PAY WHAT YOU OWE by Raymond F. Cottrell

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 14, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 15.

PAY WHAT YOU OWE.

By Raymond F. Cottrell

An honest man will try to pay all his debts. But greatly as I ever desired to pay my debts, I never could make one dollar pay two debts of one dollar each.

Those who call the first day of the week the Sabbath of the New Testament, and teach men so, are indebted to the people to give from that record their authority for so doing. This a goodly number have attempted to do. They tell us that in the Greek of the New Testament the first day of the week is called the Sabbath; and quote as proof those Greek phrases which our translators have rendered "the first day of the week." Now if they are right in rendering these phrases "the Sabbath," of course our translators were wrong in rendering them "the first day of the week;" and consequently the first day of the week is not mentioned as such in all the New Testament. Where, then, is the proof that these expressions apply to the first day? since in every other place, fifty-nine in all, the term, the Sabbath, applies invariably to the seventh day.

Take Acts 20:7, the stronghold for the first day, since it records the only religious meeting held on that day, and translate the Greek as these persons do, and there is nothing in the text to prove that that meeting occurred on the first day; it would be simply the Sabbath, a term which in every other instance in the Acts undoubtedly means the seventh day. Why not here? They cannot make a single use of mian Sabbaton mean both the Sabbath and the first day of the week. It is like attempting to pay two debts of a dollar each with a single dollar. They are still in debt.

R. F. COTTRELL.