# The use of Saturday Evening Worship.



## Jon Lake (Dec 11, 2008)

This is an odd case of Roman Catholics having a really good idea and a number of Protestant Churches following. This may be a major  but I like the idea, there are some occupations that call for work on Sunday, and I thank God for these people, ER Doctors, Nurses, Police, Firemen (my Father-in-Law is a city electrical engineer and can be called in on Sunday) the RCC started having Saturday Masses for people like this some time ago, now, a number of Protestants Churches are also offering a Saturday evening service with people like this in mind. To be honest, I like the idea, I truly cannot see it as not being Biblical, all in all I think it is a good idea. NOW, I predict a few might take a swing at me by saying "You wish to bend the Sabbath to the Culture." In fairness, I shall deal with this from the gate. No, I STILL believe Sunday is the ordained time of common worship, I am dealing with people in rather unique callings. If this does not suffice in my argument perhaps this will. One fine Sunday Morning as you and the Fam get ready for Church, you slip, you fall and you introduce your forehead to the corner of the nightstand at a high velocity, do you want the Emergency Room closed? Did not think so. My follow up would be:don't you feel he Christians who do have to work that day might have a time of corporate worship, even if i is the night before?


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## TsonMariytho (Dec 11, 2008)

Saturday evening is the beginning of the Lord's Day, from the Biblical way of calculating it. We count each new day starting from midnight, but the ancient Hebrews counted started from sundown.

-----Added 12/11/2008 at 10:21:56 EST-----

"_And the evening and the morning were the first day_," etc.


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## 21st Century Calvinist (Dec 11, 2008)

Well, I am one of those ER nurses. My current employers require me to work every 3rd weekend. Thus every 3rd week I have to miss corporate worship at my church. I really loathe this and as such it has affected negatively my attitude towards my current job. 
Anyway, I shall rant about them no more. Saturday evening services would not work for me. There is a local (more local than my own church) independent Calvinistic church that has a Saturday evening service. Now on the weekends I am off, I really have little desire to go that service, it's not my church. Besides, I go on the Lord's Day. On the weekends I work, I am working both Sat and Sunday. This service has started by the time I finish work. Besides, I am usually so tired out that I really don't think I could concentrate.
I do appreciate your concern for emergency workers. Many of the ones I know give no thought to attending the worship of God. 
I do have theological concerns related to Saturday evening worship. This replaces Lord's Day worship. It will be the same service that is held on a Sunday a.m. We are thus minimizing the centrality and importance of the Lord's Day and of Lord's Day corporate worship. If I went to church Saturday evening, how then would I spend the Lord's Day? A lie in? Brunch? Mega thick Sunday paper? A round of golf? Surfing the PB? If a Sat evening service is offered then a certain percentage of people will go to that and not on a Sunday. 
I am not convinced that the Sabbath begins at sundown in our western culture. If all the other days did I would be, but they don't so I am not.


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## TsonMariytho (Dec 11, 2008)

Being a non-sabbatarian, I have often been curious how sabbatarians could justify their position without a scriptural command. But that is probably a well-worn subject on these forums...

So instead I'll ask this more on topic question: if the Sabbath was observed from sundown to sundown, instead of midnight to midnight in the Bible, why aren't modern Christian-Sabbath-observers obligated to count their days the same way? Is our modern midnight-to-midnight Sabbath observance an innovation, and incompatible with the RPW?


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## JonathanHunt (Dec 12, 2008)

TsonMariytho said:


> Being a non-sabbatarian, I have often been curious how sabbatarians could justify their position without a scriptural command. But that is probably a well-worn subject on these forums...



Correct. You subscribe to the London Baptist Confession according to your profile. Do you not concur with Chapter 22 then? Or do you mean something different by 'Sabbatarian?'

-----Added 12/12/2008 at 04:49:25 EST-----

And on the subject of Saturday evening worship, I would be quite convinced that several folks who COULD come on the Lord's Day would come on Saturday night instead because it was more convenient, and we'd never see them on the Lord's Day ever again!

We have other meetings during the week and some folk who are kept away on Sundays will be found there, but a Saturday night meeting, to me at least, seems like an alternative rival to Lord's Day worship.


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## TsonMariytho (Dec 12, 2008)

Yes, when I joined I took exception to the two paragraphs that describe a Christian Sabbath.

Just to continue my thought above... if you saw them on Saturday night, then by definition you saw them on the Lord's Day. It is only the modern, unBiblical mode of counting day divisions that divides at midnight. Right?

