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What Day Did the Early Church Meet?
What Day Did the Early Church Meet?
An acquaintance recently refused to attend worship because, in her words, “the Bible doesn’t say you have to go to church on Sunday.”
In the book of Hebrews we read that we are to “consider one another… not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25). The importance of brethren gathering together is emphasized throughout the New Testament, especially in the book of Acts. Assembling together is clearly important, as it is a way to encourage and consider one another.
There are many examples of the brethren gathering on different days. In Acts 2 we read that the brethren were “daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house” (Acts 2:46).
But there is one day that the early church met to partake of the Lord’s Supper and it is clearly laid out in Scripture. In this article we will explore the verses that lay out this pattern.
Acts 20:7 -- “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.”
Scripture does not give a direct command to assemble on Sundays, but examples like this set a pattern for us that is easy to follow. From this verse we can understand that the church gathered on the first day of the week for the purpose of observing the Lord’s Supper. Scripture does not have a lot of verses about what day we are to meet and take the Lord’s Supper, but the verses it does contain clearly point to the pattern of meeting on the first day of the week.
Luke 24:1-3 -- “Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.”
The example we see in Acts 20:7 is not random, there is a reason the early church was meeting on the first day of the week. The main purpose of their gathering was to remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus through His Supper. It makes sense to come together to remember this on the day of the week that the tomb was found empty and Jesus rose from the dead.
1 Corinthians 16:2 -- “On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.”
The primary purpose of the assembly was to observe the Lord’s Supper, but we see another reason for gathering from this example. Paul is telling the Corinthians to lay something aside for the collection. It makes sense that this collection would happen on the day the church was already accustomed to gathering. This verse, although not an explicit command to gather together every Sunday, adds to the pattern that we see in the New Testament: the church assembled together on the first day of the week.
J.W. McGarvey summarizes what the Scriptural and historical evidence means for us, “Slight as this evidence is, when taken connection with the practice of the church in the 2nd century and long after, it has won universal agreement among Biblical scholars that this was the apostolic custom… Our custom should be the same” (J.W. McGarvey, Acts, pp. 178-179). – William Speer
