Does Acts 20:7 prove that the first century believers were worshipping on Sunday instead of Saturday?

***The purpose of the Re-Examine series is to provide a rebuttal to common arguments that one might have when first introduced to the Hebrew Roots/Messianic Movement/Torah obedient walk. Please read the chapter or book discussed here and prayerfully consider the ideas presented.***

This verse is used by some to support the idea that Paul and the other disciples were gathering on Sunday as a day of worship, in addition to or in place of the Saturday Sabbath.

There are 3 reasons that this argument falls short:
The disciples met together daily according to Acts 2:46.
So, it is not particularly significant in regards to this argument that they were breaking bread or listening to Paul preach on any certain day.
According to God's word, the “first day” of the week actually begins Saturday evening at sunset. First century believers understood that a day is counted from sunset to sunset.
As we can see from the creation account in Genesis, it is the evening that separates the day.
According to many verses in Leviticus, the ritually unclean became clean again in the evening.
So if this was the first day of the week, one interpretation could be that they were meeting at someone's home for a meal after having been to the synagogue on the Sabbath.
However, there is a much stronger reason why this verse does not imply a Sunday gathering. Notice that the word “day” is not actually present in the Greek. This is why it is italicized in the KJV.
So we see that it actually says “the first of the week”. The translators inserted the word “day” to add clarity to the phrase.
If we look deeper into the original language, the phrase in Greek literally reads “the first of the weeks”. This does not seem to make sense, which explains why the translation reads the way that it does.
However, when we apply a holistic understanding of the Bible and the immediate context of the verse, we find that neither the word “day” nor the singular of “week” is needed to make sense of the phrase “the first of the weeks”.
There are 2 things to understand,
The word “week” is the same as the word for “Sabbath” in Greek.
The word can mean either depending on how it is used.
The Feast of Weeks
Pentecost is the Hebrew festival of Shavuot or “Weeks” in English. Pentecost is exactly 50 days from the day after the Sabbath following the Passover, which is where the name Pentecost comes from (“Penta” meaning 5). To arrive at the 50th day, God commanded that the Israelites count seven Sabbaths. The day after the seventh Sabbath would be the 50th day, the Feast of Weeks.
From the context we understand that v7 took place between the week of Passover/Unleavened Bread (v6) and Pentecost (v16).
So from the context of the verse, “the first of the weeks” does not require any changes (“week”) or additions (“day”) to make sense. They were simply meeting on the first Sabbath in the counting to the feast of Pentecost.

Thanks for watching!

For more information please visit our website at www.RestoredCov.org

Sabbath Day Activities
Prayer Meeting - 10AM
Service - 11AM