A BAD POINT TO ATTACK by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 28, 1878

A BAD POINT TO ATTACK.

By Editor

We have received from Eld. Geo. Thompson, of Leland, Mich., a communication taking S. D. Adventists to task for the position they hold on Acts 20:7-11, that Paul held his meeting at Troas on a portion of the week corresponding, according to present reckoning, to Saturday night, and that on the next day, Sunday, he continued the long journey he had undertaken to Jerusalem. He heads his article, “An Advent Error Corrected;” and we give it in full as follows:—

Whether the first or seventh day is to be observed as holy time—as the “Sabbath”—will not now be discussed. I only wish to correct a wrong or false statement, adopted and proclaimed by Adventists, orally and in print. Our beloved Hannah More argued it in my family. Your books and tracts and papers assert the same most palpably erroneous statement. “Well, what is it? out with it.” I quote from an Advent tract entitled “Review of Objections to the Seventh-day Sabbath,” “He [Paul] never dreamed that it had become the Christian Sabbath; for as soon as it was light, he started on his journey to Jerusalem,” &c. Other writers and speakers have asserted that Paul traveled all day of the first day, and therefore it is plain he did not regard it as the Sabbath.

If Paul did, as they assert, we yield the argument. But the assertion is plainly false. He did NOT travel on the first day (in the case referred to), but preached, observed the Lord’s supper on that day, and continued the meeting till MONDAY MORNING, and then he went on his journey. So says the divine word, in Acts 20:7: “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them ready to depart on the morrow,” &c. What is the day after “the first day of the week?” Monday. Now with such a plain statement, how come Adventists to affirm that Paul traveled all day Sunday—or first day? Is it not clearly false? And what can you hope to gain by such a course? “Honesty is the best policy.” I am aware of the answer that the day began at sundown, and that the saints at Troas came together on the beginning of the first day, after sunset on Saturday.

This could not be; for as Christ did not arise till near sunrise of the first day, they would not meet before the time of his resurrection, to commemorate that event. They met not only during the day, but more especially in the evening of, or following, the first day—call it “Monday” if you wish, the Bible calls it the evening of the first day. Jesus rose on Sunday morning, did he not? Well, in the evening of that day, or after dark, the disciples came together, and Jesus with them. See John 20:19, “The same day, at evening, being the first day of the week,” &c.

Thus Jesus met them, repeatedly, on the “evening of the first day,” or at its close, and so the saints at Troas continued the practice of meeting on first-day evening for public worship. Now I maintain that this is clear, and that Paul started on his journey on Monday morning. Show it different who can.

Yours, Geo. Thompson.

We are glad our correspondent affirms his willingness to yield the argument if Paul did travel on Sunday as we assert. This is merely a question of fact to be decided by testimony. And now to show that this is no theory which S. D. Adventists have devised, we will present some evidence which we think it will be difficult for any man to overthrow. Prof. H. B. Hackett, D. D., Professor of Biblical Literature, in Newton Theological Institution, thus comments upon this text:— “The Jews reckoned the day from evening to morning, and on that principle the evening of the first day of the week would be our Saturday evening. If Luke reckoned so here, as many commentators suppose, the apostle then waited for the expiration of the Jewish Sabbath, and held his last religious service with the brethren at Troas, at the beginning of the Christian Sabbath, i. e., on Saturday evening, and consequently resumed his journey on Sunday morning.”—Commentary on Acts, pp. 329, 330. But he endeavors to shield the first-day Sabbath from this fatal admission by suggesting that Luke probably reckoned time according to the Roman method, rather than by that which is ordained in the Scriptures!

Kitto, in noting the fact that this was an evening meeting, speaks thus: “It has from this last circumstance been inferred that the assembly commenced after sunset on the Sabbath, at which hour the first day of the week had commenced, according to the Jewish reckoning [Jahn’s Bib. Antiq., sect. 398], which would hardly agree with the idea of a commemoration of the resurrection.”—Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, article, Lord’s day.

And Prynne, thus states this point: “Because the text saith there were many lights in the upper room where they were gathered together, and that Paul preached from the time of their coming together till midnight, this meeting of the disciples at Troas, and Paul’s preaching to them, began at evening. The sole doubt will be what evening this was. . . . For my own part I conceive clearly that it was upon Saturday night, as we falsely call it, and not the coming Sunday night. . . . Because St. Luke records that it was upon the first day of the week when this meeting was . . . therefore it must needs be on the Saturday, not on our Sunday evening, since the Sunday evening in St. Luke’s and the Scripture account was no part of the first, but of the second day; the day ever beginning and ending at evening.”—Diss. on Lord’s Day Sab., pp. 36–41, 1633.

