Author's Preface
1. Accepting Or Uniting
   
2. Who Is A Christian?
   
3. "Why Don't You Leave The Church of Christ?"
   
4. The Iniquity Of The Fathers
   
5. Our Judicial System
   
6. "You Are My People Now"
   
7. Serving "Otherwise Than As Prescribed"
   
8. Does Baptize Really Mean To Immerse
   
9. Our Relationship Through Baptism
   
10. Those Gospel Meetings
    
11. A Prelude To Worship
    
12. Worshipping In Spirit And Truth
    
13. The Forbidden Prayer
    
14. "I Didn't Hear Nobody Pray"
    
15. Communion Prayers
    
16. Communion With Bread, Wine, And Money
    
17. Thursday Is The Lord's Day Too!
    
18. Not Forsaking The Assembly
    
19. Acts 20:7 One More Time
    
20. Our Father Who Art Where?
    
21. Does Nature Reveal God's Love
    
22. Copyrighted: All Rights Reserved
    
23. Don't Pour Water On Them
    
24. The Remaining Restriction For Women
    
25. Some Questions About Revelation
    
26. Must One Fully Repent Before Baptism?
    
27. Nicodemus In Context
    
28. Our Respected Myths Of Religion
    
29. Hook's Points: A Potpourri
    

Although the first day of the week became a special day for assemblies in the early centuries, it was not in response to a command or an explicit, binding example. Our inclination toward legalism has led us to try to bind it as a special day to be given to God. We have demanded certain activities on that day and limited their practice to it. This conviction is based upon supposed inferences.

In preChristian times in the Roman Empire, kuriakos (the lord's) signified imperial or belonging to the lord, the emperor. As the empire became Christian, it is not surprising that they would modify belonging to the lord to relate to Christ as a part of their protest against Caesarworship.

As time went by, many of the rules of the Sabbath were transferred to the first day of the week, but this was rejected in the Reformation by Luther and Calvin. Calvin even proposed to adopt Thursday in the place of Sunday. (See International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, V. 3, p. 19191920).

May we rightly consider Thursday as the Lord's day? Yes, Thursday is the Lord's day!

At the end of the persecutions in 325 A.D., because the first day of the week was so special to the Christians, Constantine, the Emperor, made it a holiday (holy day) throughout the empire. That accommodation has greatly influenced the Western world and has been a blessing to the disciples through succeeding centuries. The wide acceptance of that holiday has given it a respected authenticity. As with other accepted practices, efforts to authenticate it by the Scriptures came after the fact through scholasticism. The term Lord's day is used only once in the Scriptures (Rev. 1:10), and in that instance it was not referring to the first day of the week but to an epoch.

There are two questions that we must ask and answer. First, do the Scriptures demand that the first day of the week be a sanctified day for disciples? Second, was the first day referred to in the Scriptures as the Lord's day?

The first day of the week is mentioned in inspired church history only two times. That point should arouse enough suspicion about its sanctity to cause us to reexamine the matter. When Paul made his way to Troas, the disciples had a gathering and meal with their honored guest (Acts 20). There is nothing to indicate that this was more than a special meeting or that it was, or became, a regular practice. It is recorded that they met to break bread. To break bread is translated from a Hebrew idiom which means to partake of food as in the eating of a meal. There is nothing that would indicate that this meal was the communion. An uncertain premise destroys the validity of any conclusion based upon it.

The other mention (1 Cor. 16:1f) does not relate either to a ritual or to an assembling of disciples on that day.

Since no law concerning a certain day is given in the New Testament Scriptures, it is only by specious logic that men try to make an ordinance of it. Such is an effort to define laws so that we may be justified by keeping them.

Not only were the apostles silent about obliging us to keep certain days, they actually warned us about observing days. "You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain" (Gal. 4:10). Read the entire context of "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath" (Col. 2:16). Paul did not add, "Except for the Lord's day which is the first day of the week."

True apostolic teaching puts keeping of days and the eating of foods in the realm of indifference along with circumcision. Paul permits the weak brother to respect days but not to bind his scruple on others or condemn others who do not hold his conviction. He writes, "One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's" (Rom. 14:5f). Paul does not permit either side of the daykeeping controversy to pass judgment on the other. It is the whole person, not certain days or hours, who is sanctified. Every day is raised to the highest plane making us no closer to God or more priestly at one time than another.

