What’s The Correct Day For Christian Worship?

     Question to O. A.:  I have a friend who’s a member of a denomination that worships on Saturday.  But her husband worships with us because our denomination worships on Sunday.  That habit of worshiping on different days of the week is now starting to hurt their marriage.  So we want to know which day of is the correct one for Christian worship.  Is it Saturday, or is it Sunday?  B. B. in Michigan.

     Dear B. B.:  The original Christians are the ones who decided that the first day of the week would be the day for Christian worship.  That’s the day we now call “Sunday.”  So in our century, most Christians still worship on “Sunday.”

     Of course, the original Christians were Jews when Christianity was founded, and Jews worshiped on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, the day we now call “Saturday,” and the original Christians continued worshiping on that day for a few years.  But later, as more non-Jews joined Christianity, the original Christians changed their habit and began worshiping on the first day of the week, which they named The Lord’s Day.  This is the day we now call “Sunday.”

     The original Christians chose the first day of the week for worship for two reasons:  a)  That’s the day Jesus rose from the dead.  b)  That’s the day the Holy Spirit came to earth to give birth to the Spiritual movement that we now call Christianity.  These two events are also the reason the original Christians named the first day of the week The Lord’s Day.  And they called it that for the first three centuries of Christian history, about the first eight generations of Christians.[1.  Adapted from Acts 20:7; First Corinthians 16:1-2; Revelation 1:10.]

     Then, in the Fourth Century, the first day of the week was renamed a second time.  The Roman emperor Constantine renamed it.  He changed the name of The Lord’s Day to “Sun Day.”  He did that because he wanted Christians to be sun worshipers (he was the high priest of the sun god religion).  So he passed a law saying the first day of the week was now to be called “Sun Day” (that is, the day to worship the sun).  The term “Sun Day” was eventually shorted to “Sunday,” and today Christians still call it that.[2.  On March 7, 321 AD, the Roman emperor Constantine passed a law saying that in the future the first day of the week was to be called the “Venerable Day of the Sun” (the day to worship the sun).  This clumsy phrase was later shorted to “Sunday.”  Constantine’s law was never reversed, and so the first day of the week is still known as “Sunday” in our century.]

     Now, which of these two days – Saturday or Sunday – is the correct one for Christian worship?  If we base our answer on early Christian history, the first day of the week is the historically correct day.  That’s the day people now call “Sunday.”

     However, Christians are supposed to be free of legalism.  So Christians can worship on any day of the week they want.  They can even worship on every day of the week if they want to.  The Early Christian teacher, Paul, said that some Christians think one day of the week is more holy than the others; and some Christians think all the days of the week are equally holy.  Paul said either opinion is acceptable, so long as everything Christians do on those days honors the Lord.[3.  Adapted from Romans 14:4-5.]

     Personally, Joanna and I follow the First Century habit, and we worship on the first day of the week – which we also call “The Lord’s Day,” as the Early Christians did.  But we also “worship” on every other day of the week, too, since worship is a relationship with God, and not a legalistic choice of days of worship.

     We pray that these facts from Christian history will help your friends make peace in their dispute, and will help them choose a day (or days) on which they can worship our great and mighty God as a couple.