While traveling in Italy this past week, the popular leader of the Catholic Church discouraged opening businesses on Sunday as a way to provide poor people with jobs. He also said working on Sunday negatively impacted families and wasn’t beneficial to society.
“Francis said the priority should be ‘not economic but human,’ and that the stress should be on families and friendships, not commercial relationships. He added: ‘Maybe it’s time to ask ourselves if working on Sundays is true freedom.’ He said that spending Sundays with family and friends is an ‘ethical choice’ for faithful and non-faithful alike.” [1]
Of course, It is perfectly reasonable to find time to spend with our families every week, but is a Christian tradition always a biblical truth? Not in this case. The Bible is not only unequivocally clear about which day is God’s Sabbath day of rest, but it also forewarns that a day will come when a substitute for the fourth commandment will be pressed as a testing point on whether people will follow God's laws or the rules of mankind.
God’s holy Ten Commandments explicitly identify which day of the week is for worship and rest from business labor: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work; you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates” (Exodus 20:8–10).
It was the practice of Jesus to worship on the seventh day (Luke 4:16). The Sabbath was not established for only Jews but was set in place by God at creation, before there were any Jews (Genesis 2:2, 3). Never have God’s ten laws been changed by the Lord or the apostles (Acts 17:2; 13:13, 14). All people are called to honor God’s holy day (Isaiah 56:2, 6, 7).
But if Sunday-keeping is not in the Bible, why do so many people worship God on the first day instead of the seventh day? The Bible predicted that a power “shall intend to change times and law” (Daniel 7:25). Jesus warned that some would make “the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition” (Matthew 15:6). He added, “In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (v. 9).
God predicted that misguided people would announce that God’s holy day was changed from Sabbath to Sunday. This error was passed from generation to generation as fact. But this tradition breaks God’s law. Only God can determine which day is holy. It is dangerous to tamper with God’s holy commandments.
It is the seventh day that God asks us to close our regular business labor and to worship and rest. Obeying God is a biblical choice that results in true freedom. Breaking God’s law brings bondage.
If you would like to learn more about God’s true Sabbath, click here.