Chapter 2: The Commandment They Changed

The Missing Command

Over 2.3 billion Christians¹ Pew Research Center, "The Global Religious Landscape," December 18, 2012. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/. Pew Research Center, "The Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population," July 11, 2013. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/. Pew Research estimates approximately 2.38 billion Christians globally as of 2023, with the vast majority (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestant denominations) observing Sunday worship. gather every Sunday for worship, fifty-two weeks per year, totaling over 100 billion worship services annually.

All of them rest on precisely zero biblical commands.

Not one verse commanding Sunday worship exists in Scripture.

The Question Behind the Question

A common objection arises: "Are you saying a day matters more than Christ?"

This frames the wrong question. Scripture never poses "Christ or commandments" as a choice. It presents them as inseparable:

"If ye love me, keep my commandments."

John 14:15

"Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."

Revelation 14:12

"And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

Revelation 12:17

The word is "and," not "or." The remnant is identified by those who keep the commandments of God and have faith in Jesus. Both together form one unified faithfulness.

But which commandments? One response claims these are "New Testament commandments" (believe in Jesus, love one another), not the Ten Commandments. Revelation itself answers this:

"Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters."

Revelation 14:7

Compare to the Fourth Commandment:

"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day."

Exodus 20:11

The First Angel's message quotes the Fourth Commandment nearly verbatim. The angel calls all humanity to worship the Creator, using the specific language God used when establishing the Sabbath. This is no coincidence. When Revelation speaks of "the commandments of God" in the context of the final remnant, it points directly to the Decalogue, specifically highlighting the commandment that identifies the Creator.

The cross covers sin. Sabbath-keeping doesn't save anyone. Christ alone saves. The question is what faithfulness to Christ looks like, and whether loving Him includes keeping the commandments the Father wrote with His own finger.

The question isn't "Christ or calendar." The question is: "What does Christ Himself command?"

The Commandment God Wrote in Stone

The Ten Commandments are God's moral law, given to Moses on Mount Sinai. These weren't suggestions or cultural guidelines. God personally wrote them in stone with His own finger (Exodus 31:18), the only Scripture God physically wrote rather than dictating through prophets. They've stood as the foundation of moral law for over three thousand years.

Nine of them are obvious enough that virtually any culture recognizes them:

1. No other gods before Me
2. No graven images
3. Don't take God's name in vain
4. [This is the one Christendom changed]
5. Honor your father and mother
6. Don't murder
7. Don't commit adultery
8. Don't steal
9. Don't bear false witness
10. Don't covet

The Fourth Commandment starts with "Remember":

"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, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 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, and hallowed it."

Exodus 20:8-11

"The seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God."

The Sabbath is specifically the seventh day, which is Saturday on every calendar in the world. Sunday is the first day of the week. Scripture names the day. Tradition cannot substitute another.

Before Sinai, Before Israel

Some object: "The Sabbath was a sign given to Israel at Sinai. It doesn't apply to Gentile Christians (non-Jewish believers)."

This objection ignores when the Sabbath began.

The Fourth Commandment doesn't say "I am now creating a new institution." It says "Remember the sabbath day." You remember something that already exists. The commandment points backward:

"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, and hallowed it."

Exodus 20:11

The seventh day was blessed and sanctified at Creation, not at Sinai:

"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: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."

Genesis 2:2-3

This is the only recorded instance in Scripture of God blessing a unit of time itself. He blessed living creatures (Genesis 1:22). He blessed mankind (Genesis 1:28). But here He blessed a day. Before the first human sin, before the first human need, God embedded holiness into the fabric of time.

The creation week follows a deliberate structure. Days one through three form the realms: light separated from darkness, sky divided from waters, and land raised from sea. Days four through six fill those realms with inhabitants: sun and moon, birds and fish, and animals and humans. But the seventh day neither forms nor fills. It crowns the finished work. The Hebrew text preserves this in the final phrase: "all his work which God created and made." Two verbs, not one. Bara means to create from nothing, a verb Scripture reserves for God alone. Asah means to fashion or form from existing material. The Sabbath rest commemorates the full scope of God's creative act: both the miracle of something from nothing and the artistry of order from chaos.

Genesis 2 predates Sinai by millennia. There were no Jews yet, no Israel, and no covenant at Sinai.

The Sabbath was made for humanity, not for Israel alone:

"The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath."

