Is keeping the Sabbath still a Christian obligation — or did the early church quietly drop one of the Ten Commandments and hope nobody noticed?

• A

  Avery1w ago

  I don't care about the theological debate. What I know is that my family took Sundays off for years — no sports, no shopping trips, slow cooking together — and it was the best years of our marriage. We got busy, stopped doing it, and honestly I think we lost something we can't fully name. That probably doesn't settle the doctrinal question but it means something.

  198Reply
• DK

  Drew K.1w ago

  I grew up Seventh-day Adventist and we kept Saturday Sabbath strictly — no screens, no shopping, nature walks, long family meals. Leaving that tradition was genuinely one of the harder parts of switching denominations in my 30s. Not because the theology was wrong, but because I lost something beautiful. Whatever your position, American evangelicals have completely gutted any meaningful rest from their week and they call it freedom.

  187Reply
• P

  Priya1w ago

  Honestly what bothers me most isn't people disagreeing on which day or how strict to be. It's that we've had this commandment sitting right there in Exodus 20 for thousands of years and the American church has basically made peace with ignoring it without even having the argument. We just drifted. And we're exhausted and burned out and anxious and maybe those things are connected.

  183Reply
• C_

  Casey _x1w ago

  I think the more important question isn't which day but whether American Christians practice ANY kind of intentional rest. The answer is clearly no. We have Sunday morning church and then fill every other hour with entertainment, shopping, and sports. Maybe instead of arguing Saturday vs Sunday we should all just... stop for a while.

  176Reply
• L

  Liam1w ago

  I think we've just become so addicted to productivity and consumption that even admitting we might need to legally stop one day a week feels threatening. The Sabbath is an act of defiance against late capitalism and maybe that's why comfortable American Christians quietly dropped it.

  167Reply
• T

  Taylor1w ago

  I converted to Christianity from a secular background and found the idea of a weekly Sabbath genuinely radical. Stopping because you trust God to provide without your striving for 24 hours — that's one of the most counter-cultural things the Bible actually teaches and nobody in my evangelical church ever mentioned it once.

  162Reply
• Y

  Yuki1w ago

  My husband works every Sunday because that's when his shifts fall at the hospital. He's an ER nurse. Are we supposed to tell him God is displeased? This kind of rigidity ignores the reality of how millions of people actually live.

  156Reply
• R

  Ravi1w ago

  For what it's worth I tried keeping a real Sabbath — phone off, no errands, just prayer, Scripture, walking, napping — for three months. It genuinely changed how I experienced the rest of the week. I'm not claiming a theological position, I'm just saying something real happens when you actually stop.

  154Reply
• QS

  Quinn S.1w ago

  My pastor literally preached last month that Sunday is 'just another day' and then announced the church was hosting a fundraiser workday. I don't know what to do with that.

  144Reply
• AM

  Avery M.1w ago

  Colossians 2:16-17. Paul is explicit. 'Let no one pass judgment on you regarding a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath — these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.' I'm not sure how much clearer it needs to be. The Sabbath pointed to Jesus. Jesus showed up. Case closed.

  143Reply
• S

  Sam1w ago

  The Sabbath is also deeply connected to justice in the Torah. Deuteronomy 5 grounds the commandment in the Exodus — your servants must rest too. It was about protecting the vulnerable from being worked to death. An economy that cannot afford to stop one day a week is an economy built on exploitation. Jesus would have something to say about that.

  139Reply
• F

  Feli1w ago

  The Westminster Confession dedicates an entire chapter to this and concludes that one day in seven is a perpetual moral obligation rooted in creation, not merely Sinai. The Sabbath wasn't invented at Sinai — God rested on the seventh day in Genesis 2. That predates Moses by a couple millennia. If the creation ordinance isn't binding, almost nothing in Christian ethics is.

  134Reply
• TR

  Taylor R.1w ago

  Even if Sunday is the new Christian gathering day — which I accept — that's different from saying Sunday IS the Sabbath. Gathering for worship and resting from labor are two distinct commands. We conflated them and now nobody does either properly.

