In this final look at Shernel’s criticism of Searching for Truth, the emphasis will be on the Lord’s day and acceptable worship unto God. Seventh-Day Adventists must try to destroy the New Testament idea that Christians worship on Sunday, the first day of the week (also known as the Lord’s day). They feel compelled to discredit the day because of their obsession with the Sabbath, which they insist is the only day for worship. In a vain effort to denounce the Lord’s day, Shernel writes:
In Acts 20:7, Paul is rejoicing with the disciples. “And upon the first [day] of the week, (in the King James the word ‘day’ is a supplied word by man) when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight.” This meeting was not because it was the “first day” but because Paul was “ready to depart”. It was a social meeting. There is no scriptural evidence that this was an exalted day or that they were celebrating the Saviour’s supper. Breaking bread was a widely used term for fellowship meals. It was a fellowship meeting, and Paul was with the disciples before his departure. One verse does not a doctrine make (5, all formatting and spellings are his).
Anyone who desires to understand how false teachers manipulate the Scriptures could use this “analysis” as an example. It is a mixture of truth and error that those unfamiliar with the Bible would not catch. Following are several points the reader needs to know.
1. Shernel noted that the word day is supplied by the translators. That part is true; however, it is calculated to deceive—to imply there is something wrong or objectionable with the inclusion of day, although he never says what that might be. But why bring it up at all, since the Greek expression translated “first day” consistently leaves out day? The whole truth is that the phrase, the first day of the week, appears eight times in the New Testament (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7, and 1 Cor. 16:2), and in every case the word day is italicized. Shernel did not bother to mention that. He could have also discovered the word Sabbath appears 60 times in the New Testament, but he either did not or would not check on this phrase to see if the omission of day was significant, which it is not.
2. The writer is correct when he quotes Acts 20:7, but he is immediately wrong when he begins to explain the verse. Once again, a person only needs to read the context to know that he is blatantly trying to mislead them. He says this is only “a social meeting.” It helps to read the preceding verse, which explains that Paul had stayed in Troas seven days (Acts 20:6). Why would he do that—to wait for a social meeting—or to meet with the brethren for worship? We find out only a few verses later that Paul sailed past Asia because he was in a hurry to get to Jerusalem by the Day of Pentecost (Acts 20:16). So here is Paul, trying to meet a deadline that could not be changed, and he lounges around Troas seven days—waiting on a social meeting? Hah!
3. Shernel is correct when he says that the phrase, to break bread, is used to describe fellowship meals, but he did not explain that the same phrase is also used of the Lord’s Supper—and that the context determines which meaning is intended. This and similar phrases are found a few times in the New Testament. In Luke 24:30 and 35, Jesus and the two disciples were not engaging in worship but were about to share a common meal. In Act 2:46, the brethren were breaking bread from house to house, and the intended meaning is a fellowship meal. In Acts 2:42, however, the teaching of doctrine, fellowship, and prayers indicate worship. A “social meal” interpretation would be out of order.
Not only do both senses of the expression occur in the same passage in Acts 2, they also do in Acts 20. The disciples came together to break bread (v. 7). Paul had waited seven days in order to join them in worship—not a social gathering. Their purpose in coming together was to observe the Lord’s death. To break bread is a synecdoche in which the part stands for the whole (namely the bread and the fruit of the vine). At how many social gatherings does someone preach until midnight? Shernel’s allegation of a social meeting is ludicrous. However, later that evening, he broke bread and talked a long while (v. 11). This breaking of bread was for nourishment. The church is not said to join Paul in this action.
4. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, it is obvious that they are partaking of the Lord’s Supper with some degree of frequency (1 Cor. 11:20-34). The implication is that their observance of the Lord’s death was during their usual meeting time. How interesting for Shernel to say of the first day of the week that it is not an exalted day when it is obvious that this was a special day for Christians! It was the day they met together for worship, and there is no other day mentioned.
