Did early Christians work on the Lord's Day?

[kceaster]

I heard or read this somewhere that because it was the first day of the week, Christians would have to meet in the early morning, go to work, and then meet in the evening again - but I can't remember where I read this or heard it. Does anyone know? Thanks in advance.

In Christ,

KC

 

[Kevin]

This is common knowledge, I doubt you need to cite it unless it is in an academic paper.

 

[Mushroom]

If they were slaves, as most in the Roman Empire were, you can bet they did.

 

[Pergamum]

Their recreation on the Sabbath consisted of being chased by the lions ...so they might not be a normative example to us, unless we live under persection as well.

 

[Christusregnat]

Their recreation on the Sabbath consisted of being chased by the lions ...

 

[KMK]

I heard or read this somewhere that because it was the first day of the week, Christians would have to meet in the early morning, go to work, and then meet in the evening again - but I can't remember where I read this or heard it. Does anyone know? Thanks in advance.

In Christ,

KC

This would explain why people would fall out of windows during Paul's sermons!

 

[Theoretical]

For the purposes of this post, assume the Lord's Day is binding as part of the 4th commandment and that Christians are not to work in non-essential/mercy vocations.

This question about early Christian necessity actually brings up an interesting question. If the passages regarding obedience and honor to masters when one is a slave apply in most other contemporary employment situations, then where does that leave non-necessity calls into work on Sundays? (I.e. a sales promotional meeting with a prospective client). I am also not talking about deliberately scheduling a Sunday shift or accepting someone's Sunday shift as a favor.

I am not speaking of the employer here, as clear fault lies with him with these assumptions, but does fault also fall on the employee who is told he will be fired if he doesn't show up on Sunday when called in and thus shows up? Or, should he accept being fired for the glory of God? (note: this is not a loaded question for my part)

 

[satz]

For the purposes of this post, assume the Lord's Day is binding as part of the 4th commandment and that Christians are not to work in non-essential/mercy vocations.

This question about early Christian necessity actually brings up an interesting question. If the passages regarding obedience and honor to masters when one is a slave apply in most other contemporary employment situations, then where does that leave non-necessity calls into work on Sundays? (I.e. a sales promotional meeting with a prospective client). I am also not talking about deliberately scheduling a Sunday shift or accepting someone's Sunday shift as a favor.

I am not speaking of the employer here, as clear fault lies with him with these assumptions, but does fault also fall on the employee who is told he will be fired if he doesn't show up on Sunday when called in and thus shows up? Or, should he accept being fired for the glory of God? (note: this is not a loaded question for my part)

I noted on another thread that Jesus justified his disciples for picking grains on the sabbath despite the fact that God previously had a man stoned to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath. Given that people in the bible were portrayed for fasting for days on end, surely requiring them to abstain would not have caused them great hurt, yet he did not.

Sometimes it seems to me that God's requirements for what constitute acts of necessity or mercy are not as strict as they are sometimes made out to be.

For the time being, my thought is that if a man under authority is required to work on the Sabbath, than that is an act of necessity for him, even if the actual task is frivolous and a wrong decision on the employer’s part.

Of course, a job that regularly required Sunday work would be something a christian would want to reconsider.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

James Gilfillan, The Sabbath Defended, pp. 378-380:

It was the creed of the Fathers, that the Lord's day ought to be wholly spent in sacred rest and service. All ordinary work was to be discontinued on that day. Tertullian, in remarking on the words, "Thou shalt do no work," asks, "What work?" and answers, "Thine own, doubtless. For it follows that he should take away those works from the Sabbath, which he had previously indicated to belong to the six days. Thine own -- that is, human and customary works."5 The same writer, in contending for the honours of the Lord's day, and after mentioning that it was the practice of a very few to abstain from kneeling in prayer on Sabbath -- that is, Saturday, says, "But we ought, according to the doctrine received by us, to beware on the Lord's day alone, not of that only" -- kneeling in prayer -- "but of all anxiety, deferring even business, lest we should give place in any degree to the devil."1 Like-minded as to the duty of entire rest from work was Origen, who remarks, "Leaving the Jewish observances, let us see how the Sabbath ought to be observed by a Christian. That Sabbatism, mentioned Heb. iv. 9, is the observation of the Sabbath, on which no worldly actions ought to be done."2 Not that the Fathers supposed that sacred time was profaned by labour in cases of necessity. When Tertullian has shown, as already quoted, that we are not to do our own works, he adds, "But to carry about the Ark, that is, round about the walls of Jericho, can seem neither a daily work nor a human, but a rare and holy work, and therefore by the very commandment of God divine."3 "The priests," says Iranaeus, "in kindling a fire and slaying beasts on the Sabbath-day, were not guilty of any sin."4 That worldly pleasures were to be shunned, while frequently inculcated by the later Fathers as one of the duties of the Lord's day, is plainly involved in the language already quoted. The proper business of the day, be it further remarked, was, in the view of these excellent men, the service of God in works of piety and benevolence. Origen not only excludes secular work from the engagements of the Sabbath, as in the words formerly adduced, but completes the description of a sanctified day thus: "If, therefore, you cease from all worldly works, and execute nothing worldly, but give yourselves up to spiritual exercises, repairing to church, attending to sacred reading and instruction, thinking of celestial things, solicitous for the future, placing judgment to come before your eyes, not looking to things present and visible, but to those which are future and invisible -- this is the observance of the Christian Sabbath."5 But works of benevolence are to be added. Irenaeus shows that Christ in healing the sick did nothing beyond the law, which did not prohibit cures upon the Sabbath-day, or even caring for cattle; and then draws the conclusion, "That the true sanctification of the Sabbath consists in doing works of mercy."1 To the same effect is a chapter in Tertullian's work against Marcion.2

5 Adv. Marcion, lib. ii. c. 21.

1 De Orat., c. 23.
2 Hom. 23, in Num.
3 Adv. Marcion, lib. ii. c. 21.
4 Contr. Valent., lib. iv. c. 19.
5 Hom. 23, in Num.

1 Contr. Valent., lib. iv. c. 19.
2 Lib. iv. c. 12.

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