Paul kept the seventh-day Sabbath and taught Gentile converts to do the same, as Acts shows. At Antioch in Pisidia, when Gentiles begged to hear more, Paul did not announce that the Sabbath was abolished or that Sunday was now the day of worship. Instead he waited a full week, passing over a Sunday, and preached to nearly the whole city on the next Sabbath (Acts 13:42-44). At the Jerusalem conference, the apostles asked Gentiles to abstain only from idol pollution, sexual immorality, strangled things, and blood. The Ten Commandments were not in question, only circumcision. James noted that Moses was read in the synagogues every Sabbath, which implies that Gentile converts attended on that day and already knew what to keep (Acts 15). At Philippi, Paul went on the Sabbath to the riverside place of prayer, where Lydia was converted (Acts 16). At Corinth he worked on weekdays and reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath with Jews and Greeks. After the Jews rejected him, he taught Gentiles alone on the Sabbath for eighteen months (Acts 18). No New Testament text gives comparable authority for Sunday observance. Sabbath-keeping was Paul's custom (Acts 17:2), and he followed Jesus, whose custom was to attend the synagogue on the Sabbath (Luke 4:16). Paul told Gentile converts to imitate him as he imitated Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1), so believers today should keep the Sabbath as well.

In the New Testament, the encounters of Jesus Christ with the Pharisees regarding the Sabbath focus not on whether to keep it, but on how to keep it. It was His habit to be in the synagogue as part of a holy convocation on the Sabbath, demonstrating the importance of assembly. His ministry began on the Sabbath, as He read from Isaiah 61 to clarify His mission to spiritually heal and cleanse His chosen people, making them acceptable to God the Father. The Sabbath holds such significance that His ministry both started and ended on this day. There are seven recorded healings by Jesus Christ on the Sabbath, including the man with the unclean spirit, Peter's mother-in-law, the man with the withered hand, the lame man, the blind man, the crippled woman, and the man with dropsy. None of these healings were in immediate life-or-death situations, yet the Pharisees were outraged, considering them a violation of Sabbath laws. Jesus could have waited until after the Sabbath, but chose these moments for teaching. In Mark 2:23-24, Jesus and His disciples were condemned by the Pharisees for plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath, an act deemed as work under their strict laws. Jesus responded by emphasizing the need for mercy and good works on the Sabbath, referencing David's men eating the showbread and the priests' extensive labors in the Temple, which were doubled on this day. He declared that the Sabbath was made for man, representing God's mercy and sanctification work. As the Lord of the Sabbath, He showed that it is not a day of no work, but a day for great spiritual work, including acts of mercy, healing, and cleansing. Following His example, we must gather together on the Sabbath, using this time to extend mercy, heal, cleanse, and do good for each other. As priests in training, our Sabbath work must have the right motivation and purpose, never being self-focused, as such actions pollute God's holy day.

In the New Testament, the Sabbath is referenced sixty-one times, with the four Gospels mentioning it fifty-one times as Saturday, the day on which the Saviour consistently taught in synagogues and performed miracles. The Redeemer referred to Himself as the Lord of the Sabbath, as noted by Matthew and Luke, yet throughout His life, He never suggested a change from Saturday, always observing and utilizing that day. After His death, His apostles and close followers, including the holy women, continued to keep Saturday holy, as evidenced by Luke 23:56, where they rested on the Sabbath day according to the commandment, preparing spices and ointments on the preceding evening because the Sabbath drew near. This demonstrates that, up to the day of His death, they recognized no other Sabbath but Saturday. Further examination of the Acts of the Apostles over the subsequent thirty years reveals no indication of a change in the Sabbath. The Sabbath, still Saturday, is mentioned eight times in Acts, with instances such as Acts 13:14, 27, 42, 44; 15:21; 16:13; 17:2; and 18:4, where Paul reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, persuading both Jews and Greeks. Thus, from Genesis to Revelation, there is no evidence in the New Testament of any interference by the Saviour or His Apostles with the original Sabbath, but rather a complete adherence to and active participation in keeping Saturday as the designated day, with no substitution of another day observed during this period.

