Invalidating a Commandment - oh my !

     The Fourth Commandment is the longest of the Ten Commandments: ⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8) God blessed the seventh day by setting it apart and making it uniquely holy.  Who is supposed to observe this holy seventh day? The commandments were given to the Commonwealth of Israel.  That included the twelve tribes, and strangers who joined themselves with the Tribes when they made the exodus out of Egypt in a ‘mixed multitude’.    Therefore, the Sabbath was for everyone, Jew and non-Jew, for all made up the Commonwealth of Israel and received the commandments written by the very finger of God Himself. The very first word of the commandment is the word “Remember” because the seventh day Sabbath existed in Eden,  long before there were Jews, Moses, or the mixed multitude at Mt. Sinai. 
      Keeping the Sabbath is not popular.  Some people erroneously say that the ‘Sabbath was nailed to the cross’ and is no longer in effect.  Yet, while ignoring the Sabbath, they contend that all the other commandments are binding on Believers today.  That is failed logic. Why is one Commandment invalid and the others all valid?  Eight times the New Testament mentions that the early church met on the first day of the week, while in the book of Acts, the seventh day Sabbath  is mentioned 84 times.  Clearly, the early Christians kept the seventh day Sabbath, and secular historians confirm this.
      God set apart the seventh day as a day of rest and judged Israel when they did not observe the Sabbath -  "What evil thing [is] this that you do, by which you profane the Shabbat day?  (Nehemiah 13:17).   The commandment is self-explanatory –“ do no work.”    Obeying the fourth commandment is not hard.     It is my favorite day of the week.  No shopping, housework, or  laundry.  Instead there is rest, Bible reading, praying, napping, eating what was prepared the day before.   Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday evening, and ends at sundown Saturday evening.  Rabbi sages say it is sundown when three stars are visible in the sky.  It is quite appropriate to follow the example of the early church and observe God's set-apart holy seventh day of rest, and attend church worship service on Sunday. 
       What have some Christian scholars said about the Sabbath? 

•  James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore wrote: "Is Saturday the seventh day according to the Bible and the Ten Commandments? I answer yes.  Did Christ change the day'? I answer no!"
• Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism (Episcopal), wrote:"And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day!"
• Alexander Campbell (Church of Christ/Disciples) wrote in the Christian Baptist: ” It is all old wives' fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed … I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.'  

(Many more testimonials from respected church leaders can be found that support obedience to the fourth commandment today.)  I submit that, if it was important enough to God to  initiate the Sabbath in Eden, and again to write in his own handwriting on a stone tablet at Mt. Sinai, then it behooves us to obey today.  If we think otherwise, then we can debate holy priorities with God directly.... Shabbat Shalom (sh-BOT sh-LOAM) [peaceful Sabbath]