Why Should Sunday Be Kept?
By J.
HAVING examined all the places in the Gospels where the first day of the week is mentioned, and found no sign of a reason for the keeping of it with any kind or degree of sacredness, we now take up the only other instances in the New Testament where the day is named. The first of these is in Acts 20:7, and that we may discuss it with the best advantage to the reader we copy the whole connection:— "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; and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep; and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed." Verses 7-11. Upon the face of this whole narrative it is evident that this meeting was at night. Let us put together several of the statements: (1) "Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together . . . there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together." (2) "Paul preached unto them . . . and continued his speech until midnight." (3) At midnight Eutychus fell out of the window, and Paul went down and brought him up, and then he broke the bread and ate, therefore we may read, "The disciples came together to break bread," and after midnight the bread was broken. (4) After that Paul "talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed." Therefore we may read (5) Upon the first day of the week, the disciples came together, and there were many lights where they were gathered together. They came together to break bread, and after midnight the bread was broken. Paul preached unto them until midnight, and even till break of day. When the disciples came together, Paul was ready to depart on the morrow, and when he had talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. There can be no room for any reasonable doubt that the meeting referred to in Acts 20:7 was wholly a night meeting, and not only that but that it was an all-night meeting. This meeting being therefore in the night of the first day of the week, the question properly arises: According to the Bible, what part of the complete day does the night form? Is the night the first or the last part of the complete day? The Bible plainly shows that the night is the first part of the day. There was darkness on the earth before there was light. When God created the world, darkness was upon the face of the deep. Then "God said, Let there be light; and there was light." Then "God called the light day, and the darkness he called night." As the darkness was called night, as the darkness was upon the earth before the light, and as it takes both the night and the day—the darkness and the light—to make the complete day, it follows that in the true count of days by the revolution of the earth, the night precedes the day. This is confirmed by the Scripture: "The evening [the darkness, the night] and the morning [the light, the day] were the first day." This is the order which God established in the beginning of the world; it is the order that is laid down in the beginning of the book of God; and it is the order that is followed throughout the book of God. In Leviticus 23:27-32, giving directions about the day of atonement, God said that it should be "the tenth day of the seventh month," and that that was from the ninth day of the month at even; "from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your Sabbath." Thus the tenth day of the month began in the evening of the ninth day of the month. And so according to Bible time every day begins in the evening, and evening is at the going down of the sun. Deut. 16:6. Therefore as the meeting mentioned in Acts 20:7-11 was in the night of the first day of the week, and as in the word and the order of God the night is the first part of the day, it follows that that meeting was on what is now called Saturday night. For if it had been on what is now called Sunday night it would have been on the second day of the week and not on the first. So Conybeare and Howson, in "Life and Epistles of Paul," say: "It was the evening which succeeded the Jewish Sabbath." And that is now called Saturday night. This meeting, then, being on what is now called Saturday night, as Paul preached till midnight, and after the breaking of bread talked till break of day and departed, it follows that at break of day on the first day of the week, at break of day on Sunday, Paul started afoot from Troas to Assos, a distance of twenty miles, with the intention of going on board a ship at Assos and continuing his journey, which he did. For says the record: "We [Paul's companions in travel, Acts 20:4] went before to ship, and sailed unto Assos, there intending to take in Paul; for so had he appointed, minding himself to go afoot. And when he met with us at Assos, we took him in, and came to Mitylene." Verses 13, 14. Paul not only walked from Troas to Assos on Sunday, but he appointed that his companions should go before and sail to that place—about forty miles by water—and be there by the time he came so that he could go on without delay. And when he reached Assos he went at once aboard the ship and sailed away to Mitylene, which was nearly forty miles further. That is to say, on the first day of the week Paul walked twenty miles and then sailed nearly forty more, making nearly sixty miles that he traveled; and he appointed that his companions—Luke, Timothy, Tychicus, Trophimus, Gaius, Aristarchus, and Secundus—should sail forty miles and then take him aboard, and all sail nearly forty miles more, making nearly eighty miles travel for them, all on Sunday. And this is exactly how these Christians kept that first day of the week of which mention is made in Acts 20. But nowadays men try to make it appear that it is an awful sin to travel on Sunday. Yes, some people now seem to think that if a ship should sail on Sunday, the sin would be so great that nothing but a perfect miracle of grace would keep it from sinking. Paul neither taught nor acted any such thing, for says the record, "We went before to ship, and sailed; . . . for so had he appointed." Paul and his companions regarded Sunday in nowise different from the other common working days of the week. For, mark, the first day of the week they sailed from Troas to Mitylene, "the next day" they sailed from Mitylene to Chios, "the next day" from Chios to Samos and Trogyllium, and "the next day" to Miletus. Here are "the first day of the week," "the next day," "the next day," and "the next day," and Paul and his companions did the same things on one of these days that they did on another. They considered one of them no more sacred than another; they considered the first day of the week to be no more of a sabbath than the next day, or the next day, or the next day. True, Paul preached all night, before he started on the first day of the week; but on the fifth or sixth day of the week he preached also at Miletus, to the elders of the church of Ephesus. The only remaining mention of the first day of the week is in 1 Cor. 16:2. "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." What this means is explained by Paul in 2 Cor. 9:1-5: "For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you; for I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many. Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready; lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting. Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness." All there is therefore in 1 Cor. 16:2, is that on the first day of the week every one was to "lay by him" what he chose to give for the help of the poor saints at Jerusalem. Rom. 15:26-28. And when the time came for Paul to take it to Jerusalem, that it might be ready for him when he came, he sent brethren before to Corinth to "make up" this bounty that each one had laid by him, according to Paul's directions.712We have now examined every one of the eight instances in which the first day of the week is mentioned in the Bible, and we ask, Where can any person find in any of them any statement that that day should be kept as the Sabbath, or for any other sacred purpose? Where is there in any of them any statement that anybody ever did keep it? Where is there in any of them any reason given for keeping the first day of the week? The only true answer that there can be is, Nowhere. We do not ask whether men can give any reason for it, because men can give a multitude of reasons for a thing, and which may seem to them very satisfactory reasons, but which at the same time do not rest upon any just basis whatever. Bible reasons—that is, reasons framed in Bible language—alone are the just basis of Bible duties. Do you ask us why we keep the seventh day? We answer, Because God said "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." So we might go on through a long list of duties. We do not ask men to do any duty toward God the reason for which we cannot give in the very words of God. But we do ask, Where is there a person who can give, in the words of the Bible, the Bible reason for keeping the first day of the week? Never yet have we seen any such person. Again we say, Bible reasons alone are the just basis of Bible duties. If there is no Bible reason for keeping Sunday, then there is no duty resting upon anybody to keep it. And if there is no Bible reason for it, why in the world do you do it?