Chapter 2 - part 4
"Well,
after this he was ready with 1 Corinthians 16:1-3, about taking up a
collection on the first day of the week. At least that’s what they say
it says. But I told him that that was just what it was not, a
collection. Paul was writing that he was coming by that way to get
donations from them to take up to Jerusalem for the poor, and he told them
that on each first day each one was to ‘lay by him in store’ as God
had prospered him. Other translations bear the thought, and the best
commentators agree, that this does not mean a public meeting and offering
on the first day. It means that, after the previous week—ending with the
Sabbath—as past, each was to review his accounts for the past week to
see how God had prospered him, then lay by himself at home an offering in
proportion to his profits. No public meeting there. But even if it meant a
public meeting, it would not make the first day a sabbath.
"Still not
content to give in, Sam brought up Revelation 1:10, which says that John
was in the spirit on the Lord’s day. He said ‘Lord’s day’ was the
name for the new sabbath, Sunday. I asked him how he knew, and he said ‘What
else could it mean?’ I told him it was incredible that a man of his
common sense should conclude that this text referred to the first day of
the week when the text and context do not say so at all, nor infer it.
"Then I read
to him Mark 2:28, Christ is Lord of the Sabbath, making the seventh-day
Sabbath the Lord’s day, for the only Sabbath they knew then was the
seventh-day Sabbath. Also Isaiah 58:13, where the Sabbath of the Old
Testament is called God’s holy day. So John must have been in the Spirit
on Saturday.
"Then I added
that, rather than the early church keeping the first day of the week, and
always meeting on that day, all the records plainly indicate that they met
customarily, both Jews and Gentile believers, on the seventh-day Sabbath
for many years after the cross. This may be read in such texts as Acts
13:14, 42-44; 16:13; 17:2-4; 18:3, 4."
"It seems to
me," observed Mrs. Richards, looking admiringly into her husband’s
face, "that you gave him some powerful Biblical and logical arguments
on his first two unanswerable proofs for Sunday keeping. How did he take
them?"
"He said the
others were just as strong, and that he could depend on them to convince
me. Then I asked him how he could honestly admit that I was right about
these first two, but not think that I would be about the others. If the
other eight proved to be right and these two wrong, would we not be making
the Bible contradict itself, and thus not be worthy of either of us basing
our doctrinal belief on it? I maintained that what I had given him so far
was enough to prove the seventh-day Sabbath, according to his own
admission, and that all other points he had against it would prove just as
weak. But he replied that the only reason I had won was because I am
sharper than he on the use of the Bible; and that the next time he would
turn his preacher on me, and then I would be settled sure.
"I laughed,
and told him to bring along the preacher, and I would be happy to go into
the matter with him also. He glared at me as he walked away, and looked as
if he would like to fire me right then and there."
"I’m afraid
you will get fired when this is over, Frank," said his wife
apprehensively.
"God help me
to give them all the truth first, then," he added earnestly.
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