APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 8, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 23.

APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE.

The statement is frequently made by adherents of the Sunday sabbath that the change from the seventh to the first day was brought about by apostolic teaching and example. The few texts in the New Testament where the first day of the week is mentioned are strained almost to disintegration to make them teach, even by distant inference, that Sunday was recognized as a day of rest and worship by the apostolic church.

In view of this, it is worth while to call attention to one of Paul’s declarations concerning his own course of life, which will throw considerable light upon the matter of apostolic example. Paul had been sent a prisoner to Rome, because of the hostility of the Jews, who had made various accusations against him, and had even conspired against his life. Soon after his entrance to Rome, Paul “called together those that were the chief of the Jews” in Rome, and laid before them his defense against the accusations of his countrymen.

In Paul’s defense “he said unto them, I, brethren, tho I had done nothing against the people, or the customs of our fathers, yet was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.” Acts 28: 17. Now one of the “customs” of the “fathers” which was of longest standing among them, a “custom” which had been commanded to them amid the thunders and smoke of Sinai, whose observance God had commanded with His own voice, and for which they had the personal example of the Creator Himself,—was the “custom” of religiously observing the seventh day of the week as “the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” But had not Paul been teaching the early church to observe Sunday in commemoration of the resurrection? and had he not been observing it himself in commemoration of that event?—Verily, he had not. If he had, he would have been doing something very much against the “customs of our fathers.” If he had, his declaration above quoted would not be true.

Here, then, is a square contradiction between those who claim apostolic example for Sunday keeping and the real example of the great apostle. They would have it that apostolic example changed the Sabbath of Jehovah, whose keeping was the most conspicuous custom of the Jews. He declares that he did “nothing against the people, or the customs of our fathers.” Certainly, then, Paul can not be accused of setting an “apostolic example” in the matter of Sunday substitution for the Sabbath of the Lord. It is an easy matter, when a conscientious enquirer asks for a reason for Sunday-keeping, and Sabbath-ignoring, to turn him off lightly with the worn and thread-bare excuse of “apostolic example.” But it is no easy matter to find that example. In fact, it is an impossibility so to do; for it does not exist.