5. So, one verse does not a doctrine make, right? This statement is uproariously funny when one realizes that Seventh-Day Adventists have zero verses to support worship on the Sabbath Day. They would pay handsomely if they could find even one verse to support their doctrine, but they search in vain. Furthermore, Acts 20:7 is not the only verse that demonstrates that the disciples met for worship then; Paul commanded the brethren in Corinth to give on the first day of the week (1 Cor. 16:2). In addition to these two verses, all of the historical accounts agree with the Scriptures; none indicate that brethren ever met on the seventh day.
And the Point Is?
The topic of attention now shifts to the Lord’s Supper, but what Shernel is trying to say is anybody’s guess. He says that the “Communion service,” as he calls it, is meaningful in remembering a dying Savior and pointing to the second coming, but then He says: “In all the Scriptures you will not find one instance of a worship service feast or Sabbath where the service of communion was celebrated” (6) What?? Yes, the “Communion service” is so meaningful that no one ever observed it. This is a strange doctrine to claim. He quotes from 1 Corinthians 11:23-30. What does he think they were doing in Corinth? Oh, that’s right. He omitted verse 20, which indicates that they came together to “eat the Lord’s Supper.” Hmm. Just like those in Troas, they too came together for the purpose of worship, which included eating the Lord’s Supper. He did not discover that the two groups of Christians were meeting to remember Christ’s death because he does not want that to be the case—especially on the first day of the week. These are examples of someone attempting to make the Bible fit a false doctrine.
But even though the Bible allegedly contains no record of Christians having observed the “Communion service,” Shernel is certain that, when it is done, brethren ought to wash one another’s feet as well (John 13: 5-9, 14-17). Ironically, there really is no example of washing each other’s feet as part of worship. Jesus was not requiring a practice, as with remembering His death; He was teaching His disciples about humility in connection with a practice of first-century hospitality. Streets could be dusty, sandals exposed feet to dust, and they got dirty. A good host washed the feet of his guests (see Luke 7:44 and 1 Tim. 5:10). Today, people come to worship with clean feet, and washing them would become a meaningless ritual. Shernel is confusing an item of worship that the church observed with an act of hospitality that was not part of worship.
At the beginning of these four articles, it was pointed out that the author of this document did not show much familiarity with the churches of Christ. He addressed this document to “pastor,” obviously thinking that we are like religious denominations. He also misstated that only the Catholic Church observes Communion every Sunday. Churches of Christ have been doing so since the first century. He did not do his homework before attacking us.
Who Changed the Day?
The seventh page of his document contains quotes from several Catholics and two Protestants, claiming that the Catholic Church changed the day of worship from the Sabbath (Saturday) to the first day of the week (Sunday). It would not prove anything if Shernel had a list of hundreds of quotes. The question, regardless of the number of testimonies, that one must ask is: “Is the claim true?” No one doubts that the Catholic Church may have taken credit for what the Lord did, but is their claim valid? If a thousand folks jumped on the bandwagon and agreed that the Catholic Church changed the day, we must still demand proof.
The evidence shows that they did not do so. As al-ready demonstrated, brethren met on the first day of the week to remember the Lord’s death (Acts 20:7). No verse in the New Testament commands Christians to meet on the Sabbath Day for worship, and there are zero examples of brethren doing so. Why do we refer to the first day of the week as “the Lord’s day”?
1. This is the first day the Lord made (cf. Ps. 118:24).
2. It is the day that the Lord rose from the dead.
3. It is the day that the church was established.
4. It is the day the disciples met to remember Jesus.
5. It is the day Paul told Christians to lay aside money.
6. It is the day that the great Commission was given.
7. It was the day John was in the Spirit (Rev. 1:10).
Anyone who insists that the Catholic Church altered the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday has two insurmountable problems. The first is that there was no pope for six centuries after the establishment of the church. No pope could take credit for the change until 600 years after the fact—unless Shernel believes in the Catholic Church’s claim that Peter was the first pope! He does not give the impression that he believes such a doctrine, yet he affirms that they changed it. He must answer one all-important question: “At what date did the Catholic Church change the date?” If he answers, “In the first century,” then he must believe that the Catholic Church existed then, which it did not. Will he say, “It happened in the second century or the third,” amidst all of the persecutions? Or will he wait until Constantine comes along and issues the Edict of Toleration in A.D. 312?
