The Christian Sabbath Vindicated from Adventism

As a history book, comparable to Samuel and Kings in the Old Testament, the Acts of the Apostles is not a good place to base ones doctrine. That isn't an issue of error; Acts is as inerrant as is the rest of Scripture. Rather, that isn't its purpose. Acts is Luke's record of what the Apostolic church did, not what it taught.

For example, we have the record of the worship activities of the apostolic church. We know that they gathered at the Temple for their social meetings (there were house church meetings in Jerusalem during the same period). However, a meeting is not the same thing as a worship gathering. When we are told that they gathered for worship, that activity occurred in the home gatherings, not the Temple. Notice that contrast in Acts 2:46: "Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes." Thus, they gathered at the Temple for community, but not for worship.

Instead, we find this record: "On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight" (Acts 20:7; see also I Corinthians 16:2). We find, not on the seventh day, as Adventists claim, but on the first day of the week, the church gathered together for communion (the breaking of bread) and for teaching. Nor can this be described as a special occasion, because Paul himself says (verse 20), "I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house." It was exactly in these home meetings that Paul was accustomed to teach the word to his fellow Christians.

Adventists like to point to the references to Paul's attending the synagogues on the seventh day. And he certainly did so. Yet, they consistently ignore what else those references tell us. He is not recorded as speaking to Christians in any of those occasions - not even one. In each case, he proclaims the word to the Jews. That is, his attendance at the synagogues was for the sake of evangelism. And, in a mixed community, where would he find Jews? Well, at the synagogue, of course, and on the seventh day. The whole Adventist argument is built on a very weak argument from silence, and committing the fallacies of cherry picking and moving the goalposts. Yet they claim that their teaching on the Sabbath is the distinguishing mark between the true Bride of Christ and the Great Whore. Surely such an important doctrine would require more proof than questionable exegesis!

A doctrine should never be based on an historical reference, absent reinforcement from explicit teaching texts. Yet, the Adventist can provide none. After the Christians are expelled from the synagogues in Acts, we never see another reference to a Christian gathering, whether at the Temple or at a synagogue, or any activity on the seventh day of the week. Paul never mentions one. Peter never mentions one. John never mentions one. And - most telling of all - the Epistle to the Hebrews never mentions one, even though much of it is devoted to Jewish law and worship. Not once in any of them.