Question:

I was wondering if you have any thoughts or might recommend a book(s) on the topic discussed in http://www.twopassovers.com/  There are some convincing arguments there on why we should observe the Lord’s Supper, during supper time of day one of the sabbaton, which is closer to the resurrection moment of Jesus… 

Answer: 

I spent some time at this web site. This is not a very sophisticated site in my opinion. The articles even have bad grammar and sentence structure problems, which is not a good sign. I have not read a book on the topic of Sunday worship.

My experience is that the great majority of Christians do not worry about the exact timing of when the Lord’s Supper should be celebrated. For this reason, even though almost all believers do the Communion on Sunday or Saturday evening, not many have bothered to prove this is the right day. The only ones who have a great interest in this question tends to be the legalists who try to defend Saturday Sabbath-keeping. In other words, the underlying issue here is whether or not we, as Christians, are still under some or all of the Old Covenant as Christians. Those who answer yes to this question, tend also to make an issue about the timing of the Lord’s Supper. The people who have this web site appear to fall into this category. I believe your best argument against this bad theology is to use the books of Colossians and Galatians. In Galatians, Paul makes an extremely strong argument against such law-keepers. He says of those who teach salvation by law-keeping,"Let them be eternally condemned." This is strong language, to say the least. The issue is not the day the Lord’s Supper is celebrated–it is the idea of legalism and salvation based on such rules rather than of faith in Jesus. In Colossians 2:16-23 he says that imposing these worldly requirements (and he includes celebrating Sabbaths specifically as an example) are not at all helpful in creating righteousness in believers. My experience is that for most of these Sabbath-keepers logical and even biblical argument is not effective. I suggest that you not engage these folks in a debate unless you get a feeling that someone is open. The bottom line is that the New Testament does not give a definite command as to when and even how often the Communtion should be celebrated. Acts 20:7 is proof that at least in one case, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated on Sunday. However, from the fact that we do not have a definite command, I assume that, logically, that this is not a salvation issue. The ones who put together the web site you mentioned feel differently on this, but it is not possible to produce a passage which can support belief that this is a salvation issue. Because the New Testament does not give absolutely conclusively evidence as to how often and when the Communion was celebrated, it is helpful to look at Church History. We know from early church writers that the church celebrated the Communion on Sunday, not on Friday. or on the evening of the Pesach/Passover meal. As far as I know, there is no evidence at all that the early church, encouraged by the apostles, ever taught what this person is teaching, which is that the communion service should be done only on the actual evening of the Passover meal. This theory simply cannot be supported from church history or from the Bible, unless one takes scriptures out of context. No matter how logical the arguments seem to be, they are based on assumptions which cannot be found in the Bible. John Oakes