Quote:
Originally Posted by grip_daddy
arguably the new dispensation (church age), among other things, do not live under the law. This same church age uphold nine commandments (laws) but directly forfeitting the essence of sabbath rest as was exemplified by god immediately after the six days of creation. The same church age mentors and followers have stuck to a seven day week and not other, always maintaining saturday as the seventh day. Why not rest on this day? what is wrong by working six days and having your rest as was done by the israelites? to non religious people, why do you think a week has over the years maintained a seven day period? how did this time limit originate?
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during the period 30 ce to 313 ce, christians lived in a predominately pagan world. There was a mosaic of pagan religions in the roman empire: the long established, official religion of the roman empire was pagan. It involved worship of -- or at least nominal sacrifices to -- a pantheon of roman deities, both gods and goddesses. A strong competitor to christianity in those days was a third religion: mithraism. This faith involved the worship of a persian god mithra, and was popular among the roman civil service and military. There were many other smaller religions, including the pagan religions of greece and egypt, and the mystery religions. The roman religion and mithraism reserved sunday as their day of religious observance. Many christians were probably tempted to follow suit. The christians were also motivated to change the sabbath day as a method of distancing themselves from the jews. Two reasons were: the government intermittently persecuted the jews at this time; it was safer for christianity to be considered as a separate religion rather than as a sect of judaism. Relations between the jews and christians was hostile at this time. The early christian church had suffered much persecution from the jews. In 321 ce, while a pagan sun-worshiper, the emperor constantine declared that sunday was to be a day of rest throughout the roman empire: "on the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for gain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost." the church council of laodicea circa 364 ce ordered that religious observances were to be conducted on sunday, not saturday. Sunday became the new sabbath. They ruled: "christians shall not judaize and be idle on saturday, but shall work on that day." there are many indicators in the historical record that some christians ignored the church's ruling. Sabbath observance was noted in wales as late as 1115 ce. Francis xavier was concerned about sabbath worship in goa, india in 1560 ce; he called for the inquisition to set up an office there to stamp out what he called "jewish wickedness". A catholic provincial council suppressed the practice in norway in 1435 ce.