Mark 2:27

The Greek word is anthropos: humanity, mankind, and the human race. Jesus didn't say "the Sabbath was made for the Jews" or "for Israel" or "for the Old Covenant people." He said it was made for man, all humanity.

Sinai gave the Sabbath to Israel as a covenant sign (Exodus 31:13-17), but Sinai incorporated an existing Creation ordinance; it didn't invent the Sabbath. The rainbow was given to Noah as a sign (Genesis 9:12-13), yet rainbows exist for everyone. A sign can be given to a specific group while the underlying reality remains universal.

"Sinai-only" would make the Sabbath temporary, like circumcision. But Creation-origin places it with marriage, another institution established in Genesis 2 (Genesis 2:24: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife") that no one claims expired at the cross.

Every Calendar on Earth Agrees

Open any calendar: English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, or Chinese. The language makes no difference.

The seventh day of the week is Saturday.

Saturday.

The word "Saturday" comes from "Saturn's day" in English. Other languages preserve the connection:

• Hebrew: Shabbat (Sabbath)
• Arabic: As-Sabt (The Sabbath)
• Russian: Subbota (Sabbath)
• Spanish: Sábado (Sabbath)
• Italian: Sabato (Sabbath)
• Portuguese: Sábado (Sabbath)
• Greek: Savvato (Sabbath)
• Polish: Sobota (Sabbath)
• Bulgarian: Sabota (Sabbath)
• Armenian: Shabat (Sabbath)

Over 100 languages call the seventh day "Sabbath" in their own tongue.² William Mead Jones, The Chart of the Week and the World's Chronology (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1889). Jones catalogs Sabbath-related words in 108 languages spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The examples provided (Hebrew Shabbat, Arabic As-Sabt, Russian Subbota, Spanish Sábado, etc.) are independently verifiable through standard etymological dictionaries. While Jones' work is frequently cited in Sabbath literature, comprehensive primary verification of each language's etymology would strengthen the claim beyond the commonly accepted examples. The seventh day never moved. It's still Saturday. It's always been Saturday.

The word "Sunday" means the day of the sun. But the sun was not created until the fourth day (Genesis 1:16). Light existed from the first: "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3). For three days, light shone before any sun existed. The source was God Himself.

If God meant Sunday, He wrote the wrong day.

If God meant "any day you want," He should have said "one day in seven," but He didn't. He said "the seventh day."

Words have meaning. When God writes "the seventh day" with His own finger in stone, "the seventh day" means the seventh day.

For a complete side-by-side comparison of Scripture versus tradition, see Appendix A: Sabbath vs. Sunday.

The Commandments They Restructured

But changing the day isn't all they did.

The prophet Daniel, writing over 500 years before Christ, foretold a power that would "think to change times and laws." This prophecy is significant, and the plural is deliberate. We've seen the time change: seventh day to first day, Saturday to Sunday. The laws were changed too.

Daniel 7 describes a "little horn" rising from the fourth beast (Rome), speaking "great words against the most High" and wearing out the saints. Chapter 8 documents how Protestant Reformers unanimously identified this power as the papacy. This power would establish a mark of its authority. Sunday worship enforced by law, distinguishing those who follow human tradition from those who keep God's commandments. The details unfold in chapters ahead, but the foundation is here: the day was changed, the law was altered, and accepting that change means accepting the authority that made it.

A catechism is an official teaching manual used to instruct believers in church doctrine. What appears in a catechism isn't one priest's opinion; it's the institution's authorized teaching. Compare what God wrote in stone with what the Catholic catechism presents as the Ten Commandments:

The Bible vs. The Catechism

The Bible has ten commandments and the catechism has ten, but they are not the same ten.

The Fourth Commandment opens with a unique word: "Remember." The Hebrew zakar does not mean "learn" or "begin observing." It means to recall something already known. No other commandment begins this way. God does not say "Remember not to murder" or "Remember not to steal." Those commands are stated as straightforward prohibitions. But for the Sabbath, God says "Remember," as if addressing those who have forgotten rather than those who have never known. He knew this commandment would face systematic pressure and become a central dividing line between true and false worship, like the offerings of Cain and Abel.

