What is the Sabbath – Part 2

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

And so this week I told you guys that I was going to do part two today, and we were going to go over the history of the Sabbath from the documents that we have. The church fathers. Now this is a topic, guys, and I'm going to be very real. Can I be real? Anybody been in Hebrew roots for more than five years? Keep it real. The patristic writings, the church fathers, right? John Martyr, Ignatius, Clement. These writings that we have from believers from the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth century. I've been in Hebrew Roots going on 14 years now. Never once was I taught about these documents. Never once. No fellowship I ever went to. And whenever we would bring them up, they would scoot away from them like it's some taboo thing you can't talk about.

The Problem with Ignoring History

And the reason is we don't know how to study actual history, I believe, in a lot of Hebrew Roots fellowships. That's the truth. That's from my experience. When we read something that's historical and we don't understand it, it clashes with our way of believing, we run away from it and we reject it. I've seen this happen with not only the patristic writings, I've seen it happen with actual Babylonian history. Hebrew rooters, we don't like actual history because we want to define history on how we view it. And so because of that, we have so many different teachings going around fabricated history about Babylonian mythology and Babylonian history and then we're trying to call this stuff pagan because all this stuff started in Babylon and a lot of times we simply carry on sensational information that is simply not true.

And when we're shown, I've gotten hate mail. Hate mail. Because I feel like it's part of our job as seekers of truth, if you will, as the followers of Yeshua, as those who claim to be in truth, to represent truth, even if it's hard, right? Scaring everybody, aren't I? Even if it's hard, right?

And so when I see someone, and I know there's a lot of topics that are debatable. There's a lot of—I mean, even the translation of the letters from these church fathers, patristic writings, the translations. You go online and there's like six, seven different translations and even more than that, but just available online. And different words, different meanings, the context of this—it's debatable. What we're gonna show today is very well debatable. I'm just gonna show you my findings. There's some stuff that has been proven, right? And when I see people speaking about stuff that has been proven, it's embarrassing. Especially if they're trying to represent all of Hebrew roots. Especially if they're trying to represent the kingdom of our Messiah. Especially if they're trying to represent God. And so, I can't stand it. I have to say something. Listen guys, stop spreading this information. Here is the actual evidence of this. And in return we get emails —false, you're making up stuff, so on and so forth. You want to support stuff or whatnot.

What if First-Century Documents Contradict Us? And so I feel like we've discovered something or we've neglected something with ignoring these letters. How many of you guys know that if we found a first century document of a believer, I mean, first century, right? Like within 20, 30 years of Yeshua dying and resurrecting. Pretty close to disciples, apostles. If we found a document that supported something that we disagreed with, would we accept it? First century believers, right? That's what we're trying to replicate. We're trying to be like the first century believers, right? Most of us. Most of us. What if the first century believers did something or believed something that we don't want to? That we're taught not to believe, but it's historical based and we have evidence to support it. Would we want to go forward with it? You'd pay attention to it. You'd at least consider it. This has been an eyeopening study for me, and I'm very excited to share some of that with you guys today.

The Second and Third Century Evidence

A lot of church denominations, as we know the topic is the Sabbath, the Saturday Sabbath, a lot of church denominations to support meeting on Sunday and Sunday worship will go back to the patristic writings. Second, third century writings. Look, the apostles did this, the disciples did this, the next generation after the disciples started doing this. Are we willing to acknowledge if second and third century, within two generations away from Yeshua, if this happened, if people started to acknowledge Sunday as an important day, worship, if this is fact, if this is fact, would we be willing to accept this? Scare everybody yet?

Everybody's scared. Fact is guys, two generations away from Yeshua, we have writings that support Sunday becoming an up-andcoming day of celebration of Yeshua and the Sabbath slowly fading away very quickly. Didn't even last a hundred years. Why? Why? And that's what I want to share with you guys today. I get so much hate mail. People are gonna watch another video, gonna turn this off, write me an email. It's nasty. If there's something that we need to consider and that we have historical proof to back up, it's our job to uphold the integrity of what we call truth and what we stand for. Right? That goes for everything.

Did the Apostles Keep Sunday? So, starting this message off, I want to do a little bit of review. We need to figure out, first question, I'm going to ask a series of questions throughout this study. And this study is actually gonna be broken up into another part because there's a lot of history I want to share with you guys and I hope you guys will take notes and if you have any questions about what I said you can come ask me, you can email me. I have copies of the letters that I'm gonna be presenting today and you can also go back and watch this video. First question, did the apostles keep Sunday? Did the disciples of Yeshua worship on Sunday, did away with the Sabbath, right? Did away with Saturday. If that was the case, these are eyewitnesses. If they did this, would we be willing to admit it? And would we agree? Yeah, this is what it says, right? We're going to go over a few verses that have to do with the Sabbath and the New Testament. We're just going to see the first generation, right? First generation, okay?

