Saturday, and nobody serious disputes it. Whether Christians are obligated to keep it is a different question, and Paul answers that one directly.
Ask what day is the Sabbath and the historical answer is not in dispute. The seventh day, Saturday, from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. That is the biblical Sabbath and always has been.
The live question is a different one: whether Christians are obligated to keep it, and on that the New Testament is remarkably relaxed in a way that surprises people on both sides of the argument.
So this page separates the two questions, because almost all the heat comes from running them together.
God rested on the seventh day. The Sabbath is tied to the creation week before any law is given, which is the strongest argument for its weight.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days of work, the seventh a Sabbath. It is the fourth commandment and the longest of the ten.
The women rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment, then came to the tomb on the first day. Luke names both days in consecutive verses.
The Jewish week has been kept continuously for millennia. Nobody lost track of it, and claims that a calendar change moved the day do not survive checking.
Anybody who tells you the Bible calls Sunday the Sabbath is mistaken. The New Testament calls Sunday the first day of the week and never once calls it the Sabbath.
The change is real, it happened early, and it was not a swap of one Sabbath for another.
All four Gospels put it on the first day of the week. That is the reason, and it is the only reason the early sources ever give.
On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul talks until midnight and a young man falls out of a window, which is an oddly specific detail to invent.
On the first day of every week, each of you should set aside a sum of money. A weekly rhythm assumed rather than argued for.
On the Lord's Day. A distinct name already in use by the end of the first century, and it is not the word for Sabbath.
One correction worth making: the claim that a fourth century emperor or pope invented Sunday worship does not fit the evidence, because Christians were already meeting on the first day well before Constantine. What Constantine did in 321 was make Sunday a civil rest day across the empire, which is a different act.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
This is where the argument gets settled, and both hard positions run into the same two passages.
“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.”
Colossians 2:16Paul names the Sabbath explicitly and tells the church not to let anybody judge them over it. Romans 14:5 adds that one person considers one day more sacred than another and another considers every day alike, and that each should be fully convinced in their own mind. Mark Reasoner summarises the situation Paul addresses: “one person places one day above the others while another person views all days alike”, and Paul honours both consciences rather than enforcing one standard.
So we do not teach that Christians are obligated to keep Saturday, and we do not teach that Sunday replaced it as a commandment either. Both of those add a rule Paul declined to add, and the second one is the more common error in evangelical churches.
We also want to name what the argument usually turns into. Teaching that Sunday worship is the mark of the beast, or that Christians meeting on Sunday are deceived, goes far beyond anything in the text and it divides real congregations over a matter Paul deliberately left open. That is a serious thing to do with a passage that says do not let anyone judge you.
And the opposite error deserves naming too. Dismissing the Sabbath as abolished and moving on loses something Scripture roots in creation itself. Mark 2:27 has Jesus say the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Made for. It is a gift with your name on it, and a culture that works seven days is not free of the fourth commandment, it is just ignoring the part that was for its own good.
What does Colossians 2:16 say about the Sabbath?
Paul names the Sabbath alongside food, festivals and New Moons and tells the church not to accept judgment over it. Romans 14:5 leaves the question to each person's own conviction.
Drop the obligation argument and the practice becomes more useful rather than less, because you have to ask what it was for.
The second giving of the commandment attaches a different reason: remember you were slaves in Egypt. Rest as the mark of a people who are no longer owned.
Servants, foreigners and animals are all named in Exodus 20:10. It is a labour protection as much as a religious observance.
The Sabbath was made for man. Jesus states its purpose in the middle of an argument about whether His disciples could pick grain while hungry.
There remains a Sabbath-rest for the people of God. The writer treats the whole idea as pointing at something larger that has arrived in Christ.
So keep a day. Saturday if that is your conviction, Sunday if that is your church, another day if you work weekends, which a great many people do. What is not optional is the resting, and that is the part most Christians have quietly dropped while arguing about the calendar.
Notice what this debate is usually about. Which square on a grid, defended with verses, between people who agree on nearly everything else.
Meanwhile the thing the commandment actually asks for is being ignored by almost everybody in it. Most Christians arguing about Saturday or Sunday do not rest on either. They answer email, check messages, work a second job, fill the day and arrive at Monday already tired.
The commandment is not really at risk from people choosing the wrong day. It is at risk from a way of living that treats stopping as a luxury, which is exactly the condition Deuteronomy calls slavery.
Jesus put it plainly and it is the whole page in one sentence. The Sabbath was made for man. It was a gift before it was a rule, and the people fighting hardest about when to open it are often the ones who never did.
For related ground, see the days of creation, the yoke that is easy, Old Testament and New, the new covenant, what worship is, what consecrate means and the mark of the beast.
The biblical Sabbath is Saturday and nobody serious disputes it, Christians met on the first day from the beginning because of the resurrection, Colossians 2:16 and Romans 14:5 refuse to make either one a rule, and the part almost everybody skips is the resting.
It splits households more often than it should for something Paul left open. Send it in and somebody at Sound of Heaven will work through it with you.
The seventh day, Saturday, from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. Genesis 2:2 ties it to the creation week before any law is given, and Exodus 20:8 makes it the fourth commandment. Luke 23:56 names both days in consecutive verses, with the women resting on the Sabbath and coming to the tomb on the first day. The New Testament never calls Sunday the Sabbath.
Because of the resurrection, which all four Gospels place on the first day of the week. Acts 20:7 has believers meeting on that day to break bread, 1 Corinthians 16:2 assumes a weekly first-day rhythm, and Revelation 1:10 already uses the distinct name the Lord's Day by the end of the first century.
No. Christians were meeting on the first day well before Constantine, and the sources give the resurrection as the reason. What he did in 321 was make Sunday a civil rest day across the empire, which is a different act from inventing the practice. Claims that a calendar change moved the weekly cycle also do not survive checking.
Colossians 2:16 names the Sabbath explicitly and tells the church not to let anyone judge them over it. Romans 14:5 says one person considers one day more sacred and another considers every day alike, and each should be fully convinced in their own mind. We do not teach Saturday as an obligation, and we do not teach that Sunday replaced it as a commandment either.
Deuteronomy 5:15 attaches a second reason to the commandment: remember you were slaves in Egypt. It is rest as the mark of a people who are no longer owned, and Exodus 20:10 extends it to servants, foreigners and animals. Mark 2:27 has Jesus say the Sabbath was made for man, which makes it a gift before it is a rule.