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This thread is a restart to a previous one on the Sabbath and Law board that opened up with these words
"Christians who come from one of the ancient Churches will recognize the two sacred days of the week that have been set apart for rest and for worship, namely that of Saturday / the Jewish Sabbath and Sunday, the Lord's Day. These days have been set apart for Christians for almost two millennia and are the basis of the thing that we know of today as "the weekend".
Unlike the topic of this thread (The Law) Christians do not honor the Sabbath because of the Law but rather for Sacramental reasons that I will explain in my next post."
My intention on that thread was to do what the thread title and that previous original post was about, to give the Early Church mindset around worship. As I remarked 2 years ago on a Facebook Blog type entry (complaining about the mind sets of some Protestants who are very anti-religion,). "The entire concept of Holiness in the Bible is a sacramental one. It comes from things "set apart for God's service". Like the offerings used for sacrifice in Genesis onward, as well as the various tools, materials, furniture, clothing, etc. used in the worship of the Tabernacle and later the temple. Those things used for that, could not be used for anything other than the ministry of the tabernacle and temple." (Basically, no mundane, personal use. especially when it came to the profane, and not koshur end of things).
This kind of notion also applies to the days set apart for worship. In Judaism reverence is shown to God by showing respect to the things connected to his worship. This kind of reminds me how older people can be fussy when it come to some of their nice furniture etc. There is a case in my father's family the Mosko's that really illustrates this. The family really did not like the person my aunt Marie ultimately married and later divorced. But there was this big red flag of the person putting their feet up on the nice new coffee table. That was something they really hated and was a red flag. Being refuges from Czechoslovakia they didn't have much, but the few nice things they had they wanted to keep them nice, and they took that blatant disregard for their stuff personally. And strangely enough the foot on the furniture shibboleth was indeed correct, uncle Don was indeed a really bad guy that aunt Marie probably should have divorced 20 years earlier than she did.
But getting back to Christianity, as I have relayed to my brother Martin who use to send me emails asking about the days we worship in Christianity (It turned out he had been listening to some kind of Adventist radio broadcast out of Sacramento). I told him a number of things I suspect readers of the friend will be familiar with such as: 1) the Sabbath was not officially mandated by the Apostles in Jerusalem Church counsel of acts 15. and 2) Saint Paul also battled people in the epistles who wanted to make the practices of the Mosiac Law mandatory for believers including specific days of worship, but he pushed back against such teaching and thinking and fought it bitterly. But his doing so, however does not mean that we are not informed by such customs and sacramental sentiments because the "weekend" exists out of the Christian context that comes out of Judaism. As I told my brother, if you are Traditional Sacramental Christian, you are doubly blessed compared to the Seven Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Original Jews, because you got two days off rather than just one (The Sabbath and the Lord's Day).
And it should be noted, In Judaism in the temple rules and rubrics, you did not just throw something away when it served its purpose. If there was a way that it could still testify to something or bless somebody you to keep it or use it for that purpose. So, in this way, Christians have retained the Sabbath as a lesser holy day. That is why people historically and traditionally have it off. Because of saint Paul we are not obsessive compulsive about "keeping Sabbath". But it does serve one of its important functions of helping us rest from our work, and it also serves to help prepare us for the Lord's Day.
As I have said before, the Christian identity began to be formed by worship on Sunday. And not for any "Mark of the Beast" reasons as a certain sect falsely asserts. But so much of the growing early Church had it's identity in Christ because they were gentiles and realized they had no share in natural Israel whatsoever. Furthermore, they were successfully evangelized and taught by saint Paul on matters of the Faith and realized this was not part of the Gospel.
Besides this it should be pointed out that the above is even true for the ancient Christians who had a strong Jewish background in their national identity like the Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Church of Antioch, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Coptic Orthodox Church and Maronite Catholics. These groups that were largely separate from Latin and Greek Churches and believers, nevertheless felt the same way about Sunday! Their identity as believers came from Christ and not their former Jewish identity and enthusiastically embraced Sunday as the day of worshipping and proclaiming the Gospel. And it should be reinforced just how Jewish and ethnic some of these peoples were following strange Jewish folk customs and some of them like the Ethiopians and Maronite Catholics held to the early Koshur food rules too!
