Sabbath-keeping and Harmony Among Early Christians

The earliest Christian church was comprised primarily of Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, not Gentile converts |0| . The basics of the Christian message demanded that these Christians break from many of the Jewish traditions, traditions that were deeply ingrained in their culture. In the highly structured Jewish society at the time of Christ, breaking traditions dating back to Abraham must have met exceptionally strong resistance, both from within the individual and from without.

It is only natural that these first Jewish Christians would want to maintain their cultural heritage whenever possible. But Christ's crucifixion and resurrection eliminated the necessity of continuing many Old Testament practices. The difficulty in surrendering a part of their traditions no doubt played a major role in the rejection of Jesus by the masses.

Some Jewish practices, such as animal sacrifices, were clearly not to be observed by Christians. The validity of certain other practices proved more difficult to ascertain and led to much debate. Circumcision and the eating of foods sacrificed to idols were two topics so widely and fervently debated that Scripture makes repeated mention of conflict.

Of all the Jewish traditions, perhaps none was as strongly guarded as that of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was the core of the weekly religious cycle. Its sacredness was mentioned repeatedly in the writings that now form the Old Testament. The Jews' religious zeal led them to extreme measures to protect its sacredness. |1+| Its violation was punished by death.

Let us assume, solely for the sake of argument, that immediately after the resurrection, Christians ceased to observe the Sabbath and began to worship on the first day of the week. No single change could have challenged the Jewish traditions more than this. If the rejection of physical circumcision caused the degree of conflict recorded in the Scriptures, how much more would we expect Jewish Christians to resist the abandonment of the Sabbath. How violently would we expect the Jewish leaders who rejected Jesus to persecute those who openly desecrated the Sabbath. But, amazingly, not one word is mentioned in the whole of the New Testament concerning resistance to or questioning about the abandonment of the Sabbath.

While the early believers experienced many conflicts in their efforts to establish a new religious culture, they were in complete harmony with regards to the Sabbath. The concept that the Christian Jew was willing to accept the abandonment of the Sabbath without questioning or protest defies reason. Perhaps this, above all else, testifies to the continuousness of the seventh day Sabbath during the early church.