TimeTalk
Exploring the history and mystery of calendars, and the days that mark the rhythm of our lives: the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day.
A Brief History: From Sabbath to Lord’s Day – Part Six
CHRISTIANS AND JEWS "At first the Roman state did not distinguish between Jews and Christians. In fact, we may be sure that the Romans simply saw Christians as a group of Jews, or a group within the Jewish community. So when the Jews were expelled from Rome in the...
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A Brief History: From Sabbath to “Lord’s Day” – Part Five
EARLY CHRISTIAN SABBATH "The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee...went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment" (Luke 23:55-56 NIV).We begin to get an idea about early Christian attitudes toward the...
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A Brief History: From Sabbath to “Lord’s Day” – Part Four
LORD OF THE SABBATH "The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath" Mark 2:28 (NIV). When He healed people on the Sabbath, Jesus showed the true spirit of the holy day. He kept the Sabbath according to the ancient Hebrew scriptures—the Old Testament. By claiming that He...
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A Brief History: From Sabbath to Lord’s Day – Part Three
THE SABBATH REFORMER "Then he said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath'" (Mark 2:27 NIV). According to the Old Testament, God originally established the Sabbath as the celebration of His creative work and as a day of freedom from labor....
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A Brief History: From Sabbath to “Lord’s Day” – Part Two
RELIGION IN ROME The Christian era began during the reign of the first emperor of Rome, Caesar Augustus. At that time the Roman empire tolerated within its borders scores—if not hundreds—of religions and cults. On its eastern border there was Persia with its...
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A Brief History: From Sabbath to “Lord’s Day” – Part One
Have you ever wondered how the vast majority of devout Christians came to observe Sunday as "the Lord's day" instead of the biblical Sabbath, or Saturday? This is not a theological question, but an historical one. What happened? When and where did it happen? Who...
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SABBATH: FEAST OR FAST?
Marcion was born around 85 AD in the region of Pontus. On our maps that would be the north coast of Turkey, along the Black Sea. Some historians say he was a wealthy ship owner who converted to Christianity as an adult. Others claim that his father was a bishop. In...
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DATA TRUMPS ASSUMPTOINS
The Sabbath/Sunday debate often devolves into a contest between two equally naïve assumptions – both of which are faulty. Both betray a misreading of the historical data – or, in some cases, a woeful ignorance that the data even exists. On one hand, there’s the...
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Anti-semitism Calendars Easter Lord’s day Passover Sabbath Sunday change of the Sabbath Follow Us DID HELLENIZED JEWS ABANDON THE SABBATH?
A thoughtful TimeTalk reader has made a welcome contribution to the discussion about Sabbath observance among the first-century Christians. He suggests that the vast majority of early converts were Hellenized Jews who had already “jettisoned” the Sabbath and other...
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The Worst Arguments Against the Sabbath?
There are all kinds of ideas kicking around about why Christians don’t need to keep the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment. Here’s one of the most popular: "We live under the New Covenant, are saved by grace, and therefore the Ten Commandments are irrelevant." Not only...
read moreFirst Century Christians in Jewish Synagogues? Wake Up and Smell the History!
Is there historical evidence that either Jesus or His disciples established Sunday as the new Sabbath for Christians? No. In fact, history shows just the opposite. In the final years of the 1st century Christians were still worshipping with...
read moreSunday as Sabbath in the 1st Century?
Watch the complete Seventh Day documentary online at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/seventhday
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One Day Above Another?
Was the Apostle Paul taking a stand against Sabbath observance when he wrote Romans 14:5? This verse is commonly used in anti-Sabbath arguments today. Let's take a look. "One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of...
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Seventh-day Sabbath Survived!
There is no New Testament authority for establishing Sunday as a holy day for believers. There are only eight references to the first day of the week in the NT, and six of those are part of the resurrection narratives. None of the eight can be reasonably construed as...
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A Year with no Easter?
Most of the converts to the new faith were Jews by birth, culture, and religion. All the original Apostles were Jews. Even after the influx of Gentile converts, leadership of the church was overwhelmingly Jewish. It comes as no surprise, then, that the calendar of the...
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Moonlit Easter
During the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD the Christian world was divided over the Easter question. Should the celebration be tied to Passover? That meant that it could come on any day of the week. Easter/Passover would be on the 14th of Nisan according to the Jewish...
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