But anyway, Christians began to call Sunday "the Lord's Day" and see it as a day of worship for these reasons:
1) The biggest reason is this is the day our Lord rose from the dead and "trampled down Death by his own Death", as saint John Chrysostom is famously quoted.
2) The Church received the "Holy Spirit" on a Pentecost Sunday
3) This is the day saint John the Divine received his vision or visions that became the book of Revelation. (This point is highly funny and ironic if you know about the SDA lifting "The spirit of prophecy" from the vision to describe Ellen White ministry but them anathematizing Sunday worship as a Satanic).
4) We also have it mentioned in Acts 20 as well (Where Paul is preaching, and the guy falls out of a high window and dies and he raises him from the dead).
5A) More importantly than the last example is the Old Testament significance of the 8th day. A number of important rituals, offerings etc. were done on that day. In Judaism itself it was realized that the 8th day was symbolic of being a new creation, new beginnings etc. and this very much foreshadows New Testament themes of "Being Born Again", "being alive in Christ", resurrection from the dead, God restoring all things at the end of the Age, our own receiving new glorified bodies etc.
5B) Much the same thing is true for the number 50, and it's role in Pentecost and the Jubilee. The fact some festivals fall on the 8th day also is a reminder of the first day of Creation as well since things move as a cycle.
OK this is getting long. My next post will be on the importance of Sunday worship in proclaiming the Gospel to the ancient world. This was not just done in words but in deeds!
I also have other points to make on Jewish customs, institutions and practices that also have relevance for the Economy (Philosophy of ministry and the Bible) of classical Christianity on the issue of worship in general including days of the week such as Conciliarism, Binding and Loosening, tradition aka "Paradosis" and probably other stuff too.
I probably also will throw in some of my own testimony as a former Protestant who did not have much knowledge of any of this stuff in spite of attending seminary part time for a few years, as well as correspondence Bible school too, prior to my theological Journey eastward that happened in late spring of 97.
And naturally I hope the various Orthodox, Catholics, and Traditional Protestants will chime in too with their various insights, comments and questions.
"Christians who come from one of the ancient Churches will recognize the two sacred days of the week that have been set apart for rest and for worship, namely that of Saturday / the Jewish Sabbath and Sunday, the Lord's Day. These days have been set apart for Christians for almost two millennia and are the basis of the thing that we know of today as "the weekend".
Unlike the topic of this thread (The Law) Christians do not honor the Sabbath because of the Law but rather for Sacramental reasons that I will explain in my next post."
My intention on that thread was to do what the thread title and that previous original post was about, to give the Early Church mindset around worship. As I remarked 2 years ago on a Facebook Blog type entry (complaining about the mind sets of some Protestants who are very anti-religion,). "The entire concept of Holiness in the Bible is a sacramental one. It comes from things "set apart for God's service". Like the offerings used for sacrifice in Genesis onward, as well as the various tools, materials, furniture, clothing, etc. used in the worship of the Tabernacle and later the temple. Those things used for that, could not be used for anything other than the ministry of the tabernacle and temple." (Basically, no mundane, personal use. especially when it came to the profane, and not koshur end of things).
This kind of notion also applies to the days set apart for worship. In Judaism reverence is shown to God by showing respect to the things connected to his worship. This kind of reminds me how older people can be fussy when it come to some of their nice furniture etc. There is a case in my father's family the Mosko's that really illustrates this. The family really did not like the person my aunt Marie ultimately married and later divorced. But there was this big red flag of the person putting their feet up on the nice new coffee table. That was something they really hated and was a red flag. Being refuges from Czechoslovakia they didn't have much, but the few nice things they had they wanted to keep them nice, and they took that blatant disregard for their stuff personally. And strangely enough the foot on the furniture shibboleth was indeed correct, uncle Don was indeed a really bad guy that aunt Marie probably should have divorced 20 years earlier than she did.
