thumb|300px|Christian denominations teaching first-day Sabbatarianism, such as the [[Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, observe the Lord's Day as a day of worship and rest.]]

Many Christians observe a weekly day set apart for rest and worship called a Sabbath in obedience to God's commandment to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Early Christians, at first mainly Jewish, observed the seventh-day (Saturday) Sabbath with prayer and rest. At the beginning of the second century the Church Father Ignatius of Antioch approved non-observance of the Sabbath.

In line with ideas of the 16th and 17th-century Puritans, the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Baptist, as well as Methodist, enshrined first-day (Sunday) Sabbatarian views in their confessions of faith, observing the Lord's Day as the Christian Sabbath. While practices differ among Christian denominations, common First-day Sabbatarian (Sunday Sabbatarian) practices include attending morning and evening church services, receiving catechesis in Sunday School, taking the day off from servile labour, not eating at restaurants, not Sunday shopping, not using public transportation, as well as not participating in sporting events that are held on Sundays; Christians who are Sunday Sabbatarians often engage in works of mercy on the Lord's Day, such as evangelism, as well as visiting prisoners at jails and the sick at hospitals and nursing homes.

Beginning about the 17th century, a few groups of Restorationist Christians, mostly Seventh-day Sabbatarians, formed communities that practiced the keeping of the Sabbath on Saturdays.

History

Sabbath timing

The Hebrew Shabbat, the seventh day of the week, is "Saturday" but in the Hebrew calendar a new day begins at sunset (or, by custom, about 20 minutes earlier) and not at midnight. The Shabbat therefore coincides with what is now commonly identified as Friday sunset to Saturday night when three stars are first visible in the night sky. The Sabbath continued to be observed on the seventh day in the early Christian church. To this day, the liturgical day continues to be observed in line with the Hebrew reckoning in the church calendars in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. In the Latin Church, "the liturgical day runs from midnight to midnight. However, the celebration of Sundays and of Solemnities begins already on the evening of the previous day".

In non-liturgical matters, the canon law of the Latin Church defines a day as beginning at midnight.

Early Christianity

Jewish Christians continued to observe Shabbat but met together at the end of the day, on a Saturday evening. In the gospels, the women are described as coming to the empty tomb , although it is often translated "on the first day of the week". This is made clear in Acts 20:7 when Paul continued his message "until midnight" and a young man went to sleep and fell out of the window. Many Christians celebrate on Sunday because it is the day on which Jesus had risen from the dead and on which the Holy Spirit had come to the apostles. Although Christians meeting for worship on the first day of the week (Sunday for Gentiles) dates back to Acts and is historically mentioned around 115 AD, Constantine's edict was the start of many more Christians observing only Sunday and not the Sabbath. A Church Father, Eusebius, who became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima about AD 314, stated that for Christians, "the sabbath had been transferred to Sunday".

According to Socrates of Constantinople and Sozomen, most of the early Church (excluding Rome and Alexandria) observed the seventh day Sabbath in Easter.

