Why Do Christians Worship on Sunday?

For most Christians worldwide, Sunday is a day of worship. But this might not always have been the case. Here’s what historical and religious records show about the significance of Sunday in Christian worship.

As a practicing Jew and as outlined in the Ten Commandments, Jesus observed the Sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday evening. His earliest followers, who were also Jews, did the same. At the time, the Sabbath corresponded to the seventh day of the week.

Sabbath observance continued among some early Christians in the years after Jesus’ death. A letter that the Apostle Paul wrote around A.D. 55 to the Christian community in Corinth, Greece, suggests that the group continued to worship on Saturdays, according to Robert K. McIver in a 2015 journal article for Andrews University Seminary Studies.

Beyond that, there are conflicting opinions even among the earliest Christian and Bible scholars “as to which day(s) was to be observed, how they were to be observed, whether the Old Testament rules for the Sabbath were still binding, whether Sunday replaced the Saturday Sabbath, and which kinds of activities they should pursue and which not on the chief day(s) of the Christian week,” David W. T. Brattston wrote in a 2012 journal article for The Churchman.

There is no definitive agreement on why Sunday became the principal day of Christian worship. Some scholars believe Christians began gathering on Sundays because Jesus’ resurrection was believed to have occurred on the first day of the week; Christians celebrate this event on Easter Sunday. However, other scholars argue that the desire of some early Christians to distinguish themselves from Jews might also have played a role. “Christians in Rome would have been encouraged to abandon Sabbath for Sunday worship if by doing so they could distinguish themselves from the Jews in the eyes of the Roman authorities,” McIver wrote.

It is also unclear exactly when Sunday became the principal day of Christian worship, though McIver argues the transition was a gradual process that began after the New Testament was written.

According to some sources, early Christians worshipped on both Saturday and Sunday until as late as the fifth century. Other scholars note that the earliest surviving evidence for Sunday replacing the Sabbath as the primary day of worship “is associated with either Rome or Alexandria, and dates to the second or third centuries,” McIver wrote.

Seventh-day Christian denominations believe in strict adherence to the fourth of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8-11), which says that “the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Although modern calendars vary in whether Sunday or Monday is considered the first day of the week, in the biblical tradition, the seventh day corresponds to Saturday. For this reason, denominations like the Seventh-day Adventist Church, some Churches of God and Seventh-day Baptists observe the Sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday evening.