Do you know who spoke the above words? The Pharisees! Do you know who they were talking about when they said, “We find no evil in this man?” The apostle Paul. (See Acts 23:6-9). Do you know what that clearly and unmistakably implies? It means that the apostle Paul was keeping the Sabbath and most certainly not teaching God’s holy, eternal Sabbath had been abolished or moved to the first day of the week. This was in the year A.D. 55, about 25 years after the founding of the church. Using the events recorded in Acts 20 to “prove” Paul was a Sunday keeper is ludicrous. The coming together of believers on the first day of the week in that chapter does NOT describe what they did each and every Sunday. It had evidently been published about that Paul was departing the area never to return. (See Acts 20:38). It took until the first day of the week for all the brethren to gather together to hear him preach one last time. The 11th verse of Acts 20 clarifies for us that the phrase “to break bread” in verse 7 is not speaking of participation in the Lord’s Supper, but the mere eating of a meal. (See also Acts 27:35-36).
Notice once more in Acts 23:9, it was the scribes and Pharisees who said of Paul, “We find no evil in this man.” Now look at Luke 6, verse 7, speaking of Jesus Christ, “the scribes and the Pharisees watched Him, whether He would heal on the sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against Him.” Had Paul taught against the honoring of God’s eternal, holy sabbath you can well believe the scribes and Pharisees would have been well aware of such heresy and would have been the first to condemn him. “Therefore said some of the Pharisees (concerning Jesus), ‘This man is not of God, because He keeps not the sabbath.'” (See John 9:16). These Pharisees erroneously thought it was unlawful to heal on the sabbath and that Jesus had violated the sabbath by healing a blind man on that sacred day. They would have said the same thing about Paul had Paul been urging Sunday observance and a forsaking of sabbath keeping. In the very words of our Lord, “Come now, and let us reason together….”
Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley