Aunty, is the Sabbath mandatory for Christians?
28 July 2025 |
I read an article in an Adventist periodical awhile back that asked this question: “Does Colossians 2:16 teach that keeping the seventh-day Sabbath isn’t required of Christians?” Of course, the author said it doesn’t mean that—that the Sabbath wasn’t done away with by that passage.
It was the phrasing of the question that bothered me. It sounded like if you conclude this particular text doesn’t apply to the weekly Sabbath, then the Sabbath is mandatory. Is that the case, Aunty?
Signed, I Doubt It
Dear Doubt It,
Aunty suspects that those who crafted the question didn’t even notice that implication. Indeed, a lot of Adventists think of the Sabbath as a divine demand—even something Christians must do to be saved.
The Sabbath is a lovely gift of God to Seventh-day Adventists. It invites us to show that we love God. The way Adventists have traditionally kept the Sabbath can be beautiful and spiritually uplifting.
But mandatory? A rule that must be kept? If so, why is the New Testament so silent about the Sabbath when addressing Christians? We can assume that many Christians, particularly the Jewish ones, met on Sabbath. But why does Paul never explicitly tell the gentile Christians, “You must continue to worship on the Jewish Sabbath!”? On the contrary, he appears in Galatians to scold angrily the “judaizers” who tried to impose Jewish rules on gentiles.
Let us be greatly thankful to God for the gift of the Sabbath. But Aunty can’t believe that all of the kind and loving Sunday keepers are excluded from heaven because they worship God a day later than we do.
Aunt Sevvy
You can write to Aunt Sevvy at DearAuntSevvy@gmail.com. Please keep questions or comments short. What you send us at this address won’t necessarily be, but could be, published—without identifying the writer. Aunt Sevvy writes her own column, and her opinions are not necessarily those of Adventist Today’s editors.
To join this conversation, click/tap here.
