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CONSISTENCY?

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 10, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 51, No. 2.

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CONSISTENCY?

By H. Wren

Many professed lovers of the Bible and of reason read in Acts 20:7, “Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread,” and straightway commence to draw inferences, and continue drawing them until they have a list of inferences something like the following:—
  1. The Sabbath has been abolished.
  2. Sunday has been set apart to religion.
  3. It was the duty of the disciples at Troas to meet every first-day.
  4. It was the duty of all the disciples, everywhere, to meet on Sundays.
  5. The disciples at Troas met every first-day to break bread.
  6. The disciples everywhere met every Sunday to break bread.
  7. Christ or some apostle had so enjoined.
  8. All Christians, everywhere and in all ages, are under obligations to meet every first-day to break bread.
It is claimed that these and the like inferences are necessarily drawn from this passage. Yet it is perfectly plain that not one of them need, as a matter of necessity, be drawn from it. And when we consider that this is the only passage in the Bible that in any way mentions a regular meeting on the first day of the week, it becomes perfectly plain that not one of these inferences ought to be drawn from it, and that they cannot be, except in open disregard of both reason and Scripture.
The very persons who infer so voluminously from this passage, cannot infer at all when 1 Tim. 5:10 is read. It will be seen by reading this entire chapter that Paul is laying down rules by which to determine who among the poor members of the church should be provided for by the church. Now it is perfectly plain from this passage that “feet-washing” was both practiced and required, else the absence of it would not have rendered a member unworthy of the church’s alms.
But those who can see so much in Acts 20:7, cannot see anything here, even though this passage is supported by a three-fold injunction from the Saviour himself. See John 13. If there was such an injunction in any of the Saviour’s teachings requiring the observance of the first day of the week, how quick those of whom we are speaking would be to hitch Acts 20:7 to it, and well they might be. Then why not allow that John 13 and 1 Tim. 5:10, go together, as they do most certainly, and make out an incontestable case for the ordinance of “feet-washing”? Is it consistent to see so much in Acts 20:7, and so little in John 13 and 1 Tim. 5:10?
H. WREN.