Corporate worship

While the Lord's Day observance of the Eucharist was established separately from the Jewish Shabbat, the centrality of the Eucharist itself made it the commonest early observance whenever Christians gathered for worship. In many places and times as late as the 4th century, they did continue to gather weekly on the Sabbath, often in addition to the Lord's Day, celebrating the Eucharist on both days. No disapproval of Sabbath observance of the Christian festival was expressed at the early church councils that dealt with Judaizing. The Council of Laodicea (363–364), for example, mandated only that Sabbath Eucharists must be observed in the same manner as those on the first day. wrote about the cessation of Hebrew Sabbath observance and stated that the Sabbath was enjoined as a temporary sign to Israel to teach it of human sinfulness, no longer needed after Christ came without sin. He rejected the need to keep a literal seventh-day Sabbath, arguing instead that "the new law requires you to keep the sabbath constantly." However, Justin Martyr believe the Sabbath has only attributed to Moses and the Israelites. According to J.N Andrews, a historian, and theologian, he mentions, "In his (Justin) estimation, the Sabbath was a Jewish institution, absolutely unknown to good men before the time of Moses, and of no authority whatever since the death of Christ." He identifies this through Justin's writings: "Do you see that the elements are not idle, and keep no Sabbaths? Remain as you were born. For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before Moses; no more need of them is there now, after that, according to the will of God, Jesus Christ the Son of God has been born without sin, of a virgin sprung from the stock of Abraham." With more clarification, Andrews also states: "Not only does he (Justin) declare that the Jews were commanded to keep the sabbath because of their wickedness, but in chapter nineteen he denies that any Sabbath existed before Moses. Thus, after naming Adam, Abel, Enoch, Lot, and Melchizedek, he says: "Moreover, all those righteous men already mentioned, though they kept no Sabbaths were pleasing to God." But though he thus denies the Sabbatic institution before the time of Moses he presently makes this statement concerning the Jews: "And you were commanded to keep Sabbaths, that you might retain the memorial of God. For his word makes this announcement, saying. 'That ye may know that I am God who redeemed you.'"[Eze.20:12.]. On these statements from Justin Martyr, J.N Andrews concludes "The Sabbath is indeed the memorial of the God that made the heavens and the earth. And what an absurdity to deny that that memorial was set up when the creative work was done, and to affirm that twenty-five hundred years intervened between the work and the memorial!" and Tertullian (early 3rd century) argued "that we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all servile work always, and not only every seventh-day, but through all time". This early metaphorical interpretation of Sabbath applied it to the entire Christian life.

Ignatius, cautioning against "Judaizing" in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, contrasts the Jewish Shabbat practices with the Christian life which includes the Lord's Day:

The 2nd and 3rd centuries solidified the early church's emphasis upon Sunday worship and its rejection of a Jewish (Mosaic Law-based) observation of the Sabbath and manner of rest. Christian practice of following Sabbath after the manner of the Hebrews declined, prompting Tertullian to note "to [us] Sabbaths are strange" and unobserved. Even as late as the 4th century, Judaizing was still sometimes a problem within the Church, but by this time it was repudiated strongly as heresy.

Sunday was another work day in the Roman Empire. On March 7, 321, however, Roman Emperor Constantine I issued a civil decree making Sunday a day of rest from labor, stating:

While established only in civil law rather than religious principle, the Church welcomed the development as a means by which Christians could the more easily attend Sunday worship and observe Christian rest. At Laodicea also, the Church encouraged Christians to make use of the day for Christian rest where possible, Sunday worship and Sunday rest combined powerfully to relate to Sabbath commandment precepts.

Continuations of Hebrew practices

Seventh-day Sabbath was observed at least sporadically by a minority of groups during the Middle Ages.

In the early church in Ireland, there is evidence that a sabbath-rest on Saturday may have been kept along with Mass on Sunday as the Lord's Day. It appears that many of the canon laws in Ireland from that period were derived from parts of the laws of Moses. In Adomnan of Iona's biography of St Columba it describes Columba's death by having Columba say on a Saturday, "Today is truly my sabbath, for it is my last day in this wearisome life, when I shall keep the Sabbath after my troublesome labours. At midnight this Sunday, as Scripture saith, 'I shall go the way of my fathers'" and he then dies that night. The identification of this Sabbath day as a Saturday in the narrative is clear in the context, because Columba is recorded as seeing an angel at the Mass on the previous Sunday and the narrative claims he dies in the same week, on the Sabbath day at the end of the week, during the 'Lord's night' (referring to Saturday night-Sunday morning).

An Eastern body of Christian Sabbath-keepers mentioned from the 8th century to the 12th is called Athenians ("touch-not") because they abstained from uncleanness and intoxicating drinks, called Athinginians in Neander: "This sect, which had its principal seat in the city of Armorion, in upper Phrygia, where many Jews resided, sprung out of a mixture of Judaism and Christianity. They united baptism with the observance of all the rites of Judaism, circumcision excepted. We may perhaps recognize a branch of the older Judaizing sects."