Phillip Schaff composed a monumental work called, History of the Christian Church, which consists of eight volumes, each of which contains 800 to 1,000 pages. He provides all of the sources he researched at the beginning of each section, and it is regarded by scholars as a landmark work. He follows the development of Christianity as to when the first universal pope began. In the late sixth century, there were five men who were considered popes (or patriarchs) over certain geographical regions. Gregory the Great (590-604) was over Rome. Schaff writes about the situation at that time with respect to Gregory:
But a universal episcopate, including an authority of jurisdiction over the Eastern or Greek church, was not acknowledged, and, what is more remarkable, was not even claimed by him, but emphatically declined and denounced. He stood between the patriarchal and the strictly papal system. He regarded the four patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem…as coordinate leaders of the church under Christ… (4:218-19).
Boniface III. (606-607) did not scruple to assume the title of “universal bishop,” against which Gregory, in proud humility, had so indignantly protested as a blasphemous antichristian assumption (4:230).
In other words, Gregory considered his four fellow patriarchs as equal to him and was willing to share the ruling power with them, but Boniface III did not hesitate to declare himself over the entire church. This first universal bishop, or pope, made this claim in 606. Now, can Shernel claim that some “pope” prior to this man changed the time of worship? The day was not changed for nearly 600 years, and nobody noticed when it was changed? It would not help if it were changed during the time of Constantine—because of the second difficulty, which is that Christians were meeting on the first day of the week in the Bible (Acts 20:7), and that fact is corroborated by early church history. Once again, Schaff writes concerning the practices of Christians early on:
The celebration of the Lord’s Day in memory of the resurrection of Christ dates undoubtedly from the apostolic age. Nothing short of apostolic precedent can account for the universal religious observance in the churches in the second century. There is no dissenting voice (2:201).
When was the last time there was no dissent on anything? Brethren uniformly worshipped God on the first day of the week, which they referred to as the Lord’s Day. Everett Ferguson, in his book, Early Christians Speak, provided the following quotations: Ignatius, around A. D. 110, wrote that those who “came to the new hope” no longer observed “the Sabbath but” lived “according to the Lord’s Day” (67). Justin Martyr wrote the following around 150:
We are always together with one another…. And on that day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a city or a rural district…. We all make our assembly in common on the day of the Sun, since it is the first day, on which God changed the darkness and matter and made the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior arose from the dead on the same day. For they crucified him on the day before Saturn’s day… (67-68).
There are many more references, but these are sufficient to demonstrate the truth. If a Catholic Pope or the Council of Trent or some denominational men came along years later and claimed that the Catholic Church changed the day of worship, it only shows that they, like Shernel, either do not know or do not acknowledge historical truth.
Conclusion
Christians believe, or ought to, in the authority of the New Testament. We practice only what we are authorized to do. We have no authority for worshipping on the Sabbath Day. If we did, we would. Jesus kept the Sabbath Day because He lived under the Old Covenant. He could not break God’s Law and be guiltless. At the same time He preached the principles of the kingdom, and no occasion is recorded in which He reminded everyone to continue to honor the Sabbath day.
Paul sought his fellow-Jews on the Sabbath because that was the day they met; he went into the synagogue because it was the place they met. It afforded him an opportunity to teach them—as long as they allowed him to do so. But the apostle met with brethren on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7) and even commanded that they give on that day (1 Cor. 16:2). Christians have continued to meet on the first day of the week ever since.
No pope or religious institution changed the day of worship—God changed it. Christians meet for worship on the first day because the Lord so authorized. The Sabbath was part of a covenant made with the Israelites that was taken out of the way and nailed to the cross. Let us continue to enjoy the new and better covenant.