In Christianity, the Lord's Day refers to Sunday, the traditional day of communal worship. It is the first day of the week in the Hebrew calendar and traditional Christian calendars. It is observed by most Christians as the weekly memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is said to have been raised from the dead early on the first day of the week. The phrase appears only once in Revelation of the New Testament.
According to church historian Roger T. Beckwith, Christians held corporate worship on Sunday in the 1st century (First Apology, chapter 67). On 3 March 321, Constantine the Great legislated rest on the pagan holiday Sunday (dies Solis).Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time. Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; translated by Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3 (1902), p. 380, note. Before the Early Middle Ages, the Lord's Day became associated with Sabbatarian (rest) practices legislated by Church Councils. Christian denominations such as the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist, and Methodist traditions regard Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, a practice known as first-day Sabbatarianism (or Sunday Sabbatarianism). Sunday Sabbatarian practices include attending morning and evening church services, receiving catechesis in Sunday School (often referred to as Sabbath school), not doing servile labour, not participating in sporting events that are held on Sundays, not shopping, not eating at restaurants, not using public transportation, as well as not viewing television and using the internet. Christians who are first-day Sabbatarians often engage in works of mercy on the Lord's Day, such as evangelism, visiting prisoners at jails and the sick at hospitals, and nursing homes. A Lord's Day custom present in many Christian countries is the "hearing" (abhören) of children at dinnertime, in which the parents listen their children recall about what was preached in the Sunday Sermon; if any corrections are needed, the parents instruct them.
Biblical use The phrase "the Lord's Day" appears only one time in the New Testament, in which was written near the end of the first century. It is the English translation of the Koine Greek Kyriake hemera. The adjective kyriake ("Lord's") often elided its noun, as in the neuter kyriakon for "Lord's [assembly]", the predecessor of the word "church"; the noun was to be supplied by context.
The New Testament also uses the phrase te ... mia ton sabbaton (τῇ ... μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων, "the first day of the week") both for the early morning (Mary Magdalene ) and evening (the disciples in John 20:19) of Resurrection Sunday, as well as for the breaking of bread at Troas (Acts 20:7) and the day for the collection at Corinth (1 Co 16:2).The Companion Bible E. W. Bullinger
Textual tradition
Ambiguous references The term "Lord's" appears in The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles or Didache, a document dated between 70 and 120. Didache 14:1a is translated by Roberts as, "But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving"; another translation begins, "On the Lord's own day". The first clause in Greek, " ", literally means "On the Lord's of the Lord", a unique and unexplained double possessive, and translators supply the elided noun, e.g., "day" ( hemera), "commandment" (from the immediately prior verse 13:7), or "doctrine". In This is one of two early extrabiblical Christian uses of "κυριακήν" where it does not clearly refer to Sunday because textual readings have given rise to questions of proper translation. Breaking of bread may refer to the Eucharist, Christian fellowship (which may be part of the Eucharist), or even agape feasts (cf. , ). Didache 14 was apparently understood by the writers of the Didascalia and Apostolic Constitutions as a reference to Sunday worship.
Around 110 AD, St. Ignatius of Antioch used "Lord's" in a passage of his letter to the Magnesians. Ambiguity arises due to textual variants. The only extant Greek manuscript of the letter, the Codex Mediceo-Laurentianus, reads, "If, then, those who had walked in ancient practices attained unto newness of hope, no longer observing Sabbath, but living according to the Lord's life ..." (). A medieval Latin translation indicates an alternate textual reading of , informing Roberts's translation, "no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's [Day]".
The expanded Pseudo-Ignatian version of Magnesians, from the middle of the third century, rewrites this passage to make "Lord's Day" a clear reference to Sunday, as Resurrection Day. Pseudo-Ignatius adds a repudiation of legalistic Sabbath as a Judaizing error: "Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness .... But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days." Other early church fathers similarly saw weekly observance of seventh-day Sabbath sometimes followed the next day by Lord's Day assembly.
Undisputed references The first undisputed reference to Lord's Day is in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter (verse 34,35 and 50Gospel of Peter Translated by Raymond Brown), probably written about the middle of the 2nd century or perhaps the first half of that century. The Gospel of Peter 35 and 50 use kyriake as the name for the first day of the week, the day of Jesus' resurrection. That the author referred to Lord's Day in an apocryphal gospel purportedly written by St. Peter indicates that the term kyriake was very widespread and had been in use for some time.
Around 170 AD, Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, wrote to the Roman Church, "Today we have kept the Lord's holy day (kyriake hagia hemera), on which we have read your letter." In the latter half of the 2nd century, the apocryphal Acts of Peter identify Dies Domini (Latin for "Lord's Day") as "the next day after the Sabbath," i.e., Sunday. From the same period of time, the apocryphal Acts of Paul describe St. Paul praying "on the Sabbath as the Lord's Day (kyriake) drew near."