-----Added 12/12/2008 at 08:59:06 EST-----

Updated my profile with that info (confessional subscription exceptions). When the system set up my profile, my "bio" got truncated, then when I patched it up I never added that back in. Thanks for the heads up, Jonathan.


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## Pergamum (Dec 12, 2008)

If it is biblical to count days from evening to evening instead of at 12midnight, then why do we let culture dictate our "sabbath" keeping. Is the sabbath subject to culture?


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## Whitefield (Dec 12, 2008)

Sundown to sundown ... that would mean in most US cities that the evening services on the Lord's Day really wouldn't be on the Lord's Day (if they occur after 5 pm.), they would be occurring on Monday.


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## Honor (Dec 12, 2008)

I am very thankfulf for the hospitals being open on sunday... a few years back my son was dropped on his head from 7feet in the air (he was 1 at the time) it was before church... needless to say we didn't make it to either service that Sunday, but I can tell you I spent more time that Sunday praying, praising and worshipping God then a month os Sundays. I really think that if you have to work on Sunday it is all about your heart attitude. You could go to church with a "look at me I'm such a good christian I'm holier than thou" and you are a thousand times worse off than the nurse who goes about her job with a quiet spirit singing hymns to herself, praying and reading the Bible on lunch and on breaks and maybe even listening to a podcast sermon if given the chance.


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## TsonMariytho (Dec 12, 2008)

Up until our first child was born, my wife worked as an RN on the cardiac telemetry floor of our local hospital. She had to work about every other Sunday. I can guarantee you that she didn't have time to listen to podcasts! :^)

However, it's often surprised me how much nurses today even in secular hospitals are given leeway, and even encouraged to share their personal religious convictions with patients, when the patients initiate the conversation. It's a great opportunity to share Christ (albeit briefly before running to the next room) with some who are in a position to feel their need more keenly than most.


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## Honor (Dec 12, 2008)

sorry I wasn't saying she has a ton of time... I was thinking in the car to and from work and maybe at lunch... I know nurses are busy... sorry if that came across as crass.


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## TsonMariytho (Dec 12, 2008)

Oh no, not at all. I didn't interpret your post that way.

Just another piece of background info... I speculate that one of the reasons my wife's patients would open up to her about their spiritual issues (and to put it bluntly, fears, since many of them were close to departing this life), was that she wears a prayer covering.


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## Prufrock (Dec 12, 2008)

Typing this, I'm not sure if it's been discussed before on the Board, but I'm not entirely sure that sundown to sundown is a _biblically_ mandated definition of a day. Surely by later times it is a traditional Jewish understanding, but I'm not sure that this equals biblical definition. I'm certainly not persuaded that the creation account in Genesis 1 means that a day starts at evening time: that seems alien to the passage, and hard to reconcile with some aspects of it.

Any scholars out there who can substantiate/undermine this?


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Dec 12, 2008)

http://www.puritanboard.com/f54/when-does-sabbath-day-begin-end-revisited-16253/


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## Prufrock (Dec 12, 2008)

I just searched and found some previous threads on this. Here  is a recent thread with links to several others.

-----Added 12/12/2008 at 12:32:09 EST-----

Oops, sorry Andrew: I tried stealing your thunder, and you still beat me to it. I should have learned by now -- you can't beat the Librarian.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Dec 12, 2008)

Prufrock said:


> I just searched and found some previous threads on this. Here  is a recent thread with links to several others.
> 
> -----Added 12/12/2008 at 12:32:09 EST-----
> 
> Oops, sorry Andrew: I tried stealing your thunder, and you still beat me to it. I should have learned by now -- you can't beat the Librarian.



No problem, brother, the additional links may be of interest to some. Blessings!


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## TsonMariytho (Dec 12, 2008)

Wow, that was quite an extensive selection of readings. Thanks for all your work collecting those, Andrew and others.

My conclusion: There are many opinions and fanciful ideas, but no consensus. This is to be expected when man legislates where God is silent.

-----Added 12/12/2008 at 01:43:11 EST-----

We simply do not have this uncertainty about the clearest commands of scripture. I noticed that many of the writers on the other thread acknowledged that the Jewish Sabbath as defined by God spanned from evening to evening. There were a few who bravely tried to argue against Genesis 1 that an Old Covenant day spanned from midnight to midnight, but I think theirs was the minority view, and rightly so.

Lev 23:23 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 
Lev 23:24 "Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. 
Lev 23:25 You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the LORD." 
Lev 23:26 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 
Lev 23:27 "Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the LORD. 
Lev 23:28 And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God. 
Lev 23:29 For whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people. 
Lev 23:30 And whoever does any work on that very day, that person I will destroy from among his people. 
Lev 23:31 You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. 
Lev 23:32 It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month *beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath*." ​
Some would object that this is not the normal, weekly sabbath above, but rather a special Sabbath, _Yom Kuppur_. And they are correct.

