FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
MITHRAISM, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, CHRISTIANITY, ROMANISM AND ‘THE LORD’S DAY’ (Part IV)
“Thomas Chafie, a clergymen of the English [Anglican] Church, gives the following reasons why the early Christian church COULD NOT CONTINUE to keep the Bible Sabbath among the heathen, nor CHANGE the heathen custom from Sunday [back] to Saturday:
“Christians should not have done well in changing, or endeavoring to have changed the heathen’s standing service-day, from Sunday to any other day of the week; and that for these reasons:
“1. Because of the contempt, scorn and derision they thereby should be had among all the Gentiles with whom they lived; and toward whom they ought by St. Paul’s rule to live in offensively, 1 Cor. 10:32, in things indifferent. If the Gentiles thought hardly, and spoke evil of them, for that they ran not into the SAME EXCESS of riot [wild feasting and gross intemperance]: 1 Pet. 4:4, what would they have said of Christians for such an innovation as would have been made by the CHANGE of their standing service-day? If long before this, the JEWS were had in such disdain among the Gentiles for their Saturday-Sabbath…..how grievous would be their taunts and reproaches against the poor Christians living with them, and under their power, for their new set Sacred day, had the Christians chosen any other than the Sunday?
“2. Most Christians then were either Servants or of the poorer sort of the People: and the Gentiles most probably not give their servants LIBERTY to cease from working on any other set day constantly, except on their Sunday……
“3. It would have been but labor in vain for them to have assayed the same, they could never have brought it to pass.’- ‘A Brief Tract on the Fourth Commandment,’ ….About the Sabbath-Day,’ pp. 61, 62. London: St. Paul’s Yard, 1692.” – (From Facts of Faith, Christian Edwardson, pp. 101, 102. Southern Pub. Asso., Nashville, TN, 1943.
Instead of converting the Gentiles, Christianity feared to offend them more than offend God, and yielded up their faith and fidelity to God and the Bible Sabbath and started keeping the heathen Sunday, calling it “the Lord’s Day.” The compromise turned into a major deception and gross doctrinal error embraced by the whole Christian world then and now!
Be a true and faithful commandment-keeping Christian! Bless all, NMF.