But getting back to Christianity, as I have relayed to my brother Martin who use to send me emails asking about the days we worship in Christianity (It turned out he had been listening to some kind of Adventist radio broadcast out of Sacramento). I told him a number of things I suspect readers of the friend will be familiar with such as: 1) the Sabbath was not officially mandated by the Apostles in Jerusalem Church counsel of acts 15. and 2) Saint Paul also battled people in the epistles who wanted to make the practices of the Mosiac Law mandatory for believers including specific days of worship, but he pushed back against such teaching and thinking and fought it bitterly. But his doing so, however does not mean that we are not informed by such customs and sacramental sentiments because the "weekend" exists out of the Christian context that comes out of Judaism. As I told my brother, if you are Traditional Sacramental Christian, you are doubly blessed compared to the Seven Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Original Jews, because you got two days off rather than just one (The Sabbath and the Lord's Day).
And it should be noted, In Judaism in the temple rules and rubrics, you did not just throw something away when it served its purpose. If there was a way that it could still testify to something or bless somebody you to keep it or use it for that purpose. So, in this way, Christians have retained the Sabbath as a lesser holy day. That is why people historically and traditionally have it off. Because of saint Paul we are not obsessive compulsive about "keeping Sabbath". But it does serve one of its important functions of helping us rest from our work, and it also serves to help prepare us for the Lord's Day.
As I have said before, the Christian identity began to be formed by worship on Sunday. And not for any "Mark of the Beast" reasons as a certain sect falsely asserts. But so much of the growing early Church had it's identity in Christ because they were gentiles and realized they had no share in natural Israel whatsoever. Furthermore, they were successfully evangelized and taught by saint Paul on matters of the Faith and realized this was not part of the Gospel.
Besides this it should be pointed out that the above is even true for the ancient Christians who had a strong Jewish background in their national identity like the Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Church of Antioch, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Coptic Orthodox Church and Maronite Catholics. These groups that were largely separate from Latin and Greek Churches and believers, nevertheless felt the same way about Sunday! Their identity as believers came from Christ and not their former Jewish identity and enthusiastically embraced Sunday as the day of worshipping and proclaiming the Gospel. And it should be reinforced just how Jewish and ethnic some of these peoples were following strange Jewish folk customs and some of them like the Ethiopians and Maronite Catholics held to the early Koshur food rules too!
But anyway, Christians began to call Sunday "the Lord's Day" and see it as a day of worship for these reasons:
1) The biggest reason is this is the day our Lord rose from the dead and "trampled down Death by his own Death", as saint John Chrysostom is famously quoted.
2) The Church received the "Holy Spirit" on a Pentecost Sunday
3) This is the day saint John the Divine received his vision or visions that became the book of Revelation. (This point is highly funny and ironic if you know about the SDA lifting "The spirit of prophecy" from the vision to describe Ellen White ministry but them anathematizing Sunday worship as a Satanic).
4) We also have it mentioned in Acts 20 as well (Where Paul is preaching, and the guy falls out of a high window and dies and he raises him from the dead).
5A) More importantly than the last example is the Old Testament significance of the 8th day. A number of important rituals, offerings etc. were done on that day. In Judaism itself it was realized that the 8th day was symbolic of being a new creation, new beginnings etc. and this very much foreshadows New Testament themes of "Being Born Again", "being alive in Christ", resurrection from the dead, God restoring all things at the end of the Age, our own receiving new glorified bodies etc.
5B) Much the same thing is true for the number 50, and it's role in Pentecost and the Jubilee. The fact some festivals fall on the 8th day also is a reminder of the first day of Creation as well since things move as a cycle.
OK this is getting long. My next post will be on the importance of Sunday worship in proclaiming the Gospel to the ancient world. This was not just done in words but in deeds!
I also have other points to make on Jewish customs, institutions and practices that also have relevance for the Economy (Philosophy of ministry and the Bible) of classical Christianity on the issue of worship in general including days of the week such as Conciliarism, Binding and Loosening, tradition aka "Paradosis" and probably other stuff too.
I probably also will throw in some of my own testimony as a former Protestant who did not have much knowledge of any of this stuff in spite of attending seminary part time for a few years, as well as correspondence Bible school too, prior to my theological Journey eastward that happened in late spring of 97.
And naturally I hope the various Orthodox, Catholics, and Traditional Protestants will chime in too with their various insights, comments and questions.
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