  121Reply
• L

  Liam1w ago

  The fact that Constantine officially moved the Roman Empire's day of rest to Sunday in 321 AD should give every Protestant pause. The state decided which day the church observes? And we just kept it? If you're worried about government entanglement with religion, that's your ground zero.

  115Reply
• IM

  Iris M.1w ago

  The case closed people always quote Colossians but somehow still want to apply the other nine commandments to modern life. You can't have it both ways. Either the Decalogue is a moral unity or you need to explain why nine commandments survived and one didn't.

  112Reply
• P

  Priya1w ago

  Actually the history of Sunday closing laws ('blue laws') in America is directly connected to Sabbatarian Christianity and they did protect workers from being compelled to work. Their gradual repeal starting in the 1960s absolutely did increase pressure on retail and service workers to sacrifice their one day off. It's not a stretch at all.

  108Reply
• F2

  Feli 211w ago

  This is actually a fascinating area where the magisterial reformers disagreed sharply with each other. Calvin was a strict Sabbatarian. Luther thought the Sabbath command was ceremonial and abolished. The Reformed and Lutheran traditions split on exactly this question. We act like there's an obvious answer but the smartest Protestant theologians in history couldn't agree.

  103Reply
• O

  Omar1w ago

  Jesus kept Sabbath. His disciples kept Sabbath. The early Jerusalem church kept Sabbath. Sunday worship developed gradually in Gentile churches partly to distinguish from Judaism. At what point exactly did Sunday become the Sabbath and who authorized that switch? Genuine question I've never gotten a straight answer to.

  99Reply
• E

  Elena1w ago

  Hebrews 4 says 'there REMAINS a Sabbath rest' — the word is sabbatismos, a Sabbath-keeping. The author is not abolishing it. He's intensifying it. You should read that passage more carefully before using it as your abolition proof text.

  97Reply
• Z

  Zara1w ago

  Acts 15 also didn't mention 'don't murder' or 'don't commit adultery.' I don't think anyone is arguing those are abolished. The argument from silence cuts in multiple directions.

  94Reply
• M

  Morgan1w ago

  using Romans 14 to dismiss the fourth commandment is a huge interpretive leap. Paul is talking about Jewish feast days and fast days, not the weekly Sabbath which is rooted in creation itself. Context matters

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• CL

  Casey L.1w ago

  honestly i just need a day where i dont have to do anything and the bible gives me permission to take it. thats enough for me lol

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• D

  Diego1w ago

  This is why I keep going back to Hebrews 4. The author says 'there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.' He's clearly spiritualizing it — the true rest is in Christ. The physical day was always pointing to something deeper and we now live in that deeper reality.

  88Reply
• F

  Feli1w ago

  Constantine didn't create Sunday worship he recognized what was already the consistent practice of the church. Sunday assembly is attested decades before his edict. This is a common misreading of church history.

  83Reply
• Z

  Zara1w ago

  The answer to your question is Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2 — the early church consistently gathered on the first day of the week in commemoration of the resurrection. By the time of the Didache and Justin Martyr, Sunday worship is universal and they explain exactly why. The switch was early, consistent, and theologically grounded.

  78Reply
• P

  Priya1w ago

  Romans 14:5 — 'One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.' This seems like exactly the kind of issue Paul is addressing. It's a conscience matter, not a salvation matter.

  76Reply
• Y

  Yuki1w ago

  The dispensationalist in me says the Mosaic law including the Sabbath command was given specifically to national Israel and Gentile Christians were never placed under it. Acts 15 — the Jerusalem council — gave Gentile believers four requirements and keeping the Sabbath wasn't one of them. That's not an accident.

  67Reply
• P

  Priya1w ago

  The Seventh-day Adventists are right about Saturday but wrong about almost everything else they attach to it. I'll die on this hill.

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• M

  Morgan1w ago

  okay but nobody is forcing their employees to work on sundays because of theology. this is a stretch

  22Reply

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