RZehr wrote:John -
In your opinion, is meeting on Sunday instead of Saturday, the same as changing Sabbath to Sunday?
Raymond,
The Sabbath is understood primarily as a day of rest, and there are some who rest on the 7th day, but can only find an assembly with other Christians on the 1st day. That was my position for a long time, and I was able to have more "community" with other believers that kept Sunday services.
But further study led me to Leviticus 23:3, where the Sabbath is also the day of Holy Convocation, or a holy assembly.
I have carefully researched this verse, and it appears to me that the Sabbath is the day of worship too.
But once you take this step, and worship on the Sabbath day, you will be cut off from many of your old friends and relatives.
One of the families that we fellowship has a Russian Mennonite background, and Church of Christ. When they changed their worship day from Sunday to Saturday, their families just about disowned them. It has been over 10 years now, and some things have healed, but there is still a division.
They are friends with another Amish family near Lobelville, TN, that read their Bible and found the Sabbath day over Sunday. From what I understand, they have been shunned by the community. It takes a lot of courage to follow obedience over conformity when you are part of a horse and buggy community, and truly depend on each other.
It may make us want to "count the cost" of discipleship. But I have found that every time I am tested with a choice to obey God, or conform to man, if I truly try to follow the Lord, then there is an immediate period of persecution, mostly by my own family and friends. So I expect the persecution now. But I also find out who my true friends are too.
But after this period of persecution, something beautiful happens. About 6 months or so later, a blessing from God, just as great or greater than what I lost, is presented to me. This has happened over and over again. Many of my children were born just after some of the persecutions. I was given a new job, new friends, a farm, now a business making geodesic domes. Each time, a persecution followed by a greater blessing.
But the greatest blessing is that I have true friends that really love me, unconditionally, regardless of whether I agree with them on everything, for they see that I seek to walk the best that I understand. And the others friends and even family, that demanded conformity as a condition of their love, with these I have been blessed with their separation. But I could not see this until the test of obedience was made.
So, now I try to be really open to others, and if they rest on Saturday and worship on Sunday, I understand because I was once there. And I also at one time believed that Sunday was the Sabbath day, and rested on that day too.
But it is clear to me that the Sabbath, as part of the 10 Commandments, and founded by God in Genesis 2:2, is still here today. It is a blessing for all of us.
And the 7th day Sabbath was celebrated by the many of the early Anabaptists, who found this same blessing:
http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Sabbat ... nabaptists
John