Acts 13: Committed to the Sabbath

So in Acts chapter 13, we have an instance where, oh, we can just read it. So they came to Antioch, right? It's going to become a huge source for the ecclesia, the church, if you will. And they sat down. And so it's interesting because if you read the chapter, Paul basically stands up and talks about, "Listen guys, Abraham, Moses, through David, our Savior has been born unto us. Let me tell you about the Savior, Yeshua, Messiah, Jesus Christ." Right? He gives this compelling gospel message in the middle of this synagogue. Okay? Now, what's amazing is a few verses later, a little bit in the chapter later, after Paul shares Yeshua with them, we see that among all the people, the Gentiles become really interested in this, right?

And so in verse 42 we see, "So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them on Sunday." On the next Sabbath, right? This would be a great opportunity for Paul to be like, "Listen guys, that was done away with. We need to meet here on Sunday. Meet me tomorrow and I'll explain it to you." Next Sabbath, can you come back here? Preach to us again? Absolutely. Verse 43. Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.

On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. Just looking at scriptural evidence, and we're not worried about the generation after this, we're worried about the initial generation, right? The disciples and the apostles, okay? In this act, they seem to be pretty committed to the Sabbath, right? I know, we know this, but let's see here. Continue on to the next book of the New Testament, right?

1 Corinthians 16:2 and the Offering 1 Corinthians, which according to Catholic scholars was written between 52 and 57 AD. We find what is probably the single most quoted text used in an effort to prove Sunday worship. 1 Corinthians 16, 2. "Put money away. As God has prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." And so Paul is writing to the Corinthians that he is requesting money to be saved so that he can distribute the money to the needy saints in Jerusalem. Listen, God, all the believers in Jerusalem are getting a little hungry here. Come on, we've got to support each other in this, and we have to uphold the integrity of what we have in Jerusalem.

Paul is recommending that each person on the first day of the week lay aside and save by themselves a proportional amount of their income for the purpose of this offering. In that way, when Paul arrives, the necessary funds will already be set aside and available. 1 Corinthians 16.3 So upon meeting with Paul, after his arrival to Corinth, that money was to be saved up and be given to the designated courier to be taken to Jerusalem by Paul's direction. Most notably, Paul is not instructing the Corinthians to observe a Sunday worship service. A lot of times, a lot of commentaries, and I always like to look at all the commentaries when I approach a subject because I like to be unbiased.

I really do. Truth, unbiased truth. A lot of commentaries say when they were meeting in their churches on the Sundays, they would take up an offering to give to Paul. This is not the case. Paul says in your dwelling places on the first day of the week, right? Reset the work week after Shabbat's over with. Go and count out your money, get all that stuff, save up some so that you can give it to me and go back. It's also very clear in the book of Acts that Paul only kept the Sabbath day when he was in Corinth. You want to see this? Not Sunday. The whole time he was in Corinth. Acts 18, verse 1. So this is recounting when he's in Corinth, right? And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath.

How many Sabbaths? And persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. And he continued there a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. So when Paul was in Corinth, he taught, he preached when? Sabbath. Once a Sabbath? Once a month? Every other week? Every Sabbath. For a year and a half. 71, 72 Sabbaths? Not once does he say on the first day of the week we gathered together and I had this cool club down here. We rented the synagogue out on Sunday and they let us use it.

Just Looking at First Century

And we're just looking at the first century. And guys, church scholars, Christian scholars will admit there's really not a whole lot of evidence that the first century apostles kept a Sunday service. And we'll see later on in the letters that we read this gradual evolution going towards Sunday. It's interesting that in 1 Corinthians 16, 2, in light of tradition, they say that it refers to passing the collection plate. It was the most absurd commentary I think I read. Also, we have this verse, and I wanted to get this out of the way because I want you guys to understand why we do what we do. Last week was how we should feel when we do it and why we do it, and now we're going to look at history.

So Acts 2, verse 7 says something very interesting. Everyone knows this one, right? This one. Poor cat fell asleep in the window, fell out, died. Paul had to go, right? So I understand when Paul has to deal with it, because I see. I see y'all. Put you up in a window up there. They were meeting on the first day of the week. How do we get around this? Can't just ignore it. First day of the week. So there are several different theories. One theory, which I agree with, is that the first day of the week starts Saturday night. They were gathered together Saturday night, and Paul spoke till midnight and spoke into Sunday morning—right, the first day of the week.

Maybe they had Shabbat services or whatnot, and then he just continued to yak throughout the first day of the week. Why were they there? Because Paul was intending to depart the next day, and he wanted to break bread with them one last time. I believe this was an isolated incident. It doesn't say, as was their custom, the first day of the week. It says Paul's leaving the next day. Come on, guys. Last chance. Let me preach to you. I find that very interesting.

A 400-Page Thesis

I want to go ahead and list my sources. I forgot to put a slide in with my sources. One of my main sources is a 400-page thesis from Samuel Bacchiacchi, right? And he was a Seventh-day Adventist who attended a Vatican university in Rome in 1977 and wrote a thesis on the Sabbath. The thesis is called From Saturday to Sunday: History of the Ancient Sabbath. It's interesting because the Vatican actually published the thesis. So if you want the link, let me know and I can give it to you. It's very interesting, very long, very academic, very cool. Another one is a book called Hatred: The History of Antisemitism, as well as The Shadow of the Temple by Oscar Skarsson.

