Is it a sin to work on Saturday or Sunday?

[Alive_Again]

Fascinating to hear from a Jew on the subject.

In the new covenant, if we're yielded to God, we're dead men, and dead men don't submit to the Mosaic Law. We fulfill everything the Spirit of the Law requires by walking in obedience to the Law of liberty, the walk of love. We have ceased from our own works, and live and do the works of God by faith.

Insight is gained in Isaiah 58 where it talks about ...

"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
Isaiah 58:13-14

Doesn't He sound like He's describing a dead man? Your "own pleasure", your "own ways", your "own words". If we do that and do the works of God, we partake of our inheritance, which in our case, is the Holy Spirit and the covenant of God. Part of being willing and obedient to eat the good of the land.

 

[Simon_Templar]

regarding sunday and the sabbath. I feel compelled to point out some historical facts.

The early Church did not regard sunday as a replacement sabbath, nor did they feel compelled to keep the actual saturday sabbath as a matter of law, or righteousness.

This much is clearly seen in the writings of the Christians which we have dating from the first century and the early second century (Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr).

They tell us that Christians met for worship on Sunday, not because it was the 'christian sabbath' but because it was the Lord's day, it was the day of his resurrection and every sunday celebration is a celebration of the Lord's death and resurrection.

Those same authors tell us that some Christians were in the habbit of honoring the sabbath by devoting saturday as a day for studying scripture or hearing readings of scripture, etc. They saw this as a laudable practice, but they also make clear that they were under no obligation to keep saturday.

The idea of sunday as a new christian sabbath probably begins (granted probably unintentionally) with Emperor Constantine. Many people have argued that Constantine deliberately changed the sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. This isn't true.
Up until the time of Constantine, many Christians were unable to attend communion services on sunday because they were either slaves, servants, or other poor folk who were required to work by their masters.
What Constantine actually did was to make a decree ordering city and government businesses to close on sunday so that those workers could go to Church.

However, admittedly this decree is probably the root from which many so called 'sabbath laws' which forbid work and business on sunday came from. Those types of laws tended to give people the impression that sunday was the sabbath, whether that was originally intended or not.

Traditional Christianity has holy days, and holy places, not as limitations, or strictures, as they were in the Old Testament, but rather to re-inforce sacredness in our every day lives.

In the OT the temple was the only place that Jewish sacrificial worship could be carried on. It was forbidden to do so anywhere else.
In Christianity we have Churches as holy places, not because they are the only place we can worship, but rather to help us to remember sacredness in general.

When people have no holy places and no holy times, they usually simply forget holiness all together. As is the case with much of mordern Christianity. In principle many Christians would say that they recognize all places and all times as sacred/holy... but in practice its just the opposite because the very idea has lost its meaning.