We Got Mail

Colleen Tinker, Feature, Letters to the Editor

Why Meet on Sunday?

Would you be able to help me? My husband is now seeing why we don’t keep Sabbath, but he is having a hard time with why we worship on Sunday. He needs historical evidence; where can I find out further information?

—VIA TEXT

Response: Our Former Adventist Podcast which will go live this coming Tuesday will deal with meeting on Sunday as we discuss Romans 14:5–9. The issue is that God does not require the keeping of a day. There is no command in the New Testament to keep a day. Jesus declared that He is greater that the temple, and He is Lord of the Sabbath. That means that He is OVER the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a creation, and time is not intrinsically holy. Sunday is not holy any more than Christmas or Easter or our birthdays are holy. We worship on Sunday because we Honor the Lord’s resurrection, and all of His post-resurrection appearances that identify a day were on the first day. Jesus fulfilled Sabbath rest and ushers us INTO His REST when we trust Him. Sabbath rest is spiritual, not physical. I will link a couple of videos that may help explain the differences in covenants.

The church fathers write about meeting on the Lord’s Day or the eighth day. Here is a page with quotes from various church fathers and the years when they wrote these things: https://www.churchfathers.org/sabbath

Here is a video from a past FAF Conference in which we examined Jesus’ response to the Pharisees when He told them that He was greater than the temple: 

Thank you For Biblically Grounded Teaching

I want to express my sincere gratitude for your ministry to the body of Christ, Reformed or other. I appreciate how you do not get caught up in Calvinism versus Arminianism, and I have read Colleen‘s article on that very subject. (It is a good article.) When I mentioned that I am Reformed that is in no way a statement that I believe I am superior to any other Christian because of my beliefs. I don’t know that I would even be Reformed if it weren’t for the way that God reached me and literally yanked me out of Adventism. I honestly resisted the first-day sabbatarian view of the Reformed tradition primarily because of the Westminster Confession concept of the Sabbath. Colleen and Nikki did an excellent job this week with — and I absolutely appreciate even love—your overarching proclamation of our sovereign God. Thank you again for your consistent, biblically-grounded teaching on the word of God. He is using you mightily.

—VIA EMAIL

 

Colleen Tinker
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