The Deletion

The second commandment (three verses of explicit prohibition against graven images) disappeared from the numbered catechism list.³ The Baltimore Catechism (standard U.S. Catholic instruction from 1885-1960s) lists: "1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me. 2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain..." The graven images prohibition is omitted from the numbered list entirely, although Catholic apologists claim it's "included within" the first commandment, but the explicit prohibition does not appear in the numbered list. See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), Part III, Section 2. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7B.HTM

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God..."

Exodus 20:4-6

Catholic churches contain statues, icons, and images. Worshippers kneel before them, pray, and light candles. Catholics distinguish between veneration (honoring saints) and worship (due to God alone), a theological distinction the Church articulates carefully. The question isn't whether Catholics believe they're worshiping statues; most don't. The question is why the explicit commandment forbidding images was removed from the numbered catechism list. Intent may be sincere, but no one accidentally restructures God's commandments.

The Second Commandment is no minor prohibition. We live in an idol-saturated world: not only the obvious religious images (Buddha statues, Hindu deities, and images before which devotees bow), but the modern idols we don't recognize as such. Athletes become objects of worship, their images covering bedroom walls. Musicians command devotion that rivals any temple cult. The faces on our screens shape values more than Scripture. The commandment against images addresses something deeper than bronze and marble: the human tendency to venerate the creature rather than the Creator.

The Split

But you can't delete a commandment from a list of ten without the count coming up short. So they split the tenth commandment into two.

God wrote this as one commandment:

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."

Exodus 20:17

This is one verse with one subject (coveting) forming one commandment.

The catechism splits it into two:

• 9th Commandment: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife"
• 10th Commandment: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods"

They surgically split one verse into two commandments.⁴ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), Part III, Section 2, Articles 9-10, treats these as distinct commandments: "the ninth commandment forbids carnal concupiscence; the tenth forbids coveting another's goods." This follows Augustine's 5th-century numbering adopted by the Roman Catechism of Trent (1566), which differs from the traditional Jewish and Protestant enumeration. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7B.HTM

They deleted one commandment, split another, and kept the count at ten while changing the content.

The Pattern

"Think to change times and laws."

The times changed when the Sabbath moved from Saturday to Sunday, the only commandment God told us to "Remember." The laws changed when the second commandment was deleted, the Fourth Commandment was altered from "the seventh day" to "the Lord's Day," and the tenth commandment was split in two to keep the count at ten. That makes three systematic changes to God's law, all from the same source.

This isn't ancient history. This is what Catholics are taught today. This is what 1.3 billion believers follow now.⁵ Pew Research Center estimates approximately 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide as of 2023. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/. Most individual Catholics have never read these official documents; they follow what parish instruction conveyed, often unaware that their own Church claims authority to alter God's written commandments.

Daniel's prophecy is fulfilled.

"But we lost track of the weekly cycle!"

A common objection claims that calendar changes (particularly the Julian to Gregorian switch in 1582) disrupted the weekly count, making it impossible to know which day is the seventh.

This is false.

The Gregorian calendar reform skipped ten dates (October 4, 1582 was followed by October 15, 1582), but the days of the week continued unbroken. Thursday, October 4, was followed by Friday, October 15; the weekly cycle was not touched.⁶ Pope Gregory XIII's bull Inter gravissimas (February 24, 1582) instituted the calendar reform. The text confirms the reform concerned only the annual calendar (correcting the Julian drift from the solar year) while explicitly preserving the weekly cycle. Historical records confirm Thursday, October 4, 1582 was followed by Friday, October 15, 1582. Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar January 1918; Greece in March 1923. In each case, dates were skipped but the weekday sequence continued without interruption. For scholarly treatment, see J.J. Coyne et al., eds., Gregorian Reform of the Calendar (Vatican City: Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1983).

Different nations adopted the reform at different times: Russia in 1918, Greece in 1923. If the weekly cycle had been disrupted, these countries would have different "Saturdays" than the rest of the world. They don't.

Modern calendar experiments confirm the week's resilience. Revolutionary France replaced the seven-day week with ten-day "décades" from 1793 to 1806, but churches continued meeting every seventh day until Napoleon restored the traditional week.⁷ Eviatar Zerubavel, The Seven Day Circle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 33-43. The Soviet Union tried even harder: from 1929 to 1940, Stalin implemented first a five-day week (nepreryvka) then a six-day week (shestidnevka), deliberately avoiding Sunday to combat religious observance.⁸ Solomon M. Schwarz, "The Continuous Working Week in Soviet Russia," International Labour Review 23 (1931): 157-180. The reforms failed due to machinery breakdown from continuous operation, family destruction (spouses assigned different rest days), and rural populations who completely ignored the changes. The seven-day week was restored June 26, 1940. If totalitarian states with complete social control could not abolish the weekly cycle, no ancient calendar reform could have done so either.

The Jews have kept continuous, unbroken Sabbath observance for over three millennia. Their calendar has never lost a week. Their seventh day is our Saturday.

Biology confirms what history preserves. Modern chronobiologists have discovered "circaseptan rhythms": seven-day biological cycles that exist independently of any social or environmental weekly cue.⁹ Franz Halberg and colleagues at the University of Minnesota Chronobiology Center documented circaseptan (about-weekly) rhythms in biological systems. Primary literature: F. Halberg et al., "Chronobiology," Annual Review of Physiology 31 (1969): 675-725; F. Halberg et al., "From Biologic Rhythms to Chronomes," Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. Chronobiology (1993). For accessible synthesis: Jeremy Campbell, Winston Churchill's Afternoon Nap (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), 75-79. Campbell notes: "Rhythms of about seven days arose in living creatures millions of years before the calendar week was invented." The biological significance of seven-day rhythms remains debated; some researchers attribute them to circadian rhythm interactions rather than independent endogenous cycles. Lab rats reject transplants on seven-day cycles without exposure to human calendars. Single-celled algae millions of years old display intrinsic seven-day rhythms. The weekly cycle has no astronomical basis (unlike day, month, or year), yet it persists throughout biology.

The Command That Doesn't Exist

The question that started my own investigation:

Where is the verse, anywhere in Scripture, commanding Christians to worship on Sunday instead of Saturday?

No verse suggests it. No passage establishes a pattern. No chapter and verse exists like Exodus 20:8-11 does for the seventh day.

The responses to this question fall into predictable patterns. Five objections appear most frequently (each is addressed fully in Appendix B):

1. "Jesus rose on Sunday." The resurrection is worth celebrating, but celebration does not authorize commandment-breaking. No verse records Jesus or any apostle commanding worship transfer. (Appendix B, #1)
2. "The apostles met on the first day." Acts 20:7 describes a single farewell service. Paul's established custom was Sabbath worship (Acts 17:2). (Appendix B, #4)
3. "Colossians 2:16 says Sabbath is a shadow." Paul defended Sabbath-keepers from criticism. The Greek uses "sabbaths" (plural, σαββάτων) in sequence with feast days and new moons: the annual ceremonial sabbaths of Leviticus 23 (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles), not the weekly Creation Sabbath which predates all ceremonies. The "shadow" refers to ceremonies pointing forward to Christ's sacrifice; the weekly Sabbath points backward to Creation and forward to eternal rest. (Appendix B, #10)
4. "We honor the resurrection on Sunday." Scripture commemorates events by their calendar date, not by shifting a weekly day. Passover falls on the 14th of Nisan regardless of weekday; the resurrection likewise occurred on a specific date in history. (Appendix B, #2)
5. "Keeping Sabbath means keeping all Jewish laws." God separated moral law from ceremonial law with Tabernacle architecture. (Appendix B, #11)

The Tabernacle's design proves the distinction between moral and ceremonial law. The Ten Commandments were written by God's finger and placed inside the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 40:20, 1 Kings 8:9). The ceremonial laws were written by Moses and placed beside the Ark (Deuteronomy 31:26). God physically separated permanent from temporary. The fourth commandment rested in His presence with "Thou shalt not murder," apart from feast regulations in the outer court.

If the Sabbath was abolished at the cross, it would not exist in eternity. But it does.

"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD."

Isaiah 66:22-23

The Sabbath exists at Creation, throughout history, and into the new earth. Shadows cease when reality arrives; the Sabbath continues forever. It was never a shadow; it is the eternal memorial of the Creator.¹⁰ Some ask: does "new moon to another" mean we must observe new moons today? The passage describes eschatological worship patterns in the new earth, not current commands. The weekly Sabbath is commanded in the Decalogue; new moon observances were part of the ceremonial calendar (Numbers 28:11-15) that pointed to Christ. Isaiah's vision shows how time will structure eternal worship: monthly (new moons) and weekly (sabbaths). The commanded Sabbath continues; the prophetic vision reveals its eternal scope.

