This is an excerpt from Pastor Mark’s new book “Alive: 21 Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ” as we count down to Easter. To get your physical copy, CLICK HERE to give a gift of any amount in the month of April to RealFaith to help us get more Bible teaching out. For a FREE digital copy, CLICK HERE. Thank you in advance for your generosity to help us tell more and more people about Jesus.
Acts 20:7 – On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
Reason #13: Jesus’ followers changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.
If you don’t believe the Bible, there are extra-biblical sources that can actually confirm Jesus’ resurrection. One major historical event that we can point to is that the early church stopped worshipping on Saturday, as Jews had for thousands of years, and suddenly began worshipping on Sunday in memory of Jesus’ Sunday resurrection (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2).
The Jewish seven-day week with a Saturday Sabbath was established by God at creation when He worked for 6 days and rested on the 7th and reinforced with the Ten Commandments in Exodus when God commands them to honor the Sabbath. The entire nation was to take one day to rest in God’s presence, and they were very strict about keeping this Law.
The Sabbath was so sacred to the Jews that they would not have ceased to obey one of the Ten Commandments unless Jesus had resurrected in fulfillment of their Old Testament Scriptures. Yet, by the end of the first century, Sunday was called “the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10). To change the Sabbath was an attempt to literally reset the entire week, change their days of work and rest, and alter the business and worship dealings of the entire nation around Jesus’ resurrection.
This would have been highly inconvenient since Saturday was still a workday. They would have had to get up extra early and realign their entire schedule and economy in order to accommodate this change, which they probably wouldn’t have done for a dead guy.
What would it take or what’s important enough for you to completely flip the schedule of your week?
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