Skarsson—that's how you say his name. So here's a quote from Dialogues on the Lord's Day: "The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted, but they derived this practice from the apostles themselves as appears by several scriptures to the purpose." Here we have a scholar telling us what we already know. Obviously the first apostles and disciples were Jewish. Obviously they kept the Sabbath day. We spoke about this last week in What is the Sabbath, Part One. This is widely accepted throughout Christian scholarship. But Matt, what about the Lord's Day?

Nowhere Else in the New Testament

This is a verse in Revelations that is highly debated, and we can read it. Revelations 1, 10. You guys ever heard this verse before? Probably never even seen it before. "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a great voice as a trumpet." Right? So, on the Lord's Day. It's interesting because everywhere else in Scripture, the first day of the week is called the first day of the week. Meaton sabbaton. That's what it's called, the first day of the week. Nowhere else in the New Testament is the word Lord's Day ever used, except for this point. Now, what happens is we start reading 3rd and 4th century writings, patristic writings, and we see that the Lord's Day was combined with Sunday.

Earlier writings do not show this, and definitely not at the time of the New Testament. So it's very interesting because what is John talking about? Was he talking about having these visions? You know, he was on the island having these visions —revelations, apocalyptic visions—and he sat down for his Sunday service all by himself, right? And on Sunday, he had these visions. Hmm. It's interesting because we could say it was Sunday, and this is one theory, but there's no evidence that a reformation from Saturday to Sunday was even started yet. No evidence to support this, right? A lot of people, a lot of scholars would say this is Pascha or Easter, the evolution of Easter, the pre-Easter celebration, right?

Seen commentaries with this. This is an interesting commentary because the Christians in the province that John was writing to did not celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of Messiah on the first Sunday after Saturday.

The Quarter-Deciman Debate

There was actually a great debate amongst early Christians. See, in Rome, in the Roman province, they began saying, no, we don't need to celebrate his death, burial, and resurrection on Passover. We need to move it to the first Sunday after Passover, which is actually first fruits, but regardless. But there was still a large majority of those away from Rome, especially in the east, what are they called? They're called quarter-decimals. They believed that they should honor Yeshua on the 14th day of the month of Nisan. In other words, Passover. Because that's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, right? He's our Passover.

Christians did this. Early believers did this for hundreds of years. It was a huge debate. You can read it. Google the quarter-deciman debate, and you can read about it. I mean, church fathers butting heads over this. "I'm not going to do it on Sunday." "No, I'm going to do it on Sunday." See, even if John was speaking about the Lord's Day as Easter, the province that he was in did not observe this tradition yet. During this time, everyone recognized Yeshua on Passover every single year, early believers. What's further interesting is if we read the entire chapter of Revelations 1, we see something very clear.

What is the entire chapter about? About the end times, right? He talks about, let's see here, in verse 7, quoting Daniel 7 and Zechariah 12. What are these prophets talking about? They're talking about the end times, right? This is what John's saying, right? He's taken up in the Spirit and seeing the end times. And in the Tanakh, the day that comes about where the end times start, what's this day called? The day of the Lord. The Lord's day. This is what the entire chapter reflects. Therefore, Revelations 1, 10—I believe John was taken in the Spirit to see these things unfold on the Lord's day.

We get so wrapped up in agenda that we miss the obvious things sometimes. While we're on this issue, I want to address something. So can we have a conversation? We can have a conversation, right? Okay, a couple people just looking at me. I already messed it all up, I know.

Completely Black and White Scenarios

In Hebrew roots, and I can say this as a longtime Hebrew rooter in the messianic movement, sometimes we like to see things in completely black and white scenarios. Now some things need to be viewed in black and white scenarios. Other things... If it's not a black and white scenario, then it shouldn't be seen as a black and white scenario, right? One of those scenarios is Mark chapter 16, verse 1. "And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Siloam brought spices so that they may go to anoint Yeshua's body." This is after Yeshua died on the cross, right? We have the ladies coming up to anoint his body.

Everyone's familiar with this verse? The concept, okay. "Toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb." Now, what's interesting—first day of the week. If we look at that in the Greek, we have a very peculiar phrase, and it's right here: te miaton sabbaton in the Greek. What sticks out at you about this phrase? The Greek word for Sabbath. We as Hebrew rooters... Look, it's not the first day of the week. It's Sabbath, right? Because it's Sabbath and that's what it means. And so we get bent out of shape because we see Sabbath and we don't bother researching the actual biblical Greek and the culture that the Roman Empire was in.

And we say that first day of the week shouldn't be there. Everywhere that this word week is, that's sabbaton, should be Sabbath. True story. True story.