Early church
In the first centuries, Sunday, being made a festival in honor of Christ's resurrection, received attention as a day of religious services. Over time, Sunday thus came to be known as Lord's Day (some patristic writings termed it as "the eighth day"). These early Christians believed that the resurrection and ascension of Christ signals the renewal of creation, making the day on which God accomplished it a day analogous to the first day of creation when God made the light. Some of these writers referred to Sunday as the "eighth day".
The 1st-century or 2nd-century Epistle of Barnabas or Pseudo-Barnabas on stated "Sabbaths of the present age" were abolished in favor of one millennial seventh-day Sabbath that ushers in the "eighth day" and commencement of a new world. Accordingly, the eighth-day assembly (Saturday night or Sunday morning) marks both the resurrection and the new creation. Thus first-day observance was a common regional practice at that time.
By the mid-2nd century, Justin Martyr wrote in his apologies about the cessation of Sabbath observance and the celebration of the first (or eighth) day of the week (not as a day of rest, but as a day for gathering to worship): "We all gather on the day of the sun" (τῇ τοῦ ῾Ηλίου λεγομένη ἡμέρᾳ, recalling both the creation of light and the resurrection). He argued that Sabbath was not kept before Moses, and was only instituted as a sign to Israel and a temporary measure because of Israel's sinfulness, no longer needed after Christ came without sin. He also seems to draw a typological link between the Israelite practice of circumcision on the eighth day, and the resurrection of Jesus on the "eighth day." Baptism, having been prefigured by circumcision, represents a participation in the 'new birth' of Christ which takes place at the resurrection.
Tertullian (early 3rd century), writing against Christians who participated in pagan festivals (Saturnalia and New-year), defended the Christian festivity of Lord's Day amidst the accusation of sun-worship, acknowledging that "to [us] Sabbaths are strange" and unobserved.
Cyprian, a 3rd-century church father, linked the "eighth day" with the term "Lord's Day" in a letter concerning baptism.
Origins of worship on Sundays Though Christians widely observed Sunday as a day of worship by the 2nd century, the origin of Sunday worship remains a debated point. Scholars promote at least three positions:
Bauckham has argued that Sunday worship must have originated in Judea in the mid-1st century, in the period of the Acts of the Apostles, no later than the Gentile mission; he regards the practice as universal by the early 2nd century with no hint of controversy (unlike. for example, the related Quartodeciman controversy). In the 2nd century the church of Rome lacked jurisdictional authority to impose a novel universal change of Sabbath rest from the seventh day to the first, or to obtain universal Sunday worship had it been introduced after the Christian church had spread throughout the known world. Bauckham states that there is no record of any early Christian group which did not observe Sunday, with the exception of a single extreme group of Ebionites mentioned by Eusebius of Caesarea; and that there is no evidence that Sunday was observed as substitute Sabbath worship in the early centuries. However Acts 13:14, 42, 44, 15:21, 16:13, 17:2, and 18:4 indicate that the Apostles were still worshiping on Sabbath. Some Protestant scholars have argued that Christian Sunday worship traces back even further, to the resurrection appearances of Jesus recorded in the Gospel narratives where Jesus would appear to his disciples on the first day of the week. Seventh-day Adventist scholar Samuele Bacchiocchi has argued that Sunday worship, unconnected to the Sabbath, was introduced by Constantine the Great in Rome in 321, and was later enforced by him throughout the Christian church as a substitution for Sabbath worship.
Edict of Constantine On 3 March 321, Constantine I decreed that Sunday (dies Solis) will be observed as the Roman day of rest [CJ3.12.2]:
Middle Ages Augustine of Hippo followed the early patristic writers in spiritualizing the meaning of the Sabbath commandment, referring it to eschatological rest rather than observance of a literal day. However, the practice of Sunday rest increased in prominence throughout the early Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas taught that the decalogue is an expression of natural law which binds all men, and therefore the Sabbath commandment is a moral requirement along with the other nine. Thus Sunday rest and Sabbath became increasingly associated.
Following Aquinas' decree, Christian Europeans could now spend less time denouncing the Judaistic method of observing the Sabbath, instead establishing rules for what one "should" and "should not" do on the Sabbath. For example, while the Medieval Church forbade most forms of work on the Sabbath, it allowed "necessary works", and priests would allow their peasants to perform the needed agricultural work in the field.
Teaching by denomination
Though Sunday Sabbatarian practice declined in the 18th century, the evangelical awakening in the 19th century led to a greater concern for strict Sunday Sabbatarian observance. The founding of the Lord's Day Observance Society in 1831 was influenced by the teaching of bishop Daniel Wilson.
Reformed