Sabbath Observance in Luke-Acts: Situating the Earliest Followers of Jesus Within Judaism

Author: David Wilber*

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the God of Israel commanded his people to observe the Sabbath (Exod. 20:8). Did the earliest followers of Jesus believe that this commandment remained binding on them? One way to approach this question is to observe how Jesus and his earliest followers lived with respect to the Sabbath.

The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles contain numerous references to the Sabbath. This article examines these references to explore how Luke depicts the Sab...