Sabbath-rest on Sundays and first Christians

[Adam Olive]

Given that many early Christians were slaves or under patronage that held obligations, I assume that having Sundays as a 24 hour day of rest was not an option.
I assume they could gather with other believers whether early morning or in the evening.

If a rest day is a creational ordinance and obligatory for Christians to observe then how do people understand the experience of early Christians?

If they were not sinning to work on the Lord's Day then (because society left them no choice) might we not find a similar situation may evolve in our present?

I guess my main question is how would the Bible be applied in the clash between the creational ordinance, fourth commandment and inability to have a rest day off.

 

[Adam Olive]

I should add that I am inclined toward a rest day being what ought to happen but feel a little uncertain by any reference to resting days in the early church even though I am sure they gathered on the Lord's Day.

 

[Pergamum]

I believe there are many 21st Century wage-slaves who don't have a choice but to work on Sundays sometimes.

 

[Tom Hart]

I believe there are many 21st Century wage-slaves who don't have a choice but to work on Sundays sometimes.

Like this lady?
https://www.puritanboard.com/thread...washer-wins-21m-for-working-on-sundays.97188/

 

[Pergamum]

Like this lady?
https://www.puritanboard.com/thread...washer-wins-21m-for-working-on-sundays.97188/

That is a fluke and happened in America, and not the 3rd world where it is either work long hours or your family starves.

 

[Bill Duncan]

Given that many early Christians were slaves or under patronage that held obligations, I assume that having Sundays as a 24 hour day of rest was not an option.
I assume they could gather with other believers whether early morning or in the evening.

If a rest day is a creational ordinance and obligatory for Christians to observe then how do people understand the experience of early Christians?

If they were not sinning to work on the Lord's Day then (because society left them no choice) might we not find a similar situation may evolve in our present?

I guess my main question is how would the Bible be applied in the clash between the creational ordinance, fourth commandment and inability to have a rest day off.

I'm not sure what you mean by the early church but I assume you mean AD. However if look back a ways, like to the Patriarchal and the Mosaic period, the church had slaves, who would have been members of the covenant family, who would have had duties even on the Sabbath. During the national period of Israel, and you see the issues of Isaiah 58:13-14 you see more of the doing that which is self centered as the main sin of sabbath breaking. A slave was not satisfying themselves by serving the master on the Sabbath. I'm sure they would rather have been resting. You even see in the beginning of Is. 58 the falsehood of fasting when you oppressed slaves and didn't feed the hungry. I can see the Pharisees sitting around on Saturday having some slave take there chamber pots out for them. Kind of like going to the restaurant after church. I think we focus too much on the don't work and too little on the remembering and keeping holy.

 

[Kinghezy]

Given that many early Christians were slaves or under patronage that held obligations, I assume that having Sundays as a 24 hour day of rest was not an option.
I assume they could gather with other believers whether early morning or in the evening.

If we are talking true compulsion, it seems like the burden is on the owner/employer (see bottom of post).

Think about Pharoah and Israel. Who was punished because Israel couldn't do the feast (not that the feast was a Sabbath), as God had commanded?

I also wonder if they are covered by "works of necessity". I usually think of the example of Jesus and the disciples picking and eating grain, but maybe your example fits as well because the slave wouldn't have a choice and they "need" to work.

Exodus 20:8-11
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

 

[a mere housewife]

I think what Chris says is right -- that the 4th commandment was addressed to land and livestock owners, employers, heads of household etc. In Isaiah 58, in the positive picture of what God is looking for on that day, Isaiah is very concerned about the liberation of the oppressed, and again, the commands seem to be addressed to those who have power and substance to share with and use for the relieving of others.
Jesus has fed the hungry and acted for the oppressed, to loose the prisoner (Luke 1:52-55). The gospel is the heart of this. But there is a significant outworking to societal justice in how we 'rest' in Jesus' work, if we have power or wealth that others do not. It seems to me that the teaching about the Sabbath is especially designed so that people will consider those who don't have resources to set their own hours. Not to condemn them, but to hold those with the resources responsible to relieve them.