Sabbath Day Worship

Sabbath or Sunday Worship Part 6 Series

Religion: Sabbath or Sunday Worship Part 6- Catholic Influence Corrected.

The misinformation about the Decree of Emperor Constantine spread like wildfire among the Hebrew community of Christians about the long-awaited freedom of the Hebrews. But before we go any further, we must know who the Hebrews of the Bible are. According to the Britannica encyclopedia: The Jewish people as a whole, initially called Hebrews (ʿIvrim), were known as Israelites (Yisreʾelim) from the time of their entrance into the Holy Land to the end of the Babylonian Exile (538 BC ). They were God’s chosen people. After that, the term Yĕhūdhī (Latin: Judaeus; French: Juif; German: Jude; and English: Jew) was used to signify all adherents of Judaism because the survivors of the Exile (former inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah) were the only Israelites who had retained their distinctive identity y. Source: Britannica

Emperor Constantine l, also known as Constantine the Great, made a decree that allowed Hebrew Christians to gather without fear. Before t was a decree, they were scared because once they were caught, they would be persecuted. Many of today’s Christians know that Sunday worship was changed from Saturday to Sunday under the influence of the Catholic Church. This ga no choice for the Emperor not to give the order because of the rapid growth in the number of Christians that made it possible to overpower the empire.

The Catholic church has nothing to do with the change of the day of worship since during the time of Constantine I,  Catholicism, as we would recognize it today, did not exist before the reign of either Constantine(306-337 A.D.) or later successor, the Emperor Theodosius I (379 -395), and had nothing to do with the enactment of Sabbath law in the mid of his reign. The Catholic church was non-existence during the time, and the Emperor was presumed to be a Catholic, but there was nothing to support that claim; on the other hand, he was also presumed not to be a Christian. Being Catholic or not was speculation. Constantine did not enact a religious or Christian law but a civil one, which could not be denied as it favored the Christians. Christian

s by the 1st century, Christians were already meeting secretly on the first day of the week for worship, at least a couple of centuries before Constantine I. They did not call this Sunday worship but instead referred to it as Lord’s DaLord’sonor of Christ’s Christ’sagainst death or Christ’s Christ’stion from the dead.

The claim by the Catholic Church that they changed the sanctity of the Sabbath day to Sunday was no evidence that it happened. The New T statement did not mention Sunday as a holy day or the Sabbath as holy. Peter was not recorded as the first Pope, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, as his co-ruler in heaven, was not in the New Testament. The Cath ic or protestant observance of Sunday worship is centered on Christ, while a  few smaller groups and Sabbath Christians do worship on Saturday.

The Sabbath runs from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. The Jewish Sabbath (Saturday rest) is observed throughout the year on the seventh day of the week. Based on biblical tradition, it commemorates the original seventh day God rested after completing the creation. The Lord’s DayLord’say) is primarily used in Christianity and refers to Sunday (midnight-midnight.), and Christians celebrate Sunday as the day of the resurrection. If your free will suggests otherwise, do it for the glory of God and continue calling the name of the LORD our God; that way, you acknowledge His existence.

God is all in all.

Bishop Joseph

Dr. Joseph Vitug, Ph.D. - Bishop Emeritus

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