Here’s another one of the those verses the church likes to pull completely out of its Hebrew context to substantiate that the Sabbath has been transferred from Saturday to Sunday.

2 On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. 3 Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem.-1 Corinthians 16:2–3

First, the wording here in the Greek is very similar to that in Acts 20.

κατὰ μίαν σαββάτου=kata mian sabbatou

kata = according to, every, upon, towards

main = one

Sabbatou = Sabbaths

In other words, instead of saying “on the first day of every week”, literally it should say something along the lines like “towards one of the Sabbaths."

Interestingly, the Complete Jewish Bible translates 1 Corinthians 16:2 as follows.

Every week, on Motza’ei-Shabbat, each of you should set some money aside, according to his resources, and save it up; so that when I come I won’t have to do fundraising. -1 Corinthians 16:2

The term Motzei Shabbat (literally, the going out of the Sabbath) in Judaism refers to the time in the evening immediately following Shabbat that is Saturday night.

It is a time when, following one’s declaration of the intention to end Shabbat, it is permissible to resume weekday activities that are prohibited on Shabbat.

This makes sense because one is not supposed to handle money on Shabbat.

However, this is incidental.

Let’s move on.

The next point I want to make is that 1 Corinthians 16 parallels taking up an offering to be taken up to Jerusalem on Pentecost.

How do I know this?

Compare with this verse from the Torah.

"16 Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles. No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed:-Deuteronomy 16:16

Since the Lord’s presence was seen as residing above the Ark of the Covenant, then to appear before the Lord meant that one must come to the location of the Ark, which of course was the Tabernacle and later the Temple, which was in Jerusalem.

Notice the instruction in 2 Corinthians 16:3: “Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem.”

CONCLUSION: Paul was instructing them based on a command given in the Old Testament regarding a Biblical feast offering.

DISCLAIMER: I am well aware that many, many Greek scholars overwhelmingly affirm that the words “Sabbaton” and “Sabbatou” used in these texts should be translated as “week”.

This is obvious if one notes that practically every English translation of the New Testament in existence translates this phrase as “the first day of the week”. Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly reject their affirmations.

I believe we must eliminate those Greek scholars from the field who learned to translate μια των σαββατων from others who told them that σαββατον meant “week” based on Church tradition.

That’s nearly all of them. Then we have to bring in those scholars of secular Greek and the few honest believing Greek scholars left that have set aside Church tradition to objectively study the matter from its linguistic basis and have correctly concluded that the phrase simply means “one day of the sabbaths."

I believe that Christians need to know that most dictionaries and Lexicons are propaganda pieces based on church doctrine and steeped in anti-Semitic attitudes. If this charge seems harsh, just go ahead and read the writings of the Gentile church fathers to know that what I am saying is true.

© Richoka