Cardinal Hergenrother says that they stood in intimate relation with Emperor Michael II (AD 821–829), and testifies that they observed Sabbath. As late as the 11th century Cardinal Humbert still referred to the Nazarenes as a Sabbath-keeping Christian body existing at that time. But in the 10th and 11th centuries, there was a great extension of sects from the East to the West. Neander states that the corruption of the clergy furnished a most important vantage-ground on which to attack the dominant church. The abstemious life of these Christians, the simplicity and earnestness of their preaching and teaching, had their effect. "Thus we find them emerging at once in the 11th century, in countries the most diverse, and the most remote from each other, in Italy, France, and even in the Harz districts in Germany." Likewise, also, "traces of Sabbath-keepers are found in the times of Gregory I, Gregory VII, and in the 12th century in Lombardy."

Oriental Orthodoxy

The Sabbath is considered holy in the Oriental Orthodox churches, both Sunday (the "Christian Sabbath") and Saturday (the "Old Sabbath"). The Orthodox Tewahedo churches are known for celebrating the Sabbath, a practice defended in the Oriental Orthodox church in Ethiopia in the 1300s by Ewostatewos (, ) but deriving from the Apostolic Constitutions and the Canons of the Apostles, an early Christian text invoking the authority of the Apostles and practiced in the Coptic Orthodox Church much earlier. In response to colonial pressure by missionaries of the Catholic Church in the 1500s, the emperor Saint Gelawdewos wrote his Confession, an apologia of traditional beliefs and practices including observation of the Sabbath and a theological defense of the Miaphysitism of Oriental Orthodoxy. In it, he cites the Didascalia and distances the Christian observance of the seventh-day Sabbath from the Jewish observance, explicitly stating "we do not honour it as the Jews do... but we so honour it that we celebrate thereon the Eucharist and have love-feasts, even as our Fathers the Apostles have taught us in the Didascalia".

Protestant Reformation

thumb|upright=1.2|A recreation ground on [[Raasay displaying a sign "Please do not use this playing field on Sundays"]]

Protestant reformers, beginning in the 16th century, brought new interpretations of Christian law to the West. The Heidelberg Catechism of the Reformed Churches founded by John Calvin teaches that the moral law as contained in the Ten Commandments is binding for Christians and that it instructs Christians how to live in service to God in gratitude for His grace shown in redeeming mankind. Likewise, Martin Luther, in his work against the Antinomians, rejected the idea of the abolition of the Ten Commandments. They also viewed Sunday rest as a civic institution established by human authority, which provided an occasion for bodily rest and public worship. Another Protestant, John Wesley, stated "This 'handwriting of ordinances' our Lord did blot out, take away, and nail to His cross. But the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He did not take away. ... The moral law stands on an entirely different foundation from the ceremonial or ritual law. ... Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages."

Sabbatarianism arose and spread among both the continental and English Protestants during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Puritans of England and Scotland brought a new rigorism into the observance of the Christian Lord's Day in reaction to the customary Sunday observance of the time, which they regarded as lax. They appealed to Sabbath ordinances with the idea that only the Bible can bind men's consciences on whether or how they will take a break from work, or to impose an obligation to meet at a particular time. Their influential reasoning spread to other denominations also, and it is primarily through their influence that "Sabbath" has become the colloquial equivalent of "Lord's Day" or "Sunday". Sunday Sabbatarianism is enshrined in its most mature expression, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), in the Calvinist theological tradition. Paragraphs 7 and 8 of Chapter 21 (Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day) read:

The confession holds that not only is work forbidden on Sunday, but also "works, words, and thoughts" about "worldly employments and recreations". Instead, the whole day should be taken up with "public and private exercises of [one's] worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy". The latter follows the reformed confessions of faith of Continental Europe such as the Heidelberg Catechism, which emphasize rest and worship on the Lord's Day, but do not explicitly forbid recreational activities. However, in practice, many continental Reformed Christians also abstain from recreation on the Sabbath, following the admonition by the Heidelberg Catechism's author Zacharaias Ursinus that "To keep holy the Sabbath, is not to spend the day in slothfulness and idleness".

