Acts 13:4, 42, 44

We next notice references made to the Bible Sabbath during the days of the apostles. “When they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat down.” Acts 13:14. After this Paul gave a masterly discourse to those assembled, proving that Jesus is the Christ. We learn from this scripture that the day St. Luke called the Sabbath some twelve years after, which many claim had been changed, was still the seventh day, the very day when the Jews met in their synagogues. At the close of this discourse, we read: “When the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath: ...and the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” Acts 13:42, 44. Here again the inspired word of God positively declares that the seventh day, on which the Jews met in their synagogues, was the Sabbath day in the year A. D. 45.ChSa 69.2

We are well aware how first-day advocates try to avoid the force of this argument by saying, “It was the Jewish Sabbath, of course,” and “the apostles went into the synagogue to preach, simply because they could not get opportunity to speak to the Jews any other day,” “the apostles did not hold religious meetings with the Gentiles on the Jewish Sabbath,” etc. But the very fact that these men in every case place the word “Jewish” before the word “Sabbath,” when speaking of the seventh day of the week, as a term of reproach, while they speak of the first day of the week as the Sabbath, without any such qualifying phrase, shows the sense in which they speak of that day, as distinguished from the manner in which the inspired writers speak of it many years this side of the cross. Why did not St. Luke speak of the day as the “Jewish Sabbath,” if his practice then was the same as that of many Christian ministers now? We could not persuade these estimable men to speak of the seventh day as the Sabbath day before their congregations in public. They never do it. They would feel at once that all who heard them would draw the conclusion that they considered it a sacred day, should they do so. The observers of the seventh always call it “the Sabbath day,” because they regard it as such.ChSa 70.1

How shall we explain the fact that St. Luke, whenever he has occasion to speak of the seventh day Sabbath, always calls it by the same name that its modern observers do, and never the Jewish Sabbath, except on the supposition that he observed it himself, and considered no other day of the week the Sabbath day. This writer was a Christian, writing for the Christian dispensation. He calls those institutions which he names, what they really are. He always calls the seventh day, when he has occasion to speak of it, “the Sabbath,” just as writers had been doing for four thousand years, showing that no change had occurred. He never in a single instance calls the first day of the week by any such title, or by any sacred title whatever. Yet many good people believe that he had been keeping the first day of the week as the Sabbath for thirty years, and not keeping the seventh day as such. We leave it for first-day observers to explain such inconsistency.ChSa 70.2

We next notice the claim that the apostles did not hold meetings on the seventh day Sabbath, except with the Jews, for the sake of reaching them. Acts 13:42 implies that this meeting on the first Sabbath mentioned, was a mixed meeting of Jews and Gentiles; for the latter requested that these words might be repeated to them on the next Sabbath. This shows at least that they were somewhat conversant with the discourse. What an excellent opportunity this presented to the apostle to inform them of the first day Sabbath, if there had been any instituted! How readily our modern ministers would have remarked, “You need not wait a whole week: tomorrow is the Christian’s Sabbath, the day in which we instruct the Gentiles.” But not a word of this do we find. They waited a whole week; then nearly the whole city turned out to hear the gospel. Luke says it was “the next Sabbath day” when this great gathering occurred. It was evidently a week later than the other meeting. If it was the next Sabbath day, then most certainly Sunday was not a Sabbath day. Here was a Gentile meeting on the Sabbath day, and no one can truthfully deny it. Here we have two consecutive Sabbath days in which the great apostle held religious services, instructing far more Gentiles than Jews.ChSa 71.1