Three passages in the Bible lead some to believe that Sunday was the day of rest and worship for the New Testament Church.
1. Revelation 1:10: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet”
Some believe this means John was worshipping on Sunday and had the vision on that day. But the Bible does not define “Lord’s Day” as the first day of the week. This is the only place in the Bible this term is used, which would hardly be the case if the New Testament Church had been observing Sunday for years, as some contend.
The context of John’s vision shows John wasn’t referring to a day of the week at all. His vision transported him into the future time the Bible refers to as the “day of the Lord,” “day of the Lord Jesus Christ” or “day of Christ” (See: Jeremiah 46:10; Acts 2:20; 1 Corinthians 1:8 and 5:5; 2 Corinthians 1:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:2 and; 2 Peter 3:10).
These terms are not speaking of a specific single day, but of the end-time period when Jesus Christ will return to directly intervene in human affairs by ending the age of man’s self-rule and beginning the age of God’s rule over all nations through Christ. This is the theme of the book of Revelation and the “Lord’s Day” John saw in vision.
2. Breaking bread on Sunday?
Another scripture some believe shows the New Testament Church observed Sunday is Acts 20:7: “Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.”
Acts 20:7-14 makes it clear a Sunday worship service is not being described here. The Apostle Paul participated in a Saturday night meal and taught until almost dawn, after which he walked almost 20 miles on Sunday to rejoin his traveling companions, who had sailed 60 miles from Troas to Assos, which does not involve observing Sunday as a day of rest.
Since the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, counts days as beginning when the sun goes down, these events began with a meal on Saturday evening after the Sabbath, which would have been the evening on “the first day of the week.” Several translations, including the New English Bible, Revised English Bible, Good News Bible, The New Testament in Modern English and the Complete Jewish Bible, state unequivocally that this occurred on Saturday night.
Some think that “break[ing] bread” refers exclusively to the ceremony in which Christians partake of bread and wine in commemoration of Christ’s death. So they conclude the verse here concerns a religious service on the first day of the week. However, that commemoration is supposed to take place once a year at the Passover service (see the Bible study aid booklet God’s Holy Day Plan: The Promise of Hope for All Mankind.)
Breaking bread is not limited to religious observance, but refers to dividing flat loaves of bread for a typical meal, as Bullinger points out: “It means to partake of food and is used of eating as in a meal…The readers [of the original New Testament letters and manuscripts] could have had no other idea or meaning in their minds” (E.W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, 1991, pp. 839-840). Breaking bread to eat a meal is mentioned in Luke 24:30 and verse 35 and Acts 27:35.
3. Some people assume that 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 refers to taking up a collection during a Sunday religious service.
“Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the churches of Galatia, so you must do also: On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come” (I Corinthians 16:1-2 NKJV).
Although the Bible says the collection took place on the first day of the week, it does not say a church service was involved. This was a special collection “for the saints,” members of the church in Jerusalem (1 Corinthians 16:3). It was part of a wider relief effort involving other members in Galatia (1 Corinthians 16:1), Macedonia and Achaia (Romans 15:25-26), as well as those in Corinth to whom Paul wrote.
Paul tells the Corinthians, “Let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come” (1 Corinthians 16:2). These contributions were to be “laid aside” and “stored up” by “each one of you” as an individual act, not brought to a church service and collected there. To say this is an account of a collection taken up during a Sunday worship service is to read into the Bible an unwarranted personal interpretation.
The New Testament was written over a span of more than 60 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, and nowhere does it even hint at the day of rest being changed to Sunday.