For detailed responses to all twenty-two common objections, see Appendix B: Common Objections.

The Grace and Law Question

Paul writes that we are "not justified by the works of the law" (Galatians 2:16), yet Revelation describes the saints as those who "keep the commandments of God" (Revelation 14:12). Both statements are Scripture.

The answer lies in Paul's complete argument. The law diagnoses the disease (Romans 3:20); faith receives what works could never earn (Romans 3:28). Grace justifies and transforms: "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:4).

Paul addressed legalism, the attempt to earn what can only be received. Revelation describes the fruit of the redeemed: commandment-keeping as evidence of transformation. Paul's own practice confirms he kept the Sabbath; his established custom was weekly Sabbath worship (Acts 17:2, Acts 18:4). The Spirit was fulfilling the law's righteousness in him.

The remnant keeps commandments not to earn salvation, but because salvation has transformed them. God's law becomes internal delight rather than external burden.

The Denominations All Agree (on Sunday)

The major Christian traditions all observe Sunday worship:

• Catholic Church (1.3 billion): The largest Christian body, headquartered in Rome
• Eastern Orthodox (220 million): Ancient churches of Greece, Russia, and Eastern Europe
• Protestant denominations: Baptist (100+ million), Methodist (80+ million), Lutheran (75+ million), Presbyterian (50+ million), Anglican/Episcopal (85+ million), Pentecostal (280+ million), and non-denominational churches

That totals approximately 2.3 billion Christians worshiping on Sunday.¹¹ Pew Research Center, "The Global Religious Landscape," December 18, 2012. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/. Yet biblical commands for Sunday worship number zero.

Now consider the minority who keep Saturday:

• Seventh-day Adventists (~21 million): Protestant denomination emphasizing Sabbath, health, and prophecy
• Seventh Day Baptists (~50,000): Baptist tradition keeping seventh-day Sabbath since 1650
• Church of God (Seventh Day) (~200,000): Non-trinitarian Sabbath-keeping body
• Messianic Jews (hundreds of thousands): Jewish believers in Jesus maintaining Torah observance
• Ethiopian Orthodox (50+ million): Ancient African church observing both Saturday and Sunday

Sabbath-keepers number 75-100 million total, a small remnant compared to 2.3 billion Sunday-observers.

But numbers don't determine truth.

Jesus said:

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

Matthew 7:13-14

The many go the broad way; the few find the narrow way. Majority does not equal correctness. Jesus said it would not.

What Jesus Kept

Let's see Jesus' practice:

"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read."

Luke 4:16

The phrase "as his custom was" indicates not occasional worship or convenient attendance but established custom. This was his regular pattern on the Sabbath day.

What day did Jesus worship on? He worshiped on Saturday.

Jesus taught specifically about the law.

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

Matthew 5:17-18

Not one jot or tittle has passed from the law, including "the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God."

Jesus kept Saturday. He said He didn't come to destroy the law. He said not the smallest letter would pass until heaven and earth disappear.

And when Jesus prophesied about Jerusalem's destruction, an event that would happen 40 years after the cross, He said:

"But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day."

Matthew 24:20

If the Sabbath was abolished at the cross, why would Jesus tell His disciples to pray about fleeing on it four decades later? He assumed they would still be keeping it. He expected Sabbath observance to continue long after His resurrection.

The question of when Sunday became acceptable has a clear answer.

The Silence That Screams

Search the New Testament cover to cover. You will not find:

• A verse transferring the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday
• A command from Jesus or the apostles authorizing the change
• An apostolic council decision on the matter
• A rebuke of anyone keeping the seventh day
• An explanation for why God's written commandment no longer applies

The silence is complete. If God intended a change this massive, affecting billions of people across all generations, the New Testament would command it somewhere. It does not. And yet Revelation identifies the end-time remnant as those who "keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Revelation 12:17).

The Test Is Mathematical

Return to the equation:

• Biblical commands for Sunday worship: 0
• Christians keeping Sunday: ~2.3 billion
• Biblical commands for seventh-day Sabbath: Multiple (Exodus 20:8-11, Leviticus 23:3, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Isaiah 58:13, etc.)
• Christians keeping seventh-day Sabbath: ~75-100 million (including Ethiopian Orthodox, Adventists, Messianic Jews, etc.)

The majority follows tradition with zero biblical support. The minority follows a commandment God wrote in stone.