Though first-day Sabbatarian practice declined in the 18th century, the First Great Awakening in the 19th century led to a greater concern for strict Sunday observance. The founding of the Day One Christian Ministries in 1831 was influenced by the teaching of Daniel Wilson. citing for instance Colossians 2:16–17.

Some Christian non-Sabbatarians advocate physical Sabbath rest on any chosen day of the week, and some advocate Sabbath as a symbolic metaphor for rest in Christ; the concept of Lord's Day is usually treated as synonymous with "Sabbath". This non-Sabbatarian interpretation usually states that Jesus's obedience and the New Covenant fulfilled the laws of Sabbath, the Ten Commandments, and the Law of Moses, which are thus considered not to be binding moral laws, and sometimes considered abolished or abrogated. While Sunday is often observed as the day of Christian assembly and worship, in accordance with church tradition, Sabbath commandments are dissociated from this practice.

Non-Sabbatarian Christians also cite 2 Corinthians 3:2–3, in which believers are compared to "a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written ... not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts"; this interpretation states that Christians accordingly no longer follow the Ten Commandments with dead orthodoxy ("tablets of stone"), but follow a new law written upon "tablets of human hearts". In 3:7–11 we read that "if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory ..., will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? ... And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!" This is interpreted as teaching that New Covenant Christians are not bound by the Mosaic Law, and that Sabbath-keeping is not required. Further, because "love is the fulfillment of the law", the new-covenant "law" is considered to be based entirely upon love and to rescind Sabbath requirements.

Methodist theologian Joseph D. McPherson criticizes these views, and teaches that the Lord's Day as the First-day Christian Sabbath is binding:

These standards expect the faithful to honour the Lord's Day by attending the morning service of worship and the evening service of worship on the Lord's Day, in addition to not engaging in Sunday trading. the Discipline of the Bible Methodist Connection of Churches enshrines first-day Sabbatarianism:

Regarded as the "prince of Methodist theologians" William Burt Pope explained that "Its [the Sabbath] original purpose to commemorate the creation and bear witness to the government of the One God was retained, but, as the new creation of mankind in Christ Jesus had more fully revealed the Triune God, the day of the Lord's resurrection, the first day of the week, became the Christian Sabbath, or the Lord's Day".

Holiness Pentecostalism

Churches in the Holiness Pentecostal tradition hold to the historic Methodist views on the Lord's Day; Holiness Pentecostal churches have a morning service of worship and an evening service of worship on the Lord's Day. To this end, Holiness Pentecostal churches "oppose the increasing commercialization and secularization of Sunday." The 1900 Book of Discipline of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, a Holiness Pentecostal denomination, states:

Seventh-day sabbatarian churches

thumb|The oldest Sabbatarian church in the Americas ([[Seventh Day Baptists|Seventh Day Baptist) built in 1730, Newport, Rhode Island.]]

Seventh-day Protestants regard Sabbath as a day of rest not just for Israel, but for all mankind. This belief is based on God resting on the seventh day of creation, the 4th Commandment given to Moses, Jesus's statement, "the Sabbath was made for man", affirmations of the Sabbath throughout the Bible, and on early-church Sabbath meetings. Additionally some Seventh-day Christians would argue any commandment given to "Israel" ought to be observed by Christians as, through faith in the Messiah of Israel, all Christians become members of the commonwealth of Israel and partake of the covenants God made with Israel, (see Ephesians 2:11-22). Seventh-day Sabbatarianism has been criticized as an effort to combine "Old Testament" laws, allegedly practiced in Judaism, with "Christianity", or to revive the Judaizers of the Epistles or the Ebionites. These criticisms assume a discontinuity between obedience as prescribed in the "Old Testament" and "Christianity", which is a concept, entirely foreign to biblical Christianity, according to the proponents of Seventh-day Sabbatarianism.

