Ron: as a Jew you should know that Judaism ( Jews )
DOES NOT have a bible. Judaism has the Torah and The Tanakh. The Bible is strictly Christian and consists of the Hebrew Scriptures ( Old Testament ) and the writings ( scriptures ) that concern Jesus Christ and His Teachings ( New Testament ). The Bible was assembled and given to Christianity by the Catholic Church at the Council of Rome in 385 AD. ( read:
thecatholictreasurechest.com/canon.htm ). And, only the Catholic Church is “catholic”, which means universal, since it is found in every country on this planet. The term “Catholic” was first used by St. Ireneus in his letter to the Smyrneans in 110 AD.
The first Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, did use the synagogue for Sabbath worship, but the dispute between the Jews and Christians escalated to a point where the Christians were expelled from the synagogue. In turn the Christians started meeting in private homes for worship and the Agape. These homes later became Chritians Churches. Sunday became the Christian Sabbath as early a 225 AD.
Pax Domini. Thanks for your reply. The only point I was really trying to make is that the first Christians were ethnic, Torah-observant Jews who began bringing Gentile converts into the Church which Jesus, Himself, set up. The early Chritians, both Jews and Gentiles continued to observe Christ’s religious days and ways. This not only involved the keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath/Shabbat, but they also observed Passover, Shavuot/Pentecost, Yom Teruah, Yom Kipper and Sukkot each year. Jesus did not abolish His religious calendar - rather He infused Messianic meaning into these days. Even the Roman Patriarchate kept the seventh-day Shabbat during the time-period which you suggest, about 200 years or so after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension.
To be truly apostolic in faith and practice, we need to begin going back to the religion and faith that Jesus practiced, preached, and taught His disciples, and a you accurately point out that the apostles did teach and practice these things and so did all Eary Christians for hundreds of years after Jesus’ ascension to heaven.
As Paul said in Colossians 2: 13 through 17, at the end of his comments there, that the new moons, feast days and the weekly Sabbath (seventh day/Sabbaton in Greek), are shadows of things to come. Not were shadows of things that “have come,” otherwise they would not have continued keeping the seventh day Shabbat as you point out that they did. They also continued their Christian observance of the “new moons and feast days.”
What Paul is saying in the text mentioned above is that the yearly feast days and the weekly seventh-day Sabbath are still to be kept as Jesus, his disciples, and later apostles kept them.
The Shabbat is soon to come this evening. So, I must go and help my wife clean the house and, symbolicly be sure I am behaving in accordance with the Ten Commandments, and pray to Jesus to send me the Holy Spirit to live in me so that I might be cleansed of sin, and seek the Holy Spirit of God’s help to not sin in the future.
You may be correct about what I said about the 600 years. I would indicate that, among al the various Christian denominations, based on how many countries each denomination now has an existing work in, that the Roman Catholic Church is in about as many as the Seventh-day Adventist Church is in. They are in, from the research I’ve done on the subject, almost every country on earth. The rest of them are not in anywhere near as many countries on earth. I think their information indicates that they are in about 230 countries at present.
I guess there are really two catholic churches: the RCC and the SDA.
Shabbat Shalom
Ron
I suppose you call this post “unity” “peace” and “love?” Or, worse yet, “truth?” 