If the Lord's day is a specific day, then we would have to say it is the sabbath because of Jesus' own claim, for he himself declared, "For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath" (Matt. 12:8).

There are numerous instances in the Bible where the day of the Lord is used to denote, not a specific day of the week, but his coming in judgment, wrath, vengeance, or retribution to offenders or in deliverance for his people. This term is translated into the possessive form in only one place in apostolic writings, making it the Lord's day (Rev. 1:10) rather than the day of the Lord. Both terms mean the same thing.

In the Spirit, John the apostle was transported in vision into the future to see the things that would transpire in the epoch of the Lord's day or day of the Lord. This was not a day of the week, but it was the manifestation of the Lord against the Jewish nation who had rejected him, and it was the time of his vindication of his saints. This judgment was about to transpire-"what must soon take place"-indicating that Revelation was written before 70 A.D. John was seeing in vision what is referred to as "the Day drawing near" (Heb. 10:25).

If you are having difficulty in accepting this, let me ask you a few questions. Is Sunday holy? Is one day spiritual and another secular? Are some obligations bound on one day but loosed on the next? Are some actions holy if performed on a certain day but profane if done on another? Recently, Stephan Bilak gave me a wallet calendar from the Ukraine. They number their days downward instead of across and have the seventh day in red instead of the first day. In the Ukraine would disciples sin in keeping the seventh day instead of the first day?

Our real problem has related to binding the communion on each first day of the week and limiting it to that day. Is the communion sanctified or is it the day? Our limitation of the communion to Sunday only is without command, precedent, or inference. There is no clear example of the disciples' communing through partaking of the Lord's Supper on the first day of the week. At Troas they met to break bread, but there is no proof that it was the Lord's Supper instead of a common meal. It was after midnight before the bread was broken. That was Monday morning. Paul intended to depart on the morrow after the first day. After daybreak he departed. This was the morrow after the first day of Roman time. If they were following the Jewish time, it still would have been the first day and not the morrow. Besides, Jesus initiated the communion on a weekday evening in an indisputable example. The premise is too weak to imply a lawfully bound conclusion as we have inferred from that text.

In a sense, all days (all time) are holy because our whole lives are dedicated to God. That sanctification is not segmented into days or time spans. In a more real sense, it is not time that is sanctified; it is the disciple who is holy when he or she can say, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). That disciple becomes a temple of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. A temple can be profaned.

Anything that is holy can be profaned. Being holy, the Jewish sabbath could be profaned by labor on that day. Can Sunday be violated by labor, travel, or some recreational activity? Since we, rather than days, are holy, how can our sanctity be violated? That is accomplished by our sin which is a breach of our dedication, sanctification, separateness, holiness. But sin is not related to any time span. When we sin, we violate our own holiness rather than that of a day. If missing a Sunday assembly scheduled by men is a sin, it is a lacking of sanctification rather than the profaning of a holy day.

Please do not conclude that I am disparaging the need for assembling with disciples or am forbidding communion on Sunday. We all need the support that we gain from sharing with those of like faith. I am saying, however, that these meetings and activities are no more effective on one day than another.

Man was not made for the sabbath; so Jesus did not bind the keeping of that day at all costs as a legal obligation. The sabbath was made for man, for God set apart a day to fill the need of man, not to work against his best interest by its inflexibility. In similar manner, assemblies are designed to meet the needs of disciples, but the day and hour of such gatherings are not specified as a law.

Again, I say that the recognition of Sunday as a secular holiday in our society is a wonderful blessing. That has always made it more convenient for us to assemble and it has given social recognition to Christianity that the earliest disciples did not enjoy. To us who were brought up going to assemblies each Sunday, the day seems to have a special hallowed nature. I can appreciate the piety of those who have refused to call the first day Sunday, calling it The Lord's Day instead. And I would favor our making better use of those free hours offered to us by the holiday. But Sunday is neither a holy day nor The Lord's Day.

Looking back to Calvin's proposal-is Thursday the Lord's day? Yes! So is Friday, Saturday, and all other days. Thursday is the Lord's day but not The Lord's Day.