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EARLY GENTILE BELIEVERS CELEBRATED THE SABBATH

We need first to get acquainted with the term used in the Jewish Scriptures for the non-Jew: "stranger."

Strong's Concordance defines "stranger" :1616 ger (gare); or (fully) geyr (gare); from 1481; properly, a guest; by implication, a foreigner: KJV-- alien, sojourner, stranger.

Brown-Driver-Briggs' Hebrew Lexicon defines "stranger": 1616 ger or (fully) geyr- sojourner

• a) a temporary inhabitant, a newcomer lacking inherited rights
• b) used of foreigners within Israel, though they had conceded rights

In order to understand what comes next it would be important to begin to look for a "pattern" in the verses that follow not only in this article but the rest in this series as you will come to see that God included the non-Jews in the observance of not only the Festivals but the Sabbath as well. This pattern can be found not only in the Jewish Old Testament Scriptures but the New Testament as well. Having seen this then one has to wonder how we lost and deviated from such a pattern which was established in antiquity by God to the point where we have lost such obedience and observance today. One would have to ask Rome that question.

Exodus 20

• 10 But the seventh day [is] the sabbath of the LORD thy God: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that [is] within thy gates:

Exodus 23

• 12 Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.

Leviticus 25

• 6 And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,

Deuteronomy 5

• 14 But the seventh day [is] the sabbath of the LORD thy God: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that [is] within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.

Isaiah 56

• 3. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I [am] a dry tree.
• 4 For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose [the things] that please me, and take hold of my covenant;

Answer for yourself: Can there be any doubt that God included the non-Jews in the observance of the Sabbath?

Answer for yourself: Can we find this "Pattern of Worship" continuing as we find non-Jews observing the Sabbbath in the New Testament as well? We sure can. We only need look at the ruling of James in Acts 15 as well as the example of Paul where he, in Troaz, Asia, Minor, kept the clossing Sabbath Havdalah Services with non-Jew in Asia, Minor.

The point in sharing these examples of non-Jews which kept the Festivals and the Sabbath is to make you think. We hear today even from some Jews that the Gentile believer does not have to keep the Sabbath as it is not part of the Gentile's Covenant with Noah. Well it would seem from the texts that they did and God seems to have declared it to be so. Even if not part of the Covenant of Noah we find in the passage above from Isaiah 56:3-4 that God is pleased when non-Jewish believers "choose" to keep His (God calls them 'My' Sabbaths) Sabbaths and choose to observe and keep those things realted to God. Let us never forget that the Sabbath is not Sunday but Friday evening to Saturday evening.