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Epistle to the Magnesians

About this book

The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day

Chapter 9

1 If, then, those who had lived by ancient practices came to a new hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath but shaping their lives by the Lord’s Day,⁠ on which our life also rose through Him and through His death, which some deny, a mystery through which we came to believe, and for this reason we endure patiently, so that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ, our only teacher, 2 if this is so, how can we live apart from Him? For even the prophets, who were His disciples, were waiting for Him as their teacher through the Spirit. And for this reason He whom they rightly awaited raised them from the dead when He came.

Texts in conversation

Compare Revelation 1:10 and Didache 14:1 and Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians 9:1

New Testament · Early Christian

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Summary

In the Didache, an early church manual, readers are taught to gather on the Lord's Day, and Revelation also mentions the Lord's Day but without any connection to worship. The Christian theologian Ignatius interprets this as a day distinct from Sabbath.

Passages

Revelation 1:10

New Testament
9 I, John, your brother and the one who shares with you in the persecution, kingdom, and endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day when I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11 saying: “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches—to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

Didache 14:1

Early Christian
1 On the Lord’s Day, gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your sins, so that your sacrifice may be pure.2 But let no one who is in conflict with another person join your gathering until they are reconciled, so that your sacrifice is not tainted.3 For this is what the Lord said, “In every place and time, offer Me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and My name is held in awe among the nations.”

Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians 9:1

Early Christian
1 If, then, those who had lived by ancient practices came to a new hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath but shaping their lives by the Lord’s Day, on which our life also rose through Him and through His death, which some deny, a mystery through which we came to believe, and for this reason we endure patiently, so that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ, our only teacher,

References

“... At Didache 14.1 we have the redundant expression “on the Lord’s day of the Lord” (kyriakēn de kyriou), which suggests that by the time this document was written the phrase “Lord’s day” was conventional. The idea of a Lord’s day is found in Revelation 1:10, but there it is not specified as a day of Christian worship or identified as being the first day of the week. There is, however, a contrast between the Lord’s day and the Jewish sabbath in Ignatius’s writings (Ign. Magn. 9.1), where it is said that Christians no longer live for the sabbath ...”
Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids, eds., Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997), 988.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Revelation 1:10 and Didache 14:1 and Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians 9:1

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