Examine the discrepancy.

The Simplicity Test

One reading requires no assumptions. The other requires several.

The Sabbath position rests on one fact: God wrote "the seventh day is the Sabbath" in stone, and the seventh day is Saturday.

The Sunday position requires multiple unproven claims: that the resurrection changed the worship day (nowhere stated in Scripture), that the church has authority to change God's law (a human assertion), and that God accepts the substitution (nowhere confirmed).

One position accepts what God wrote. The other requires explaining why He wrote the wrong day, or why He changed His mind without telling anyone. No verse reopens that case.

The Biblical Pattern from Creation to Revelation

The seventh-day Sabbath wasn't invented at Sinai for the Jews. It was established at Creation for all humanity.

As quoted earlier, Genesis 2:2-3 records God resting, blessing, and sanctifying the seventh day at Creation. This happened before the fall, before sin, before Jews existed, before Moses, and before the Ten Commandments were written in stone. The Sabbath is as old as the world itself.

Isaiah 56:6-7 prophesies Gentiles keeping Sabbath:

"Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer..."

Strangers, gentiles, and non-Jews who keep the Sabbath are welcomed to God's holy mountain.

As quoted earlier, Isaiah 66:22-23 describes Sabbath worship continuing in the new earth. All flesh will worship God from sabbath to sabbath. The Sabbath spans from Creation (Genesis 2) to the new earth (Isaiah 66).

God established the Sabbath at Creation and it continues in the new earth. It never stopped mattering.

The Apostles' Unbroken Practice

Let's trace the apostles' actual practice, not later church tradition:

Acts 13:42-44 - Gentiles request Sabbath preaching:

"And 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."

Note: The Gentiles specifically asked for the message "the next sabbath" (seven days away). If Paul taught Sunday worship, this was his perfect opportunity to say, "Come back tomorrow. We gather on Sunday now."

He didn't. They waited for the Sabbath.

Acts 16:13 - Paul seeks Sabbath worship place:

"And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither."

Paul's custom was seeking out Sabbath worship, even in cities without synagogues.

Acts 17:2 confirms "as his manner was," confirming Paul kept Sabbath as a pattern, not an exception.

Acts 18:4 - Paul preaches every Sabbath for 18 months:

"And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks."

Verse 11 adds: "And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them."

That was eighteen months, approximately 78 Sabbaths. Paul had 78 opportunities to introduce Sunday worship to the Corinthian church. He didn't. He kept teaching on Sabbath.

If Sunday was the new Christian day of worship, Paul's silence is inexplicable. But if the seventh-day Sabbath remained God's commandment, his practice makes perfect sense.

The Question of "Lord's Day"

Some claim "the Lord's day" in Revelation 1:10 means Sunday. Let's examine that:

Revelation 1:10:

"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day..."

Which day is the Lord's day? Let God define it:

Isaiah 58:13:

"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day..."

God calls the Sabbath "my holy day." The Sabbath belongs to the Lord.

Mark 2:27-28:

"And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath."

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He's not Lord of Sunday; Scripture never makes that connection. But He explicitly claims lordship over the Sabbath.

So when John says he was "in the Spirit on the Lord's day," which day has Scripture identified as the Lord's? The answer is the seventh-day Sabbath.

The Complete Comparison

Need the complete Sabbath-versus-Sunday comparison chart? See Appendix A.

Here is the summary:

What Does This Mean for You?

If you've been worshiping on Sunday your whole life, this chapter might feel unsettling. That's understandable. Nobody wants to discover they've been following tradition instead of Scripture.

The question isn't whether you knew. Most Christians have never examined this topic because no one told them there was anything to examine. The question is what you do now that it is becoming clear.

God doesn't condemn honest ignorance. He works with sincere hearts. But once light comes, it brings responsibility. The Sabbath isn't about earning God's favor; Christ already did that. It's about what faithfulness to Him looks like. It's about whether we follow "Thus saith the Lord" or "Thus saith the Church."

The comparison in this chapter presents the facts. You can verify every Scripture reference. You can test every claim. The choice of how to respond belongs to you.

When Cardinal Gibbons says you won't find "a single line" commanding Sunday in the entire Bible, and the Roman Catholic Church openly admits they changed it by their own authority, the question of authority becomes inescapable. The choice is between God's word and a church that changed it.