There Is No Word for Week

The issue with this, guys, is this: In biblical Greek, there is no word for week. And so what happened is they were still developing a seven-day week. Do the research—totally different topic. So within the scriptures, they took the word sabbaton and they used it to define the seven-day week.

"Mia" Means First And so mia means first. This phrase literally could mean first after the Sabbath, first day after the Sabbath, first of the week, right? Or it could say the first of the Sabbaths. It could read first of the Sabbaths. This word sabbaton is used all throughout the New Testament for Sabbath and also translated a few times this week. Sometimes, I believe, when we see miaton sabbaton, it means first of the Sabbaths. Other times, the context shows it means first of the week. We see a great example of this in Luke chapter 18 verse 9. Yeshua is telling a very familiar story to his apostles and he's speaking about a righteous Pharisee, right?

Two Men in the Temple

And we can read it: "And he told a parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. So we got the big righteous guy and then we got the guy who's already just evil, tax collector, right? The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like this other man over here. Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get, but the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful on me." And Yeshua, of course, is trying to develop this—listen, you got this one guy who's obviously self-righteous, and you got another guy who actually knows he's a sinner. He knows he doesn't deserve God's grace, yet he still goes to the Father and says, Father, forgive me. Be merciful on me. I need your grace, right?

A Matter of Context

So what's very interesting is this Pharisee says that he fasts how many times a week? Twice a week, right? Disto sabbaton. If sabbaton only means Sabbath, this guy is so righteous, he fasts twice a Sabbath. Maybe breakfast, maybe lunch. It's twice a week. I fast two of the seven, if you will. It could be read two Sabbaths or two in a Sabbath. But the context clearly shows that. Another time we see in Mark chapter 19 verse 9. "Now when he rose early in the first day of the week, he appeared to Mary Magdalene from whom he had cast out seven demons." Pathos sabbaton in the Greek. If this word is Sabbath, he arose early on the Sabbath. Arose early on the first Sabbath and he appeared to Mary Magdalene. It means he rose Saturday morning. Really messes up a whole three nights thing, guys.

I'm not saying that "Sabbaton" doesn't mean Sabbath. It absolutely does. The majority of the phrases we see in the New Testament. But I want to at least petition that we understand that sometimes things aren't black and white. I saw one review, one web page that was making them, because I want to see this. Is this, could it be Sabbath? So one whole web page where a guy was so adamant that every single time "sabbaton" appeared in the Greek in the New Testament, it meant that. And he referenced Mark 16, and he actually had a map that said that Yeshua rose early Saturday morning. And he was a Wednesday nighter, so Wednesday night he died and rose Saturday morning.

I'm like, dude, you just undid the whole three days, three nights thing. Which is actually something that, oh, sacred cow. None of the patristic writings, even of the first century, everyone agrees that he died on Friday. I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm just saying we have evidence that the majority of people thought he died on Friday, rose on Sunday. The whole inclusive reckoning thing and all the times in the New Testament where it talks about he rose in the third day and on the third day as opposed to after. Different conversation. The only time, though, that the first day of the week is associated with the Lord's Day in all historical documents comes from a pseudo-author called the Gospel of Peter in the 2nd century A.D. So if you've ever had friends talk about where this author said this or the Lord's Day means this, you can tell them that in no writings in history up until the 2nd century is the title the Lord's Day, like in Revelation, associated with the first day of the week except for in the late 2nd century.

Did Constantine Create Sunday Worship? Did Constantine create Sunday as a day of worship? Can someone get me a water? This is a big one because when I grew up in Hebrew Roots, I literally grew up in Hebrew Roots as a teenager. Is that for me? Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I started this journey when I was 17 years old. I read a lot of stuff. I used the internet as my main source for everything. I listened to a lot of different teachers. And I've realized that, way later, a lot of the stuff I read was disproven in the early 1900s about a lot of different things. I was taught growing up that Constantine created Sunday worship.

He changed everything. He created the Christian faith. He created the Catholic faith. This is the guy. Guys, if we look at history, Constantine did not create Sunday worship. He was the climactic event that made Sunday worship law in Rome. Guys, it was developing long before he was ever born. Truly, he was not the originator of this idea. The climactic event, conclusion, but not the originator. Here's what he wrote in law, 321 AD, right? "On the venerable day of the sun, let the magistrates and the people residing in the cities rest." So on Sunday, right? "The honorable day of the sun, let them rest.

And let all the workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuit." So he's basically instituting Sunday as a type of Sabbath day. So in the cities, we're going to close the shops, don't do anything, rest, take a break. If you're out in the country, most of the slaves were, keep on going, it's okay. You know what I mean? Didn't want everything to shut down. This is the decree from Constantine where he wrote the seventh day or the first day of the week as a Sabbath into Roman law. As I said, guys, this was not something he woke up one morning and said, you know what, all you believers who keep the Sabbath, we're going to do this now.

That is not true. Unfortunately, before I started teaching, I used to evangelize with this fact, and I wondered why all of my brothers and sisters in Messiah didn't take me credible—I was a loon bag. Now I realize, because they had actually studied a little bit of history. Was that a big one? Sorry, guys.

The First Epistle of Clement

I want to start with possibly one of the oldest patristic writings, if you will, the earliest writing we have after Yeshua died and was resurrected. It's known as the First Epistle of Clement. It is not from Clement. It is an anonymous writer. We don't know who wrote it, but it was attributed to this guy. Written between 50 and 80 AD. It's debatable. Very early, right? Within the generation after Yeshua. He writes, "...by reason of sudden repeated calamities..." He's speaking to Corinth. He's writing to Corinth, and he's basically saying, listen guys, you guys used to be top notch. I mean, you were the shindig over here, right?

You were the ecclesia, but a couple of men came in there, and they wanted to be rowdy, and they wanted to start arguing over stuff, and they wanted to start not seeing unity as the main priority among you, and they wanted to get their way and their view of what Messiah did, and their view of all the nitpick areas that the Bible deals with, and they wanted to do all this stuff, and now... No one even wants to come to you anymore. You're not even taken seriously anymore because your fellowship is just a big circus now. This writer is very interesting. We don't know who's writing this letter, right? And he goes through and he's saying a lot of good stuff about this fellowship and a lot of bad stuff as well.

One thing that all scholars agree is this guy was Jewish, naturally. He was familiar with the Old Testament. He names the pious of the Tanakh as his own ancestors. And there's absolutely, and this is important for later, absolutely no anti-Judaic polemic or arguments made. Unlike most of the patristic writings that we have, this guy was not saying Jews are bad or we need to separate ourselves from the Jews or Judaism, we don't need to keep all that. Nothing. And especially nothing written about Sunday was in here. Nothing. Good place to start. Earliest letters, right? No one's writing. It's not a big issue yet.

Still keeping Saturday Sabbath for all we know. The book quote from In the Shadow of the Temple. We have Oscar quoting, Oscar's quote: "If we remove these features, references from Christ and the apostles and high Christology that's written throughout this letter of Clement, we would hardly destroy its main structure and we would have a text that rather characteristically or is rather characteristic of diaspora Judaism in style as well as content." In other words, for all intents and purposes, everyone agrees there's a Jewish guy writing to these guys, admonishing them and rebuking them.

The Didache

The next oldest debatable text patristic writing, church father writing. It is a writing that we never touch in Hebrew Roots. We're scared of it. I only know one teacher in the Hebrew Roots movement, if you will, that has ever done a teaching on this, and that's Ryan White over at Rooted in Torah. Okay, anyone ever heard of the didache? Do what? Interesting. Interesting. Thank you for that. Ryan does a six-part teaching on this, and it's very interesting because it has a lot of Jewish connections in it. The didache is estimated to have been written between 50 and 80 AD. Some people believe that the First Epistle of Clement is older. Either way, this is the first generation after Messiah that we have this nice little chunk of document here, and it's known as the teaching of the 12 apostles.

The Didache for First Century Believers

And this document is written for first century believers who were basically converting to the faith. It has a lot of do this, do that—if you don't want to do this, too bad, you've got to do this. This is the structure of how things are done. It addresses baptism. It addresses the dreaded Eucharist that Hebrew readers are always scared to study. It was a big deal. It comes from a Jewish word, actually, or a Hebrew word and a Greek, but regardless, another teaching.

In chapter 6, it says something very interesting. It says, "...see that no one causes you to err from this way of the teaching, since apart from God it teaches you. For if you are able to bear the entire yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect." You're going to bear the entire yoke of the Lord. You're going to be perfect. But if you are not able to do this, do what you're able. And concerning food, bear what you're able. Some kosher laws. Bear what you're able. Listen, guys, we know you bunch of pagans out there. If you're able to bear everything, awesome, let's start you off slow, do what you can, and follow after the ways of Yeshua.

Even in food, do what you can, right? And likewise with the things that you eat. But against that which is sacrificed to idols, be exceedingly careful, for it is the service of dead gods, or as we spoke about in the afterlife teaching, the deified dead. I like that. Listen guys, you want to join the faith, you're welcome. Come on in. If you can take on everything, all these laws and restrictions, awesome, you're going to be perfect. But if you can't, just start off slow, do what you can, right? Do what you can. Bear food, do what you can. Eat in the way, do what you can. Just make sure, number one, just like in Acts 15, stay away from food offered to these idols, right?

Baptismal Rules

One thing that's very interesting about the Didache is the baptismal rules. I love it. I love it. You guys ever been to a Catholic church? Seen a Catholic baptism? The majority of Catholic baptisms are done with just a few splats of water over the head. Protestants get all torn out of shape over this, and Hebrew rooters get all torn out of shape over this and freak out. Oh, you're supposed to do a full immersion. Formally you are. Orthodox churches, for the majority, still do full immersion, but not in Catholic church. They get this from the Didache, from the first century instructions to believers.

So in the Didache, it talks about baptism, and it says, listen guys, if you have someone who's going to come into the faith, you need to baptize them. It's important. Paul even stressed this. Got to get them baptized, right? Full immersion in living water would be perfect, just like in Jude, Jewish law. Full immersion, living water. Got to make sure, either a mikvah, river, whatever, living water. If you can't do living water, it's more important than the ritual. Dunk them in a pool of standing water. Just get them under the water and come back up, right? Alright, if you can't do it in cold water, do it in warm water.

Just do it. And if you don't have any water at all, just baptize them in the name of the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit and splash water on their heads three times. Just like with a cup. Boom, they're in. Just do it. Matt, do you agree with this? Do you not agree with this? It doesn't matter. That's what's written in this very original document written by believers in the generation after Yeshua within the first century. And so most Catholic churches have the last resort has kind of become the standard. But the focus was, listen, not on—oh, you want to become a believer in Yeshua? Sorry, we've got to go.

The mikvah is like a couple miles away. We're going to go. Remember in Acts chapter 8, Philip, right, and the eunuch, I need to get baptized. I don't know, man. There's some water right over this river right over here. Stop the carriage. Get off. Go dunk. And they both came out. Eunuch was rejoicing. Didn't matter if it was a formal mikvah. There's some water over here. Go do it. The Didache is very interesting to read. Unfortunately, nowhere in the Didache is Sunday worship mentioned either. Two oldest documents in Christian history do not mention the Sabbath or specifically Sunday worship. Something that we need to be aware of, right?

Ignatius and the Works of the Law

Ignatius—Ignatius is possibly the third oldest writing. You guys ever read any of this stuff before? You have? A few people. Somewhere around 100, 500, 15 AD, this letter was written. And he was the bishop of Antioch in Syria, and he was arrested, sent to Rome to be killed, and essentially on the way, visited a lot of Christian communities, wrote some letters, and we have those seven letters, I believe, still with us. Now, what's interesting about this document is one thing for sure—he was not Jewish at all. You want to read some of this? This is interesting. So you guys remember when I spoke about—we didn't have it on YouTube, we didn't have it recorded—but I was concluding the Paul series and I was talking about the works of the law and I was basing it off the Christian scholar publication N.T.

Wright, who's backed by E.P. Sanders, two major Christian scholars called The New Perspective of Paul, right? And he has a theory that has changed the way Christianity has viewed the term works of the law. And basically what he proposes is that the works of the law had nothing to do with Torah directly. We have some other phrases in the Qumran scrolls of the works of the law, and they're defining halakha and how you identify yourself in the covenant. In other words, he says that in the first century, especially after the Maccabean revolt, it became very, very, very important in Roman history when Rome was over Judea to distinguish yourself and make sure that you represent your identity as a Jew, as a Judean, above all.

Read the book of Maccabees. That's where it really started to come up.

And so the idea and his theory is that in the first century, the Torah, specifically certain things of the Torah like circumcision, Sabbath, these were no longer done out of faith. These were done out of identity markers. I keep the Sabbath as a symbol of my God. No, I keep the Sabbath because I'm Jewish. And if you want to be Jewish, you have to keep the Sabbath like me, according to these rules, according to this halakha. This is the jersey you put on, and because you're a Judean, everyone can see that you're in the covenant. Circumcision? I live like four months travel away from Jerusalem. I'm not going to be going to Passover, which is really the only required feast to go and get circumcised.

I'm not going to be going for another year. I'd like to go next year. Nope, you've got to be circumcised today. That's the first thing I've got to do. I just got baptized. It's a theory. This is what Paul was speaking against in Romans chapter 4, right? By faith, Abraham believed. He wasn't circumcised when he believed, right? And he calls out the Judeans that he's writing to. He's saying, listen guys, you think you're better than Abraham because you have these tokens of identity?

Identity and Grace

Let's read what Ignatius speaks about, possibly with this context—debatable. Magnesians, right? And so when he spoke to the Magnesians, they produced a lot of dairy, milk. We still have this today in the grocery store. Milk of Magnesia. "Be not seduced by strange doctrines, nor by antiquated fables which are profitless. For if you live after the manner of Judaism, we avow that we must not receive grace, for the divine prophets lived after Christ Jesus." So basically, he's saying if you live after the manner of Judaism, you're far from grace. This is a big document we need to understand the context of, because if he's saying what I think he's saying—that if you do anything that's Jewish including keeping the Torah, you're not in faith in Yeshua, you have no grace—now we're believers in Yeshua and want to emulate Yeshua.

And if this is what he's saying, then we've got a problem, right? Take off the tassels. We'll move services tomorrow. It's gonna be hard to rent a church on Sunday anyway. And then to make the point, to drive the point home, he says this: "For the divine prophets, the prophets in the Tanakh lived after Messiah." In other words, the divine prophets were looking forward and they were living in anticipation of faith in Messiah—that's what he's proposing. This is what they were going towards. This was their goal. Okay, okay, quite a zealous statement. Boy, he's bold. "We don't believe in Jews or Judaism.

