolerate differences in worship practices having to do with foods and days (Romans 14:5).

The New Testament gives us examples of Christians meeting on the first day of the week. The risen Jesus appeared to the disciples on two Sundays (John 20:19, 26), but there is no mention that he gave any command for a weekly commemoration of the resurrection. Paul’s traveling party once stayed seven days at Troas, and met on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7), but this was an unusual farewell meeting, not necessarily indicative of normal practice. Paul told the Corinthians to set aside an offering on the first day of each week (1 Corinthians 16:2), but this may also have been an exceptional practice rather than a normative one. John had a vision on “the Lord’s day” (Rev 1:10), but some debate whether this is a reference to Sunday. Moreover, the verse does not say that this was a day on which Christians should meet.   None of the texts can be used to prove that Christians regularly met on any particular day of the week.
But there is good reason to believe that some Jewish Christians, especially in Palestine, continued to observe the Sabbath.