Having established that the Redeemer, during His life, never deviated from the faithful observance of the Sabbath (Saturday), as referenced fifty-one times by the four evangelists, and having noted that He designated Himself Lord of the Sabbath without ever hinting at a change of day by command or practice, we observe His steadfast keeping of the Sabbath. The actions of His apostles and the holy women on the evening of His death, securing spices and ointments for embalming His body on the morning after the Sabbath, as recorded by St. Luke (Luke 24:1), further confirm this divine will. The apostles, for thirty years following His death, also adhered to this practice, as St. Luke informs us in Acts 18:4, where Paul reasoned in the synagogues every Sabbath, persuading both Jews and Greeks. Examining every reference to the first day of the week in the sacred record, we find no indication of a substitution for the Sabbath. The gathering on the day of the resurrection (Easter Sunday), as noted in St. Luke 24:33-40 and St. John 20:19, was not for worship or a new observance but due to fear of the Jews. Similarly, eight days later, as recorded in St. John 20:26-29, the meeting with Thomas present offered no mention of prayer, praise, or Scripture reading to suggest a change in the day. On the Feast of Pentecost, a Sunday long observed by the Jews for over 1500 years alongside the weekly Sabbath, as seen in Acts 2:1, there is no basis for claiming a new holy day. Further, in Acts 20:6-7, the disciples coming together to break bread on the first day of the week does not establish an exclusive prerogative, as Acts 2:46 shows they broke bread daily. St. Paul's request in I Corinthians 16:1-2 for a collection on the first day of the week does not override the established Sabbath practices of Scripture reading, prayer, and preaching, which continued every Saturday. Just as the embalming of His body was deferred from the Sabbath to Sunday to honor the Sabbath's sanctity, so too was the collection arranged for a convenient day without displacing the Sabbath. Thus, having reviewed all New Testament references to the Sabbath (Saturday) and the first day of the week (Sunday), no evidence supports a substitution of Sunday for Saturday in the sacred record.

Jesus kept the seventh-day Sabbath, as did the apostles and the early church after His death, and nothing in the New Testament shows God intended a change to Sunday. No apostle or prophet explains such a shift, which would have sparked a doctrinal firestorm in the first century. Protestant theologians say Sunday honors the resurrection, but the resurrection's timing matters for a different reason. In Matthew 12:38-40, Jesus gave only one sign of His Messiahship: three days and three nights in the grave, like Jonah. The holiness of a day is nowhere in view. A Friday-afternoon death and Sunday-morning resurrection cannot hold three days and three nights, so the common view invalidates Christ's own sign. In fact, He died on Passover, a preparation day, and was buried before sunset, when an annual high-day Sabbath, the first day of Unleavened Bread, began (John 19:31). Passover fell on a Wednesday that year. He lay in the grave 72 hours and rose late on the weekly Sabbath afternoon. He was raised on a day already holy, so His resurrection did not make it holy, and even if it determined the day of worship, that day would still be the seventh. Sunday-keeping is a human tradition that nullifies God's commandment (Matthew 15:6). Jesus (John 14:15) and John (I John 5:2-3) tie love for God to keeping His commandments, which include the fourth.

In the New Testament era the apostles confronted early challenges to Sabbath keeping that arose from Gnostic influences already at work in the first century. These influences promoted antinomianism and led some to view the Sabbath as tied to an evil creator rather than to the true God. The apostles responded by addressing the larger problem of lawlessness in their epistles rather than isolating Sabbath issues, while the continued presence of Jewish members in the congregations helped preserve observance. Problems intensified after the Gnostics were expelled from the church and formed separate groups that blended with emerging Hellenistic Christianity. This syncretism produced the Catholic Church, which formally set the Sabbath aside under Constantine in 325 AD in favor of Sunday. Gnostic reasoning assigned symbolic evil to the number seven and good to the number eight, labeling the seventh-day Sabbath evil and the eighth day good. The same framework falsely linked Sunday to the resurrection and rejected the Old Testament as the product of an inferior deity. The book of Colossians was written to refute these Gnostic arguments and to uphold the continuing authority of the Sabbath within the true church.