Seventh-day Sabbatarians practice a seventh-day Sabbath observance, that is almost entirely distinct from Shabbat in Judaism. While Rabbinic Halakah requires strict adherence to a plethora of minutiae detailed throughout Talmudic and Rabbinic texts, the Sabbath observance practiced by Sabbatarian Christians focuses on honoring and observing the day in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath. The beginning took place in London, where the follower of preacher John Traske (1586–1636), called Hamlet Jackson, self-taught Bible student, convinced Traske of the observance of the seventh day. Many followers adhered to Sabbath observance after Traske's writings and preaching, including his wife Dorothy Traske.

In 1650, James Ockford published in London the book The Doctrine of the Fourth Commandment, Deformed by Popery, Reformed & Restored to its Primitive Purity, which was the first writings of a Baptist defending Sabbath observance. Their ideas gave rise to the Seventh Day Baptists, formed in early 17th-century in England. The establishment of the first Seventh Day Baptist Church was in 1651, is the oldest modern seventh-day Sabbath denomination. The couple Stephen and Anne Mumford were the first Seventh Day Baptists in the Americas, and with five other Baptists who kept the Sabbath, they established in 1672 the first Seventh Day Baptist Church in the Americas, located in Newport, expanding into other territories.|Seventh-day Adventist Fundamental Beliefs|

By synecdoche the term "Sabbath" in the New Testament may also mean simply a "se'nnight" or seven-day week, namely, the interval between two Sabbaths. Jesus's parable of the Pharisee and the Publican describes the Pharisee as fasting "twice a week" (Greek dis tou sabbatou, literally, "twice of the Sabbath").

Seven annual Biblical festivals, called by the name miqra ("called assembly") in Hebrew and "High Sabbath" in English, serve as supplemental testimonies to Sabbath. These are recorded in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy and do not necessarily occur on the Sabbath. They are observed by Jews and a minority of Christians. Three of them occur in spring: the first and seventh days of Passover, and Pentecost. Four occur in fall, in the seventh month, and are also called Shabbaton: the Christian Feast of Trumpets; Yom Kippur, "Sabbath of Sabbaths"; and the first and eighth days of Tabernacles.

The year of Shmita (Hebrew שמיטה, literally, "release"), also called Sabbatical Year, is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the Land of Israel. During Shmita, the land is to be left to lie fallow. A second aspect of Shmita concerns debts and loans: when the year ends, personal debts are considered nullified and forgiven.

Jewish Shabbat is a weekly day of rest cognate to Christian Sabbath, observed from sundown on Friday until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night; it is also observed by a minority of Christians. Customarily, Shabbat is ushered in by lighting candles shortly before sunset, at halakhically calculated times that change from week to week and from place to place.

The new moon, occurring every 29 or 30 days, is an important separately sanctioned occasion in Judaism and some other faiths. It is not widely regarded as Sabbath, but some Hebrew Roots and Pentecostal churches, such as the native New Israelites of Peru and the Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church, do keep the day of the new moon as Sabbath or rest day, from evening to evening. New-moon services can last all day.

In South Africa, Christian Boers have celebrated December 16, the Day of the Vow (now called the Day of Reconciliation, as annual Sabbath (holy day of thanksgiving) since 1838, commemorating a famous Boer victory over the Zulu Kingdom.

Many early Christian writers from the 2nd century, such as pseudo-Barnabas, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and Hippolytus of Rome followed rabbinic Judaism (the Mishna) in interpreting Sabbath not as a literal day of rest but as a thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ, which would follow six millennia of world history.