I’ve just read the short, interesting, book A Brief History of Sunday by the Church historian Justo L. Gonzalez.  His two-volume set The Story of Christianity, is a readable and informative history of the Church, and the Sunday book is just as good.  It gives a lively description of the early Christians, including a number of surprising facts about the origins of Sunday worship. I would like to share a few with you.

            Of course, the primary reason for worshipping on Sunday is that it is the day of the resurrection, and it soon became viewed as the Lord’s Day.  The first Christian congregations were Jewish, and they still observed the Sabbath.  The Jewish calendar, however, measured days from sunset to sunset; hence the Jewish Sabbath ended at sunset on what is our Saturday.  Correspondingly, the first day of the week started at sunset on our Saturday.  It was surprising to me that these very first congregations most likely worshipped on our Saturday evening.  It was the earliest Gentile congregations that started worshipping on what is our Sunday morning.  Many of them were slaves or had other obligations, and they could go on and do their required work after the early services.

            The early Christians did not view Sunday as a Christian sabbath, and there was no linkage to the fourth Commandment.  The Jewish Christians did not use Sunday to replace the sabbath.  With time, most congregations were Gentile, and they turned away from the idea of the sabbath to the extent that at the beginning of the second century Ignatius of Antioch issued a statement endorsing the non-observance of the sabbath.  A century later an edict of the emperor Constantine made Sunday a holiday for all in the empire, but the strictures prohibiting various activities on Sunday originated with the Puritans in the sixteenth century.

            I was also surprised to learn that first century Christians refrained from fasting and kneeling to pray on Sunday.  This was fine and common on other days of the week, but not on Sunday.  The idea was that Sunday was a day of gratitude for, celebration of, and rejoicing in the resurrection of Jesus.  It was to be a time of joy!  I can’t help but believe that this positivity helped the rapid spread of the Gospel. It was centuries later that the death of Jesus became a focal point of worship.

            Reading the book left me a little envious of those early Christians and their Spirit-filled Sundays. Despite the severe challenges they had to endure, they were secure in their knowledge of the unconditional love of God and were able to joyously rejoice. We at Joy, should also view Sunday as a day to joyously rejoice in that same unconditional love He has for YOU and me.

            Jim