SUNDAY OR SABBATH

  Under the Old Testament Law, the Israelites were commanded “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). The Sabbath was the 7^th day of the week, or Saturday. 

  So, the question arises… why don’t we worship on Saturday?

   The first answer to that is that we’re not Jews, we’re Christians.
  A famous preacher named J. Vernon McGee told about a man who wanted to argue with him about the Sabbath. The man said, "I'll give you $100 if you will show me where the Sabbath day has been changed."
  McGee answered, "I don't think it has been changed. Saturday is Saturday, it is the seventh say of the week, and it is the Sabbath day... The seventh day is still Saturday, and it is still the Sabbath day."
  The other man sensed He got a gleam in his eye and said, "Then why don't you keep the Sabbath day if it hasn't been changed?"
  McGee answered, "the DAY hasn't changed, but I have been changed. I've been given a new nature now, I am joined to Christ; I am a part of the new creation. We celebrate the first day because that is the day He rose from the grave."

  That is what it means that the ordinances have been nailed to the cross, Colossians 2:14.

   The 2^nd part of the answer is that the Bible never speaks of the early church worshipping on Saturday/Sabbath. Granted, Paul attended the synagogues in various towns in order to preach on the Sabbath – but that was because that’s when the Jews met, and the Jews were the people Paul wanted to talk to about Jesus.
  But all records of the church focusing on worship is on the 1^st day of the week, or Sunday. For example:

·      The church began on Pentecost (Acts 2:1ff). Pentecost was 50 days after Passover which put it on Sunday (see Leviticus 23:15).
·       The church took communion together on Sunday. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church and addressed their “misuse” of the Lord’s Supper, which they did when they had “come together in one place,” or gathered for joint worship (I Corinthians 11:20).
  This helps to interpret Acts 20:7 where we’re told “On the FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight” (Acts 20:7). Again, this points to a spiritual meeting of the church on Sunday.
·       And, in an activity that’s common in almost every church, Paul tells the Corinthian congregation: “ON THE FIRST DAY OF EVERY WEEK, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come” (1 Corinthians 16:2)

   But why would churches meet on the first day of the week rather than the Sabbath?
   Because that’s the day Jesus rose from the dead (John 20:1 says “on the FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.”)
  The Jewish Sabbath celebrated God’s creation of the world, whereas the Christian Sunday celebrated the resurrection of Christ.

   And this practice continued after the Bible had been written. A Christian writer named Ignatius noted “Those who have been brought up in the ancient order of things [i.e., converted Jews] have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath but living in observance of the Lord's Day. (Ignatius, Magnesians 10, A.D. 110).
  And Justin Martyr (who was martyred in 165 A.D.) noted “the Gentiles, who have believed on him... they shall receive the inheritance... even though they neither keep the Sabbath, nor are circumcised, nor observe the feasts” (Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, Chapter 26). 
  Justin thus places Sabbath keeping in the same category as circumcision.

   The point is, as New Testament Christians, we worship on Sunday, because that’s what the Christians did in the days of the New Testament.