by
Joe Kovacs
| Archive
Two thousand years after Jesus walked the Earth, Christians are at
war with each other concerning – as strange as it may sound – a day of
the week mentioned in the Ten Commandments.
The issue boils down to: “When is God’s Sabbath?” In other words, what is His holy day of rest?
Most Christians today think it’s Sunday, when the majority of churches hold services.
But others confidently say it’s Saturday, calling Sunday worship “the
most flagrant error of mainstream Christianity,” believing
Sunday-keepers are victims of clever deception.
Some high-profile evangelical pastors such as California’s Greg Laurie say it’s simply “wrong to set Saturday apart as a special day for worship.”
Today, some high-school sports teams refuse to play in state tournaments for the sole reason the events are held on Saturday – what they say is God’s Sabbath.
 Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell |
Conversely, the 1981 film “Chariots of Fire” was based on the true story of Eric Liddell, a Scottish sprinter and Christian missionary who disqualified himself from his best event at the 1924 Olympics because the race was on Sunday – the Sabbath in his view.
Christians seem irreparably split, as this issue goes back to the beginning of time itself.
In the beginning …
There are seven days in a week, but historians have no consensus about the cycle’s origin, since it has no basis in astronomy.
The Bible, though, indicates God created the Earth and its life forms in six days, and then rested on the seventh.
“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he
rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.” (Genesis 2:2-3)
Biblically speaking, the first six days of the week had no special
name. They were simply identified by ordinal numbers, such as the first,
second and third day. But the seventh day was given a unique name. In
Hebrew, it’s “shabbat,” meaning “rest.” In English, the word is
“Sabbath,” and it’s detailed in the Fourth Commandment.
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou
labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the
LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work … . For in six days the
LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested
the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day.” (Exodus
20:8-11)
In many languages, the word used for the seventh day of the week –
what we call Saturday – is actually the same word used for “Sabbath.” In
Greek, it is sabbaton; Italian, sabato; Spanish, sábado; Russian,
subbota; Polish, sobota; and Hungarian, szómbat. Even the French
“samedi” is from the Latin “Sambata dies,” for “day of the Sabbath.”
Names of days in today’s English come from ancient paganism, where
they were originally associated with celestial objects and heathen gods.
 Table traces the seven days of the week from their pagan Latin origin through the names of Norse gods to their current names in English |
In the King James Version of the Bible, the word “Sabbath” appears
137 times. The word “Sunday” is absent, though its equivalent, the first
day of the week, occurs eight times – nine if the “first day” of
creation is counted.
Some examples of the use of Sabbath include: