Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. Acts 20:7

Verses 4-6 of chapter 20 of Acts give details about the missionaries’ travels. These kinds of details remind us that these are accounts of actual events. The narratives in the Bible are not fiction, but fact.

Then in verse 7, Luke tells us not only that the disciples gathered on the first day of the week (the Lord’s Day) but that this is what believers did on the first day of the week (the Lord’s Day). Note the way the sentence is written, “Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread…” Had Luke merely been informing us of what they did, the word when would not be included. By inserting the word when, Luke was telling us that disciples routinely gathered together on the first day of the week.

The Sabbath was established by God at the time of creation. God “rested” on the seventh day of creation, not because He was tired, but to establish that one day in seven (the Sabbath day) is to be “set aside” (the meaning of the word, sanctified)

The Sabbath day was reemphasized by God in Exodus 16 when the Israelites were told not to gather manna on the seventh day. It was then reemphasized in the Ten Commandments (God’s timeless moral law) in Exodus 20:8-11. We’ll come back and consider what God said in Exodus 20:8-11. For now I’ll close this post by pointing out that the Sabbath ordinance, established at creation, remains, though the day has changed from the seventh day to the first day in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ on “the Lord’s day.”