I ran across this lengthy article that is quite excellent in analyzing the theology of the New Testament passages as well as giving the Christian history that immediately followed the New Testament. It will give any regular (aka "Sunday") Christian plenty of ammunition against those sects that question, or even preach against why we worship on The Lord's Day, rather than the Sabbath. But I would say, it is plenty interesting and insightful if you are just interested in Biblical Theology. It is written from I'm guessing from a Reformed Protestant perspective.
I also recently Blogged via Facebook concerning the article giving my favorite excerpt from it.
"Additional meetings on first day of week
Although New Testament writings give no direct evidence that Sunday worship originated in the original Judean church, when evidence does appear in later Christian writings, Sunday observance is the universal practice outside of Judea, with no trace of controversy as to whether Christians should meet on Sunday. It would seem that Sunday worship was already a Christian custom before Paul’s gentile mission, and that it spread throughout the growing Gentile church with the Gentile mission.
A major split between Jewish Christians and non-Christian Jews took place late in the first century. Christians were included among the heretics referred to in the twelfth of the Eighteen Benedictions that Jews recited daily and in every synagogue service. Since no heretic would pronounce this curse, it effectively banned Christians from the synagogue:For the renegades let there be no hope, and may the arrogant kingdom soon be rooted out in our days, and the [Nazoreans, so Martin] and the minim [which at least includes Jewish Christians] perish as in a moment and be blotted out from the book of life and with the righteous may they not be inscribed. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant.49
The Jerusalem church continued to rest on the sabbath and attend Temple or synagogue services, and they also met as Christians in private homes to hear teaching from the apostles and to break bread together.50 The reason for Sunday worship would have been a Christian need for a time of distinctively Christian worship. As Bauckham notes, once we grant that the Jerusalem church had Christian meetings in addition to the Temple or synagogue services, the Jewish Christian observance of the sabbath is not contradictory to Jewish Christian worship on Sunday.51 After the Christians were removed from the synagogues, only these Sunday meetings would be left. As we see in Acts 20:7 (which predates the Jewish Christians being expelled from the synagogues), Luke writes that the church in Troas was meeting on the first day of the week for the purpose of breaking bread.
In the first firmly datable evidence of Christianity in Bithynia, Pliny writes to the emperor Trajan in A.D. 110 (Pliny, Ep. 10.5-96) that at the end of the first century, Christians were meeting before dawn and again in the evening of the same day. Pliny described the assembly: “The Christians came together before daybreak on a fixed day and bound themselves with a vow not to steal, commit adultery, and the like.” Jewett argues that Pliny did not name the day of the week because he had no name at his disposal. The planetary week, from which we get the name Sunday, was not current in Pliny’s day, and it is unlikely that Pliny would be accustomed to using the seven-day division of time by which the Jews and Christians designated the day as the “first day of the week.” However, the Jewish sabbath was well known, and if this assembly had been on the Jewish sabbath it would seem that he would have mentioned it as such, since he was presumably familiar with it. The fact that he did not designate the day implies that no specific name for it was in general use (the name “Lord’s Day” would have been used only among Christians.)52
Part III: Second century churches
In the second century, Sunday worship was the norm, and fewer conflicts over the seventh-day sabbath are evident. The second century references of Ignatius, Magn. 9:1; Gosp. Peter 35, 50; Barn. 15:9; and Justin, 1 Apol. 67 associate Sunday worship with the resurrection. In Barnabas and Justin, other reasons for the significance of Sunday are given first: Sunday representing the eschatological eighth day in Barnabas, and the day on which God began the creation in Justin.53"
The Origins of Sunday Worship in the Early Church - GCI Archive
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I also recently Blogged via Facebook concerning the article giving my favorite excerpt from it.
"Additional meetings on first day of week
Although New Testament writings give no direct evidence that Sunday worship originated in the original Judean church, when evidence does appear in later Christian writings, Sunday observance is the universal practice outside of Judea, with no trace of controversy as to whether Christians should meet on Sunday. It would seem that Sunday worship was already a Christian custom before Paul’s gentile mission, and that it spread throughout the growing Gentile church with the Gentile mission.
A major split between Jewish Christians and non-Christian Jews took place late in the first century. Christians were included among the heretics referred to in the twelfth of the Eighteen Benedictions that Jews recited daily and in every synagogue service. Since no heretic would pronounce this curse, it effectively banned Christians from the synagogue:For the renegades let there be no hope, and may the arrogant kingdom soon be rooted out in our days, and the [Nazoreans, so Martin] and the minim [which at least includes Jewish Christians] perish as in a moment and be blotted out from the book of life and with the righteous may they not be inscribed. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant.49
The Jerusalem church continued to rest on the sabbath and attend Temple or synagogue services, and they also met as Christians in private homes to hear teaching from the apostles and to break bread together.50 The reason for Sunday worship would have been a Christian need for a time of distinctively Christian worship. As Bauckham notes, once we grant that the Jerusalem church had Christian meetings in addition to the Temple or synagogue services, the Jewish Christian observance of the sabbath is not contradictory to Jewish Christian worship on Sunday.51 After the Christians were removed from the synagogues, only these Sunday meetings would be left. As we see in Acts 20:7 (which predates the Jewish Christians being expelled from the synagogues), Luke writes that the church in Troas was meeting on the first day of the week for the purpose of breaking bread.
In the first firmly datable evidence of Christianity in Bithynia, Pliny writes to the emperor Trajan in A.D. 110 (Pliny, Ep. 10.5-96) that at the end of the first century, Christians were meeting before dawn and again in the evening of the same day. Pliny described the assembly: “The Christians came together before daybreak on a fixed day and bound themselves with a vow not to steal, commit adultery, and the like.” Jewett argues that Pliny did not name the day of the week because he had no name at his disposal. The planetary week, from which we get the name Sunday, was not current in Pliny’s day, and it is unlikely that Pliny would be accustomed to using the seven-day division of time by which the Jews and Christians designated the day as the “first day of the week.” However, the Jewish sabbath was well known, and if this assembly had been on the Jewish sabbath it would seem that he would have mentioned it as such, since he was presumably familiar with it. The fact that he did not designate the day implies that no specific name for it was in general use (the name “Lord’s Day” would have been used only among Christians.)52
Part III: Second century churches
In the second century, Sunday worship was the norm, and fewer conflicts over the seventh-day sabbath are evident. The second century references of Ignatius, Magn. 9:1; Gosp. Peter 35, 50; Barn. 15:9; and Justin, 1 Apol. 67 associate Sunday worship with the resurrection. In Barnabas and Justin, other reasons for the significance of Sunday are given first: Sunday representing the eschatological eighth day in Barnabas, and the day on which God began the creation in Justin.53"
