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Sundays in Scripture

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Seventh Day Adventists (SDAs) believe that Christians shouldn’t worship on Sundays and that the Saturday Sabbath is still in effect. In recent weeks I’ve been having a discussion in a Seventh Day Adventist in response to my post Why do Christians worship on Sundays?  The exchange has been good and I think it’s well worth a read and I’d invite you to check it out.

Sunday

I haven’t had much interaction with SDAs before and I hope to do some posts looking at their more interesting doctrinal positions, of which there are quite a few. However, in preparation for this, today I would simply like to do a post where I catalogue all the places in the New Testament where Sunday is mentioned:

1. The Resurrection
All the Gospels record the Resurrection taking place on Sunday (Matthew 28:1-7; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1).

2. Resurrection Appearances
Jesus appears to His disciples on Sundays (John 20:19, John 20:26).

3. Pentecost
The original Pentecost took place on a Sunday (Lev. 23:16) and therefore so did Pentecost in the New Testament (Acts 2:1). On this day the first sermon is preached, three thousand convert and are baptized.

4. Preaching and celebrating the Eucharist
In Paul’s travels, it is recorded that the Christian community came together to hear Paul preach and break bread (Acts 20:7).

5. Gathered collections
Paul instructed the Corinthians to gather their charitable donations on Sunday (1 Corinthians 16:2).

6. Vision of Heavenly Worship
Jesus gave the apostle John the vision of Revelation on the first day of the week (Revelation 1:10).

In The Beginning: The many roles of Adam

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The creation accounts found in the first and second chapters of Genesis are portions of the Bible with which most Catholics are typically pretty familiar. We actually had a portion read at Mass a couple of weeks ago and we’ll hear a further extract at the Easter Vigil in a couple of weeks’ time.

Creation Of Adam

In today’s post I’d like to draw out a few things we learn about Adam in Genesis. In particular, I’d like to look at the five roles essential to Adam’s identity…

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The Torah and Injil are for mankind!

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I’ve often been told that the Torah and the Injil were only for the Jews. However, two problems:

  1. The Qur’an never explicitly tells the Jews to follow the Injil, only the Christians
  2. The Qur’an actually describes both as “guidance for mankind”, even if the translations often try to obscure this:

The Pickthall translation doesn’t hide it:

He hath revealed unto thee (Muhammad) the Scripture with truth, confirming that which was (revealed) before it, even as He revealed the Torah and the Gospel. Aforetime, for a guidance to mankind; and hath revealed the Criterion (of right and wrong). Lo! those who disbelieve the revelations of Allah, theirs will be a heavy doom. Allah is Mighty, Able to Requite (the wrong). – Qur’an 3:3

“Master, it is good for us to be here…”

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Tonight, after Benediction, I felt drawn to tarry in the church a while longer than usual. Soon there were only one or two other people left in the church.

While sitting there, I felt a deep, tremendous peace; a peace I haven’t felt in some time.

As I sat there, just enjoying the moment, I was reminded of something that my patron Saint, St. Peter, said at the Transfiguration when he beheld the Jesus’ glory:

“Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah” – Luke 9:33

I know there’s a lot of theological significance in what Peter is saying here, but sitting in that church tonight I understood those words in a slightly different light. Peter was seeing the beauty of the Lord and wanted to prolong that mountaintop experience. He didn’t want to go back down the mountain just yet – he wanted to setup camp for a little while…

After Benediction, I, too, wanted to prolong the experience, remain in my pew and maybe setup camp for a little while…

The purpose of getting to higher ground isn’t so we can just enjoy the view, it’s so that, when we come back down from the mountain, we can approach the terrain ahead with a new perspective and with confidence.

The Twelve Apostles

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Coloring BookA little while ago I published the list of questions which we use at the beginning of our Bible studies. Now, I know some people might find it a bit dull, and perhaps not the most interesting way to learn the Faith, but I’m a big fan of such things since it provides a framework within in which people can understand their faith. We devote time to continued learning about things which interest us in other areas of our lives, so why should it be any different when it comes to religion?

In our group we’ve recently added the names of the Twelve Apostles. Can you name them all? I’ll walk through them after the jump…

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December Blog Love

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While I was on my blogging sabbatical in December, I had a couple of blogs reference my website. The first was Veil Nation:

Screen Shot 2014-12-27 at 12.33.56 AM

When I produced the graphics for “Wear The Veil” campaign, I just searched Google Images for a base graphic with which to begin my work. Well, it turns out the graphic I used was of a veil called the Colette Veil, produced by Ann Anzul. Ann found my graphic and gave me a shout-out. Thanks Ann! 🙂

The second reference to my my blog in December came from Jim who writes at Not For Itching Ears:

Screen Shot 2015-01-08 at 3.04.12 PMJim’s post wrote about how to become a better blogger. In the section where he spoke about reading and commenting on other blogs, he had these kind words to say about this site:

One of my favorite blogs is called Restless Pilgrim.   It challenges my world view!  He’s Catholic,  I’m a Protestant who has wandered far, far, far from home!  We have great conversations about theology and early church history, which is the kind of stuff I like and write about.  He does too. David comments on my blog and I on his.  I am not sure who interacted with who first, but whoever did, made blogging a lot more interesting.  I have lots of stories like that and you will too if you “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Always a pleasure Jim 🙂

Quick Apology: Biology 101

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During my Advent hiatus from blogging, a friend of mine posted the following image on Facebook:

NotAChicken

I rightly assumed this graphic to be an argument in favour of abortion, essentially arguing that the unborn aren’t really human. How might you respond to a graphic such as this? Well, in today’s post I would like to share a modified version of the Facebook comment which I posted in response, so that if one of your friends also posts this image you’ll have an example of how you might construct your own reply. Or, of course, if you’re short on time, you could just paste a link to this article 🙂

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