Everybody makes mistakes, myself included. But when you publish a book, shouldn't there be an editor who asks if the quote you are using means what you think it means? In lesson 22-23 of the Beginning of Wisdom, Daniel Lancaster quotes an anonymous work of the Early Church (probably from the 4th century) known as the Apostolic Constitutions. The quote is used by Lancaster to illustrate the supposed high view of the early disciples of Jesus for the Sabbath. There's just one problem, while they did indeed respect the Sabbath as something that had been important to God's work with Israel, the actual context of the quote is an entire extended paragraph about the superiority of the New Covenant in Christ, including that of the Lord's Day (resurrection day, Sunday) over the Old Covenant and the Sabbath.
How can this quote be used for the purpose to which the Torah Club material puts it? Easy enough, part of it is mistranslated, something FFOZ does all the time with, "my translation" uses and explanatory brackets inserted into the text, or as in this case, with blatant word substitution. Here we have the original Greek nomos (presumably, any ancient editions have been lost, our oldest surviving manuscript of it is from the 12th century; the text's history is actually fairly complex), which means law, casually replaced by Lancaster with Torah. I've pointed out this liberty taken with the NT text (a far more serious charge) over and over again in FFOZ publications. Whenever it is advantageous to their argument, Torah is inserted into NT quotes, often when the author's context makes it clear that it isn't the Law of Moses that he's writing about.
The second way in which this quote is abused is by leaving out what comes before it, including the very next sentence, which dramatically undermines what Lancaster is trying to say. Let's look at an English translation of the entire 36th chapter of book 7 (All emphasis below is mine):
XXXVI. O Lord Almighty Thou hast created the world by
Christ, and hast appointed the Sabbath in memory thereof, because that on that
day Thou hast made us rest from our works, for the meditation upon Thy laws.
Thou hast also appointed festivals for the rejoicing of our souls, that we
might come into the remembrance of that wisdom which was created by Thee; how
He submitted to be made of a woman on our account; (2) He appeared in life, and
demonstrated Himself in His baptism; how He that appeared is both God and man;
He suffered for us by Thy permission, and died, and rose again by Thy power: on
which account we solemnly assemble to celebrate the feast of the resurrection
on the Lord's day, and rejoice on account of Him who has conquered death, and
has brought life and immortality to light. For by Him Thou hast brought home
the Gentiles to Thyself for a peculiar people, the true Israel beloved of God,
and seeing God. For Thou O Lord, broughtest our fathers out of the land of
Egypt, and didst deliver them out of the iron furnace, from clay and
brick-making, and didst redeem them out of the hands of Pharaoh, and of those
under him, and didst lead them through the sea as through dry land, and didst
bear their manners in the wilderness, and bestow on them all sorts of good
things. Thou didst give them the law or decalogue, which was pronounced by Thy
voice and written with Thy hand. Thou didst enjoin the observation of the
Sabbath, not affording them an occasion of idleness, but an opportunity of
piety, for their knowledge of Thy power, and the prohibition of evils; having
limited them as within an holy circuit for the sake of doctrine, for the
rejoicing upon the seventh period. On this account was there appointed one
week, and seven weeks, and the seventh month, and the seventh year, and the
revolution of these, the jubilee, which is the fiftieth year for remission,
that men might have no occasion to pretend ignorance. (3) On this account He
permitted men every Sabbath to rest, that so no one might be willing to send one
word out of his mouth in anger on the day of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath is
the ceasing of the creation, the completion of the world, the inquiry after
laws, and the grateful praise to God for the blessings He has bestowed upon
men. All which the Lord's day excels, (4) and shows the Mediator Himself, the
Provider, the Lawgiver, the Cause of the resurrection, the First-born of the
whole creation, God the Word, and man, who was born of Mary alone, without a
man, who lived holily, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died, and
rose again from the dead. So that the Lord's day commands us to offer unto
Thee, O Lord, thanksgiving for all. (5) For this is the grace afforded by Thee,
which on account of its greatness has obscured all other blessings.
The compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions is writing about, or quoting someone else who had previously written about, the respect that the Early Church felt for the Sabbath because of its connection to Creation and the Exodus, but at the same time he emphasized that the Lord's Day, that is Resurrection Day, i.e. Sunday, had become the day on which Jesus' followers gathered to worship because what Jesus had accomplished in the Incarnation, Cross, and Empty Tomb, was so great that it "excels" what had been done before, and "obscured" all previous blessings of God.
Why, then, do Christians worship on Sunday, is it because we hate the Sabbath and all things Jewish? Nonsense, that's a ridiculous Straw Man. We do so because even though God's work through Israel before Jesus was awe inspiring and worthy of praise, his work through Jesus and in Jesus puts all of it in the shade. The Incarnation is a greater visitation of God than Mt. Sinai, and the New Covenant which is open to all the world's people is a greater outpouring of grace than the Law of Moses.
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