THE MASTER’S CLOCK!
Discerning The True 7th Day Sabbath of Yeshua!
PART 7
Back-To-Back
Chodesh
In the Book of Acts!
A person may be tempted to say, “Well that’s all well and good but that’s from the TaNaK, but there is no evidence of back-to-back Chodesh in the Apostolic Writings (New Testament).”
Oh… but there is!
In the Book of Acts, chapter 20 we have the Apostle Paul traveling with companions from Greece to Troas. There is also a second group that takes a different route and meet up with Paul and the first group in Troas five days after the end of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
And these, going ahead, waited for us at Troas. And we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and came to them at Troas in five days, where we stayed seven days. (Acts 20:5-6 Scriptures ’98)
The last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is the 21st Day of the 1st Month therefore the five-day count begins on the 22nd. It does not necessarily mean they traveled for five days leaving on the 22nd, even though they may well have, but only that they arrived at Troas five days after the end of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Counting from the 22nd five days forward lands us on the 26th Day of the 1st Month. Then, counting inclusively and utilizing a Lunar Sabbath 30-day month, we count forward from the 26th Day of the 1st Month, a stay of seven days, arriving at the 2nd Day of the 2nd Month, which is always the 1st Day of the Week on the Lunar Sabbath format.
And on the first day of the week, the taught ones having gathered together to break bread, Sha’ul, intending to depart the next day, was reasoning with them and was extending the word till midnight. (Acts 20:7 Scriptures ’98)
On the evening before they left Troas Paul (Sha’ul) preaches until midnight. This particular evening is clearly noted as the 1st Day of the Week, which is also the seventh day of their stay in Troas.
There is a rather ironic side note that I must relate here.
Acts 20:7 is used by Sunday Christianity to justify Sunday as the new Lord’s Day. But if Sunday Christians would dare to question the study notes in their bibles and did their homework they’d realize that the Roman Empire’s calendar at the time of the crucifixion probably consisted of an unbroken chain of 8-day weekly cycles, the days noted simply as ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, and ‘H’. This Roman calendar was known as the early version of the Julian calendar and was a ‘market calendar’. The Julian calendar inherited its unbroken chain of eight day weekly cycles from the Roman Republic Calendar which it replaced in 46/45 B.C. Although the Roman Republic Calendar was an eight-day market calendar it still used the moon to begin the months, however New Moon Day didn't break and reset the weekly cycle. The connection between the moon and the beginning of the months was lost with the switch to the Julian calendar. Sometime 'AFTER' the crucifixion of Messiah Yeshua but before the end of the 1st Century A.D. the Roman Julian calendar was influenced by Persian Mithraism and changed from eight-day weeks into weeks of 7 days honoring the pagan planetary gods. The beginning of that paganized version of the Julian calendar could have been introduced just about the same time the Apostle Paul was reaching out to people on his mission trips, give or take a few years. If ‘the first day of the week’ in Acts 20:7 was a reference to the pagan planetary god Julian calendar it would be referencing ‘Saturn’s Day’ which was initially the 1st Day of the Week! Because calendar changes can take place over long periods of time it can be difficult to determine what calendar is in effect at a specific place and time but if the calendar had already changed at the time of Paul’s mission work then ‘Sun’s Day’ would have been the 2nd Day of the Week on the Julian calendar. ‘Sun’s Day’ was not venerated as the 1st Day of the Week on the Julian calendar by the Roman Emperor Constantine (due to still greater influence from Persian Mithraism) until sometime in the middle of the 4th Century A.D.! The point being that whether Acts 20:7 is referring to the true calendar of YHWH or either version of the Julian calendar it matters not, this is of no use to Sunday Christianity to justify Sunday observance. With the counting of days in Acts 20 beginning with the end of the Feast of Unleavened Bread there can be no doubt that Acts 20:7 is a reference to the Creator’s Cosmological Calendar!
With that noted let’s get back to the main topic.
To the undiscerning mind, there is nothing of significance in Acts 20:7 to talk about, but someone, I’m not sure who, noticed a problem. There is no way to begin this two part count after the Feast of Unleavened Bread and have Paul preaching on the first day of the week, i.e. the last day of his seven day stay in Troas on the Julian Calendar’s unbroken chain of 7-day weeks! It is only possible on a Lunar Sabbath Calendar with the 1st Month having 30 days and therefore back-to-back Chodesh! Let me show this to you on the Lunar Sabbath Calendar first and then I’ll show you how people may try to explain it away on the Julian Calendar.
On the Lunar Sabbath format of the 1st and 2nd Month we have a perfect match for what is described in the text of Acts 20. So now let’s look at it on the Julian Calendar's ‘unbroken chain of 7-day weekly cycles’.
On the Julian Calendar of Paul’s time this same count would look like this if the Passover, which is always the Preparation Day, fell on the appropriate 6th Day of the Week.
In the model above we see that the count would have Paul preaching on the 3rd Day of the Week, not the 1st Day of the Week as the Scriptures clearly proclaim. To fix this problem those who proclaim an ‘unbroken chain of 7-day weekly cycles’ could try to claim that the Passover would have fallen on the 4th Day of the Week, i.e. the pagan Wednesday. So let’s see if that works any better.
In this model Paul would indeed be preaching on the 1st Day of the Week. So… problem solved, right?
Wrong!
The 10th Day of the 1st Month is always a workday! It can NEVER fall on the 7th Day of the Week, i.e. the weekly Sabbath, for on that day if you don’t have a lamb to offer as a sacrifice for the Passover you must buy one. There can be no buying or selling on the Sabbath and the 10th Day of the 1st Month is the only day Scripture mandates for this purpose!
People… there is no way to resolve this issue on any calendar that utilizes an ‘unbroken chain of 7-day weekly cycles’ as do both the Julian and Gregorian Calendars of Rome!
The ONLY WAY to solve this dilemma is to confess a Lunar Sabbath Calendar, which always has the Sabbaths falling on the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th Days of the Months and the only way to have the Sabbaths falling on the same days every month is to have the weekly cycle reset at the beginning and end of every month. In this case the 1st Month would have had a full 30 days rather than a short month of 29 days. In Lunar Sabbath observance the 30th Day and the 1st Day of every month are Chodesh and therefore there were back-to-back days of Chodesh in this situation in the Book of Acts! There is no way around it!
This has been Part 7 of the 17 Part series titled THE MASTER'S CLOCK! It is my sincere hope and prayer that in reading this series you'll be blessed with the revelation of Time According to the Author of Time! May your eyes be opened to The Creator's Cosmological Calendar!
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