Mhonjan Lotha
DC Court Area, Dimapur
In the bible, Romans 14:5 states that “ One Man Considers One Day More Sacred Than Another; Another Man Considers One Day More Sacred Than Another; Another Man Considers Everyday alike”. The scripture make it clear that for Christians Sabbath Keeping is a matter of spiritual freedom, not a command from God. In exodus 8:11 Sabbath command was to do no work on the Sabbath day. Nowhere in the scripture is the Sabbath day commanded to be the day of worship. In the early chapter of the book of Acts the first Christians were predominantly Jews. When the gentiles began to receive the gift of Salvation through Jesus Christ the Jewish Christians had a dilemma. What aspects of the Mosaic Law and Jewish tradition should Gentile Christians be instructed to obey. For these the apostles met and discussed the issue in the council of Jerusalem, they wrote to them telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from meat of strangled animals and from blood (Acts 15: 19-20) while Sabbath was never mentioned. In the book of Acts, wherever a meeting is said to be on the Sabbath, it is a meeting of the Jews not Christians. If there was a day that Christians met regularly it was the first day of the week i.e Sunday not the Sabbath day (Saturday). In Honour of Christ’s resurrection on Sunday the early Christians observed Sunday not as the“ Christian Sabbath” but as a day to especially worship Jesus Christ. The point here is we should worship God everyday and not just on Saturday and Sunday.
Now our today’s present Christians observe Sunday as a sacred day to worship our resurrected Lord. Since this issue is related to shop closure on Sunday, I believe doing marketing for domestic consumption on Sunday don’t violate Gods Law. However, those who choose to practice Sabbath or keep Sunday as a special Worship day should not judge those who do not keep. Further those who do not observe Sabbath / Sunday as a worship day should avoid being a stumbling block to other Christians.