Conybeare and Howson, in their great work, The Life and Epistles of Saint Paul, also bear testimony to the same fact. Of the meeting at Troas they say: “It was the evening which succeeded the Jewish Sabbath. On the Sunday morning the vessel was about to sail.” And in speaking of Paul’s journey on foot from Troas to Assos where he was to meet the ship, they say: “And strength and peace were surely sought and obtained by the apostle from the Redeemer, as he pursued his lonely road that Sunday afternoon in spring, among the oak-woods and streams of Ida.” Life and Epistles of Paul, pp. 592, 595. Our friend therefore should head his article, “An Error of Prof. Hackett, and Kitto, and Prynne, and Conybeare and Howson, Corrected,” and not “An Advent Error Corrected.”

Any man has power of course to deny the plainest facts established by the most direct testimony. He may, for instance, deny that there is any such place as England, or that any such man ever lived as George Washington. But he would only damage his own reputation for candor and honesty (which is altogether the best policy) by so doing. It is equally vain for any one to deny that the day, as reckoned in the Scriptures, begins with the setting sun, and that the night is the first part of the day, and that a night meeting requiring “many lights” as Paul’s meeting did, could not be held, except during this first division of the day.

Our friend says that the disciples met “after dark” on the evening of the first day of the week, John 20:19. How does he know it was after dark? Where is the testimony? That passage is explained by the fact that there were two evenings to each day, one to commence the day, the other to close it; and this closing evening was from 3 o’clock P. M. to sunset, when the first evening of the next day commenced. Hence the paschal lamb was to be killed “between the two evenings.” Ex. 12:6; Num. 9:3, margin. Robinson in his Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, under the word, evening, says:—

“The Hebrews reckoned two evenings; so in the phrase בֵּין הָעַרְבַּיִם between the two evenings, as marking the interval or portion of the day during which the paschal lamb was to be killed, Ex. 12:6; Lev. 23:5; Num. 9:3, 5; and also the evening sacrifice was to be offered, Ex. 29:39, 41; Num. 28:4. The time thus marked was regarded by the Karaites and Samaritans as being the interval between sunset and dark. But the Pharisees and Rabbinists, according to the Mishnah (Pesach 5.3), held the first evening to commence with the declining sun; and the second evening with the setting sun. This latter view was the prevailing one in the time of our Lord; the hour of evening sacrifice and prayer being then the ninth hour, or 3 P. M., Acts 3:1; and the paschal lamb being regularly killed between the ninth and eleventh hours, Jos. B. J. 6.9.3. A like distinction of two evenings was made by the Greeks. . . . In the N. T. ἡ ὀψία marks a) The former evening in Matt. 14:15 (comp. v. 23 et Mark 6:35). Matt. 27:57; Mark 4:35; 15:42. b) The latter evening in Matt. 8:16 et Mark 1:32; Matt. 14:23, comp. 15; Matt. 16:2; 20:8; 26:20; Mark 6:47; 14:17; John 6:16; 20:19.”

The evening, of John 20:19, as Robinson says, was the latter evening from 3 P. M. to sunset. But this was not after dark, and no meeting with “many lights” could be held on this evening. This was not the evening of Acts 20.

But our friend thinks that the disciples would not have met to celebrate Christ’s resurrection at an hour earlier than that on which he did arise. The trouble with this is that they did not meet to celebrate his resurrection, but to “break bread,” which was to celebrate his death.

He says further, that they met in the day time and especially in the evening. How does he know that? The record says nothing about it. It mentions only the evening meeting, which, as we have shown, could not have been held on any other than the first division of the day; and the light part of the same day he went on his journey to Jerusalem. In view of this testimony we expect him to remain true to his pledge, and yield the argument.

But it makes no difference if he doesn’t. It would not affect the result, if it could be shown that Luke reckoned according to the present computation from midnight to midnight, and that Paul’s meeting was on our Sunday evening. For while Paul remained behind to hold this evening meeting at Troas, his companions in travel were working the ship around the promontory to Assos, where Paul was to meet them the next day. These persons remained at Troas only seven days. Verse 6. “Where we abode seven days.” It does not then add, when we came together to break bread; but the disciples came together to break bread; and “we went before to ship.” Verse 13. Therefore during all that meeting they were sailing the ship.

And who were these companions of Paul’s? They are enumerated in verse 4; and among them we find the names of Timotheus, Paul’s son in the Lord, and Tychicus, whom he twice calls, Eph. 6:21; Col. 4:7, a “faithful minister in the Lord.” If Paul’s meeting was upon our Sunday evening, then on our Sunday these persons were navigating their ship. Therefore apply the text as we will, adopt what division of time we see fit, it is certain that these “faithful ministers in the Lord” pursued their journey and performed secular labor on the first day of the week. And under the circumstances, their example is just as good as that of the apostle Paul. But the record says that Paul also traveled on the first day of the week; and we can but believe it.

Henry Alford, D. D., Dean of Canterbury, in his “New Testament for English Readers,” while he thinks, in his comment on this passage, that the meeting on the first day indicates especial honor put upon the day, nevertheless adds, “The idea of the transference of the Jewish Sabbath from the seventh day to the first was an invention of later times.”