Sabbath in Christianity in the context of "Tongans"

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⭐ Core Definition: Sabbath in Christianity

Many Christians observe a weekly day set apart for rest and worship called a Sabbath in obedience to God's commandment to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Early Christians, at first mainly Jewish, observed the seventh-day (Saturday) Sabbath with prayer and rest. At the beginning of the second century the Church Father Ignatius of Antioch approved non-observance of the Sabbath. The now majority practice of Christians is to observe the first day of the week (Sunday), called the Lord's Day, when many significant events occurred during the New Testament - notably the Resurrection - rather than the biblical seventh-day Sabbath as a day of rest and worship.

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👉 Sabbath in Christianity in the context of Tongans

Tongans or Tongan people are a Polynesian ethnic group native to Tonga, a Polynesian archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.

Tongans represent more than 98% of the inhabitants of Tonga. The rest are European (the majority are British), mixed European, and other Pacific Islanders. There also are several hundred Chinese. Almost two-thirds of the population live on its main island, Tongatapu. Although an increasing number of Tongans have moved into the only urban and commercial center, Nukuʻalofa, where European and Indigenous cultural and living patterns have blended, village life and kinship ties continue to be important throughout the country. Everyday life is heavily influenced by Polynesian traditions and especially by the Christian faith; for example, all commerce and entertainment activities cease from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday, and the constitution declares the Sabbath to be sacred, forever. Other important Christian denominations include Methodists (Free Wesleyan) and Catholics, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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Sabbath in Christianity in the context of Lord's Day

In Christianity, the Lord's Day refers to Sunday, the traditional day of communal worship. It is the first day of the week in the Hebrew calendar and traditional Christian calendars. It is observed by most Christians as the weekly memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is said to have been raised from the dead early on the first day of the week. The phrase appears only once in Rev. 1:10 of the New Testament.

According to Beckwith, Christians held corporate worship on Sunday in the 1st century (First Apology, chapter 67). On 3 March 321, Constantine the Great legislated rest on the pagan holiday Sunday (dies Solis). Before the Early Middle Ages, the Lord's Day became associated with Sabbatarian (rest) practices legislated by Church Councils. Christian denominations such as the Reformed Churches, Methodist Churches, and Baptist Churches regard Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, a practice known as first-day Sabbatarianism. First-day Sabbatarian (Sunday Sabbatarian) practices include attending morning and evening church services on Sundays, receiving catechesis in Sunday School on the Lord's Day, taking the Lord's Day off from servile labour, not eating at restaurants on Sundays, not Sunday shopping, not using public transportation on the Lord's Day, not participating in sporting events that are held on Sundays, as well as not viewing television and the internet on Sundays; Christians who are Sunday Sabbatarians often engage in works of mercy on the Lord's Day, such as evangelism, as well as visiting prisoners at jails and the sick at hospitals and nursing homes. A Sunday custom present in many Christian countries is the "hearing" (abhören) of children at dinnertime, in which the parents listen while the children recall what their pastor preached about in the Sunday sermon; if any corrections are needed, the parents instruct them.

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Sabbath in Christianity in the context of Mark 3

Mark 3 is the third chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It relates a conflict over healing on the Sabbath, the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles, a conflict with the Jerusalem scribes and a meeting of Jesus with his own family.

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Sabbath in Christianity in the context of Proto-Orthodox Christianity

The term proto-orthodox Christianity or proto-orthodoxy describes the early Christian movement that was the precursor of Christian orthodoxy. Older literature often referred to the group as "early Catholic" in the sense that their views were the closest to those of the more organized "Catholic" Church that was the State church of the Roman Empire during the 4th and 5th centuries. The term "proto-orthodox" was coined by Bentley Layton, a scholar of Gnosticism and a Coptologist at Yale, but is often attributed to New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, who has popularized the term by using it in books for a non-academic audience. Ehrman argues that when this group became prominent by the end of the third century, it "stifled its opposition, it claimed that its views had always been the majority position and that its rivals were, and always had been, 'heretics', who willfully 'chose' to reject the 'true belief'."

Although early Christianity had many diverse sects and doctrines, critics of the stance of downplaying the proto-orthodox's prominence (such as Larry W. Hurtado), generally argue that the writings of the Catholic anti-heresiologists condemning others as heretics were still essentially accurate: that of all the Christian groups, the "proto-orthodox" has the most common ground with the immediate followers of Jesus in the Apostolic Age and Christianity in the 1st century, and were indeed the most common variety of Christianity even then.

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Sabbath in Christianity in the context of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian restorationist Christian denomination and the largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement. Founded during the Second Great Awakening, the church is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has established congregations and built temples worldwide. According to the church, as of 2024, it has over 17.5 million members, of which over 6.8 million live in the U.S. The church also reports over 109,000 volunteer missionaries and over 200 dedicated temples.

Church theology is restorationist and nontrinitarian; the church is a Christian denomination and includes a belief in the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ and his substitutionary atonement on behalf of mankind. It is often included in the lists of larger Christian denominations, though most Catholics, Orthodox Christians and evangelicals, and some Mainline Protestants have considered the LDS Church to be distinct and separate from mainstream Christianity. The church has an open canon of four scriptural texts: the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C), and the Pearl of Great Price. Other than the Bible, the majority of the church canon consists of material believed by the church's members to have been revealed by God to Joseph Smith, including texts described as lost parts of the Bible, and other works believed to have been written by ancient prophets, including the Book of Mormon. Members adhere to church laws of sexual purity, health, fasting, and Sabbath observance, and contribute ten percent of their income to the church in tithing. The church teaches ordinances through which adherents make covenants with God, including baptism, endowment, and celestial marriage.

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Sabbath in Christianity in the context of Biblical Sabbath

The Sabbath is a weekly day of rest or time of worship given in the Bible as the seventh day. It is observed differently in Judaism and Christianity and informs a similar occasion in several other faiths. Observation and remembrance of Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments ("Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy") considered to be the fourth in Judaism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and most Protestant traditions, and the third in Roman Catholic and Lutheran traditions.

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Sabbath in Christianity in the context of First-day Sabbatarianism

Sabbatarianism advocates the observation of the Sabbath in Christianity, in keeping with the Ten Commandments.

The observance of Sunday as a day of worship and rest is a form of first-day Sabbatarianism, a view which was historically heralded by nonconformist denominations, such as Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Quakers and Baptists, as well many Episcopalians. Among Sunday Sabbatarians (First-day Sabbatarians), observance of the Lord's Day often takes the form of attending the Sunday morning service of worship, receiving catechesis through Sunday School, performing acts of mercy (such as evangelism, visiting prisoners in jails and seeing the sick at hospitals), and attending the Sunday evening service of worship, as well as refraining from Sunday shopping, servile work, playing sports, viewing the television, and dining at restaurants. The impact of first-day Sabbatarianism on Western culture is manifested by practices such as Sunday blue laws.

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Sabbath in Christianity in the context of Sunday shopping

Sunday shopping or Sunday trading refers to the ability of retailers to operate stores on Sunday, a day that Christian tradition typically recognises as a day of rest, though the rationale for Sunday trade bans often includes secular reasoning. Rules governing shopping hours, such as Sunday shopping, vary around the world but many countries and subnational jurisdictions continue to ban or restrict Sunday shopping. In the United States, rules are enshrined within blue laws.

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