We're the fulfillment of Judaism." That's what it appears he's saying. "We're in every tongue believed and was gathered together unto God." Now, either Ignatius was a moron or we're not understanding what he's saying. So he's saying that if you live after any manner of Judaism, Sabbatizing, right? You've fallen from grace. For the divine prophets lived after Messiah. We need to reflect what the divine prophets did, right? All the prophets in the Old Testament. Did this guy not realize that the prophets of the Tanakh kept Sabbath? Guys, what he's talking about, he's talking about the same thing Paul was dealing with in Romans chapter 4.

Listen guys, you need to watch yourself because your identity as a Jew is not what's going to save you. That's not going to save you. Your identity in Messiah is what's going to save you. So you can put on these identity markers, you can put on the Judean jerseys and wear these things, but guys, you've fallen from grace because that was the whole point of Messiah coming—so that the fulfillment of Abraham could take place. All nations will be blessed or grafted in through Abraham. Interesting. Sabbatizing. Hmm. Philadelphians 6.1: "But if anyone propound or teach Judaism unto you, hear him not." For it is better to hear Christianity from a man who is circumcised than Judaism from an uncircumcised.

He's speaking here of some heretics. A lot of the Christian scholars call them Judaizers. Apparently he's saying, listen man, if someone's trying to teach you Judaism, the way, the manner of Judaism, don't listen to them. For it is better to learn about Christianity from someone who's circumcised, a Judean, than one who's uncircumcised. So he's saying, listen man, it's better to learn this faith from a Jewish guy, but don't listen to someone who teaches Judaism? No, he's talking about a rising moment where, without getting into different sects of Christianity, including the Gnostics, he's getting into an area where these Gentiles were teaching Jewish identity was required in the name of Jesus Christ.

What's more profound is, and we'll just take it as it is, this is less than a hundred years after Yeshua. But if either one of those, circumcised and uncircumcised, tries to teach you anything about the Bible, but does not do it in the name of Jesus Christ, don't even listen to him. There are tombs and gravestones. Is this wisdom?

Messianic Authority and First-Century Practice

I had a Messianic rabbi tell me at a conference. He had his opinions on stuff and we agreed to disagree on a lot of stuff, but one thing that was said was that if anybody, specifically anyone who is not born Jewish, wants to teach or evangelize, specifically teach Torah, but do any type of biblical teaching, they must first put themselves as a tutor underneath an Orthodox rabbi, even if he's not Messianic. First generation after Yeshua disagreed with that. Let me quote from Samuel Bakayaki: "On the other hand, Ignatius, by urging Christians to differentiate themselves from the Jewish practices, such as sabotaging, offers us significant insight on how the existence of anti-Judaizing attitudes and efforts contributed to the adoption of Sunday observance." See, Ignatius condemns first century Judean practice of Torah, not the actual practice of Torah.

I'm going to submit over this week and next week a lot of evidence about what happened between Christians and Jews, non-believing Jews. According to historical fact, we're going to read a lot of hard things, but the sum of it is, guys, there began to be a division between Judeans and Christians. Remember all the things that were going on in the first century, right? You had the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, a little revolt there. 40 years later, they were allowed to rebuild the temple, just not in the same spot. Went back and forth. Started to rebuild it. Another revolt took place until finally the Barakapa revolt.

It's interesting because there was a huge war going on between the Judeans and the Romans. And you had all these messianics over here saying, listen, we know Messiah's come. We won't be involved in this. That caused a lot of division between those of the Jesus and those who were non-believers.

The Letter of Barnabas and Spiritual Interpretation

Barnabas is another anonymous letter. It's a letter that's attributed to Barnabas, right? Paul. Around 130 AD, and we see something very specific here. We know he's not Jewish due to the huge number of misquoted Old Testament and even rabbinic writings. He knows a lot about Judaism of the first century, but he misquotes everything, pulling it out without context. He agrees that all ritual commandments in Torah are binding to Christians as well. I repeat, Barnabas said all the commandments in Torah are binding to Christians. Every single one of them, but not literally. Spiritually. Spiritually. See these weird ideas getting in, right? "And he rested the seventh day means this. This is what the letter says: When his son comes and destroys the time of the lawless one and judges the ungodly and changes the sun, moon, and stars, then he will rest well on the seventh day. Further, he says, you shall treat it as holy with clean hands and a pure heart. If then anyone can now, by being pure in heart, treat as holy the day God declared holy, we are entirely deceived."

In other words, he's saying because you're not pure, you can't even keep the Sabbath. His opinion. This writer, obviously a Gentile, has this whacked out idea that everything's spiritual and Sabbath can't even be attempted because you're not holy. When God comes back and everybody's completely obedient to everything and everything's been restored, then we can try this again. This is possibly one of the first times we see this reference to an eighth day form, and I'll explain that in a second. "That is the beginning of another world. This is why we also observe the eighth day with rejoicing, on which Jesus also rose from the dead, and having shown himself ascended to heaven."