But is it really likely that the normal sabbath didn't run from evening to evening, based on the above, combined with Genesis 1, combined with the tradition from all known history of the Jews?

At least one person asked the question, "Does it really even matter?"

To that, I reply that it was absolutely a matter of life and death for the Sabbath-breaker recorded from the time of Moses. I would suggest that if this individual had been caught carrying sticks on Friday evening, and cleverly objected that he personally chose to observe the Sabbath from midnight to midnight, that his act of rebellion and his punishment would not be recorded any differently.

-----Added 12/12/2008 at 02:15:09 EST-----

Sundown is used as a dividing point in the Old Covenant water ablutions for ceremonial uncleanness:

Lev 22:6 the person who touches such a thing *shall be unclean until the evening* and shall not eat of the holy things unless he has bathed his body in water. 
Lev 22:7 *When the sun goes down* he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the holy things, because they are his food.​


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## jambo (Dec 12, 2008)

The original thought of the RC church to have mass on a Saturday night was to give the parishners a day off on Sunday. This was intended to make Sunday a day where families could spend time together. In the Irish Republic where I first came across this, all sport was played on a Sunday and I always felt it was to facilitate the GAA who often had priests involved in the running of the local clubs. Very often the attitude of the RC was to go on Saturday night "to get it over with" (However one should bear in mind mass is celebrated daily in the RC church)

We live in an age of consumerism and this has invaded the church. I do feel sorry for those who have to work Sundays and we should do what we can to encourage them but I think Saturday night services belong to the consumer church. Like the RC it would not be long before you would find some people with the attitude of going on a Saturday night to enable them to do something else on a Sunday.


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## Jon Lake (Dec 12, 2008)

TsonMariytho said:


> Saturday evening is the beginning of the Lord's Day, from the Biblical way of calculating it. We count each new day starting from midnight, but the ancient Hebrews counted started from sundown.
> 
> -----Added 12/11/2008 at 10:21:56 EST-----
> 
> "_And the evening and the morning were the first day_," etc.


VERY GOOD! I wanted this as an "ace" in the hole for objections, but a few of you beat me to it! Well done! Not ONLY the Jewish reckoning, used the Lord's Day as from evening to evening but many early Gentiles did as well. Now, a few brethren have objected on various grounds, duly noted! I will deal with some, one person noted it could be abused, indeed, it could in this I can only say that "Whatever does not emerge from faith is sin." They must answer to their conscience and the Lord. (this may sound evasive but, we must leave some thing in God's Hand), another brought up something I brought into the OP, "bending Sabbath for Culture", A THOUSAND TIMES NO! Firstly I feel there is a special thing about Sunday Morning, the very symbol of the "Dayspring". Mornings Also mark a renewal. (I am not being "mystical" the OT and NT use examples of the Natural world as symbolic. I focused on the ER Doc as an example, like many my wife and I usually take the same pew almost every Sunday. We sit with or behind an ER MD and his wife often, there IS "rotation" in schedule for our friend, but things happen other Docs get sick, get caught up in emergencies and they need an extra hand. If we make some "room" for this, it allows this Godly man (son of a Pastor) to have a corporate worship if we are willing to allow a "Sundown to Sundown". One person suggested they should simply sing hymns in their heads and listen to a podcast, no slight intended but YOU know that is not the same as corporate Worship! This guy sometimes gets caught up 3 sometimes 4 Sunday mornings in a row. I THINK we can allow something. Another thing brought up was the RCC use of Saturday worship to allow a Sunday day-off, only PARTLY correct. Not defending the RCC BUT, as understood by Vatican ! and those who "view" Vatican 2 in light of Tent, and V1, they (oddly enough) have a high view of Sunday Worship. You can find some liberal slants that view Saturday a an "escape" from a Sunday obligation, that was not the intent, and those who do so are in abuse of this allowance. Oh and since I like to give concrete examples,, here we go: One fine sunny Sunday you and the Fam. are getting ready for Church, you smell smoke! Heat and embers come down the stairwell, you call 911......an answering machine picks up saying, "Please state your Emergency and you will be contacted within 12 hours. Thank You. Have a Pleasant Day!" Sorry, doesn't work for me. I am VERY happy most of you seem to be thoughtful in regard to the issue. I think I have covered some objections. But, I know there are a few who might still want to "rumble", thats cool I am still puling some punches, lets rock.


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