Bible-based Christian church in Sapporo★ Biblical Christ Church
IT IS NOT SERVICE ATENDANCE SUPREMACY
Continuation from 'it is not legalistic'...
Therefore, our church does not have service attendance supremacy. We do not believe that attending Sunday service is keeping the law of sabbath day. However, the attendance rate of our church is rather high.
It is valuable for people to desire to worship God and meet the church family in God based on their free will.
The other day, a member of our church mentioned that Sunday service is like a annual family gathering.
No one left the church during the covid.
Since 2020 for more than 3 years, the world was hit by a covid pandemic. While the number of church attendance has been decreasing in many churches, it has been increasing in our church. That is because no one in our church attended church unwillingly or out of obligation. It seems to show that the members attended church willingly with their own will.
Sunday service attendance is not equl to keeping a sabbath.
The rhythm of working 6 days and resting one day is given by god and it is good for healthy life. As in Heb.10:25, it is important to gather together. However, the Bible says the sabbath in the Old Testament is ultimately a symbol of entering the kingdom of heaven ( Heb.4), and its substance is in Christ. (Col.2:16- 17)
There is no problem for Jews to keep the sabbath today, since it is their culture. However, we gentiles do not necessarily have to do the same.
It is not Saturday
Some people believe that you need to gather on Saturday for service. However, it is not so. The Bibl recommends that we gather together regularly. But the Bible does not specifically fix which day to do so.
The reason why it does not have to be Saturday can be understood by knowing the following explanation about what the sabbath is.
What is sabbath?
Many people including the Jews today overlook this. The sabbath written in the Old Testament is not from Friday evening till Saturday evening.
It is because in the Bible days there was not concept of repeating weeks by 7 days.
What existed then was that new moon festival was determined by observing the moon and every 7 days from then was the sabbath. And after the 4th sabbath day was over until the new moon festival was only 2 days. Then the cycle of 7 days gets reset at the end of that month.
Then it's must be Sunday?
Some say that the first century church started to gather together on Sunday from the early stage becuase that was the day of resurrection of Christ. But we do not know whether it was true. The first century church Christians followed the tradition of the Jewdaism. It seems, though, the reason why they started to gather together on Sundays was due to the situations in Roman Empire.
We still gather together on Sundays
There is a reason for us today to gather together on Sundays. It is because Sunday is a holiday for many people. Also it is a culture of Chistianity. Therefore we gather together on Sundays.
Gathering is by joy, not by obligation
We gather together not by obligation but by joy. It is just like families and relatives gather together once or twice a year. And we enjoy fellowship as a true family in God.