We notice that the writer's talking about this eighth day, and if you think eight, there's not eight days in a week. No, eight comes after seven, right? And basically what he's saying is we have the Sabbath day that we really can't keep, but then as we go past the Sabbath into the eight, the infinite number, it's a very eschatological number, spiritual number. As we go into the letter eight, right, which is outside of time and space, it is God's domain. He's getting gnostic with this junk. As we go into this eighth day, we will serve the Lord. It is another world, right?

The Uncertain Beginnings of Sunday Observance

It's noteworthy that Barnabas presents the resurrection as Jesus as a second or additional motivation for keeping the eighth day. He's talking about keeping the eighth day, and then he's telling them why they need to keep the eighth day. A little detail we like to notice: Sunday is observed because that day Jesus also rose from the dead. This bespeaks a timid and uncertain beginning of Sunday keeping. The theology and termination of Sunday are still kind of a little dubious. There's no mention of any Sunday gatherings, nor any anti-Judaism in the fathers or the origin of Sunday. There is no mention of any gatherings of Eucharistic celebrations.

He's not giving any reasons why we should keep Sunday. The eighth day is simply a prolonging of the Sabbath, this eschatological Sabbath, this spiritual Sabbath that we enter into, to which is united by memory of the resurrection. It's interesting. We know that Sunday keeping was not really in play or mandatory before this because he's having to give reasons. You guys know why we keep Sunday? No, it's spiritual. Spiritual of what? Spiritual of a new world, a beginning after the Sabbath. Okay, and it's also the day that Jesus rose from the dead. So why did this attitude start to form? So far we find no concrete evidence of Sunday gatherings replacing Sabbath, at least not concrete.

This is the time when Sunday will replace Saturday. It's very interesting. These are writings that talk about stuff that we're uncomfortable with because maybe we miss the context, because maybe we're too scared to study it. I suggest that we shouldn't be scared to study documents that support our faith. Next week we're gonna talk about Justin Martyr.

Gnostics and Heretics of the Early Church

I don't know what his nickname was, but Justin Martyr. This guy spoke a lot about heretics. Now heresy was something that was really fun to read about. In other words, there are a lot of denominations coming about in the second and third century of Christianity. They weren't even denominations, they were thoughts. And a lot of them were from the Gnostics. Now these Gnostics existed during the time of Judaism in the first century. They started to really form up, but with the added advent of Jesus, they began to spin it out of control. Basically what they taught is that in a manner, in a shade, we were all falling spirits from God, and that we had forgotten that we were divine in and of ourselves, and that the whole purpose of Yeshua coming was to give us the knowledge, gnosis, knowledge, Gnostics, that you are divine and you can be freed, right?

They were very anti-materialistic in every which way or form. And then we have heretics like, what's his name, Marcion? Somebody like that? And he was a heretic. He was driven out of the West—he was driven out of Rome where he started a church. And this guy was a piece of work. He taught that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament were two completely different deities. Right? This is this guy. And he was labeled many times by Eusebius, I think, and Tertullian. He was labeled by multiple church fathers as a heretic. And he says the God of the Old Testament, the God of the Jews, is the evil God.

And Jesus came representing the higher divine God that was over Yahweh of the Old Testament. And this new God kind of kicked the old God's butt a little bit. And you know what? Let's just make a Bible to clarify this stuff. So he made his own Bible, and it contained the book of Luke, and it contained the apostles of Paul. Just do it with the Old Testament. Everything the Jews do, their worship is from another God. Guys, that spirit still exists today.

Marcion's Heresy and Modern Echoes

Have any of you guys ever spoken to someone and they say, well, that was the God of the Old Testament? Our church fathers, even though they began to get misguided, and we're going to cover that history next week, heresy, absolute heresy.

You want to see something else? A little nugget? Justin Martin? He's talking about heresy. Do I have the slide? Oh, it's supposed to be continued. Let's see here. So he's talking about heretics and the resurrection of the dead. Are you guys ready for this? This is a heresy from Justin Martyr. Okay. Some traditions die hard. He's teaching heretics within the body, and this is what he says. Amen. I'm not going to say my stance on this or this. You can watch the afterlife teaching, kind of see where I lie. This is incredible. This is a church father describing a heresy and believing that you go to heaven after you die. We see how the patristic writings have been combed through. Some things have been taken out of some, some left out, never to be seen again. I think it's our job, guys, to take a look at these writings and see what happened to the Sabbath day.

The Patristic Writings and the Sabbath

Next week, we're going to go into more of Justin Martyr and his letters to, oh, the Jewish guy, what was his name? Trifon? Trifon, Trifon, I heard it said in different ways, yeah. This Jewish peer, and they argue back and forth over Judaism and Christianity. And some of the things, the hate, that came about because of the things the Jews were doing against the Christians and the Christians were doing against the Jews really developed a wedge between the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith and what became of the Gentile Christian faith within just a couple of centuries.

Justin Martyr and the Jewish Divide

Hope you guys will join us next week. I'm very excited to continue with this and talk more about history. It's truly incredible the things that we find if we simply open up and look at a book, right? Did you guys learn anything today? Is that interesting? Okay.

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