Remember the Lord’s Day
BCO 48 on the Fourth Commandment and Preparing for Worship
On Polity Matters we are currently working our way through the final section of the Book of Church Order, so all of our newest episodes are about worship. I thought it would be worthwhile to reflect on these matters here, as they pertain to the aim of this blog as a whole. What follows is reflections on BCO 48-1 through 48-3.
BCO 48 addresses the Lord’s Day with a kind of directness that can surprise modern readers—especially those of us formed in a church culture where “Sunday” often means little more than “the day I go to church.”
It frames the Lord’s Day as a weekly invitation into communion with God—ordered by Scripture and meant for our good. Morton Smith explicitly frames Sabbath-keeping as a blessing and a “positive command” to remember and keep holy, not merely a list of don’ts. That’s exactly the posture I want to encourage as we consider what the Directory says here.
And a quick word of candor up front: I’m coming at this chapter as someone who does not state differences with the Westminster Standards on the Lord’s Day. I know there are men in the PCA who do, and I understand that people arrive here with varying assumptions and experiences. My aim isn’t to bash anyone over the head. My aim is to present what our constitutional documents actually say, and to draw out the pastoral wisdom that’s built into them.
48-1 The Fourth Commandment
The chapter opens with Westminster Shorter Catechism 58: “The fourth commandment requireth the keeping holy to God such set times as he hath appointed in his word; expressly one whole day in seven, to be a holy sabbath to himself.”
That alone tells you something. Just like the PCA consitution “quadruples down” on the regulative principle by stating it in the Westminster Standards and the Book of Churhc Order, the PCA constitution quadruples down on the Lord’s Day by repeating this teaching here.
Presbyterian piety has historically treated the Lord’s Day as a meaningful feature of Christian discipleship, not an eccentric hobbyhorse. This is not just something some of us like to tout over and over again. It is significant to our system.
The Westminster Confession makes that explicit in 21.7, teaching that God has appointed one day in seven by a “positive, moral, and perpetual commandment” binding all men.
The “positive” aspect means God has actually appointed the day. This isn’t just a general moral intuition about rest. God has told us how to order time. He has laid claim to one day out of seven in a way that is good for us and good for the church.
And “perpetual” means this isn’t treated as disposable. It’s not an Old Testament relic we keep around for sentimental reasons. It is part of the moral law of God—something that is still binding and still blessing.
The phrase “one whole day in seven” is where many of the practical questions begin.
What do modern PCA folks assume that means? A minimum attendance expectation? Or a whole-day orientation toward God?
I’ve heard a range of approaches. Some people have tried to do a “sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday” sort of thing. Others reduce it to “the time I’m at church.” But presses us toward something thicker than that—something like a whole-day setting apart to the Lord.
The way we teach this matters. In some places, the challenge is reclaiming Sunday as more than “a day I get to do whatever I want.” In other places, churches are already structured with multiple services and rhythms that make whole-day observance feel more natural. Application will vary from family to family, individual to individual, and church to church. That doesn’t mean “anything goes.” But shepherding always requires patience, wisdom, and attention to circumstances.
48-2 Change of Day
“God commanded His Old Testament people to keep holy the last day of the week, but He sanctified the first day as the Sabbath by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. For this reason the Church of the new dispensation has from the time of the apostles kept holy the first day of the week as the Lord’s Day.”
The Directory is establishing a constitutional baseline for PCA life and worship. It is not treating “which day?” as a matter of preference. A couple things are worth emphasizing.
First, the resurrection is central here. The Lord’s Day is, in an obvious sense, a resurrection celebration. The first day of the week is not arbitrary. It is bound up with the new creation that begins in Christ’s rising from the dead.
Second, the Confession again speaks very plainly: WCF 21.7 says that from creation to Christ’s resurrection the Sabbath was the last day of the week; from the resurrection it is changed to the first day, “called the Lord’s Day,” and so continues “to the end of the world” as the Christian Sabbath.
So the Reformed position isn’t “choose a day.” It’s: God appointed a day; Christ’s resurrection marks the transition of that day; and the church keeps the first day as the Lord’s Day.
I’m amazed at how many “tent pegs” the Directory drives into the ground. It doesn’t just establish the principle in 48-1; it goes on to cement that Sunday is the Lord’s Day. This should be one of the places we disagree the least, because our constitutional documents stake it down with great purpose.
48-3 Preparation
“It is the duty of every person to remember the Lord’s Day; and to prepare for it before its approach. All worldly business should be so ordered, and seasonably laid aside, as that they may not be hindered thereby from sanctifying the Sabbath, as the Holy Scriptures require.”
This paragraph is a corrective to a very common modern experience: people often have a “bad” Lord’s Day because they didn’t prepare. They’re exhausted. They’re frantic. They’re rushing. They’re distracted. They haven’t thought at all about how Saturday night bleeds into Sunday morning. And then they wonder why worship feels thin.
The Directory’s answer is simple: prepare.
That preparation is ordinary. It might mean planning meals in a way that doesn’t create a long, complicated Sunday burden. It might mean getting gas on Saturday so you’re not pulled into unnecessary errands on Sunday. It might mean leaving gatherings at a reasonable hour, because you’re actually trying to rest and be ready for worship. Preparation is not “Pharisee energy.” It is love for God’s worship, love for your own soul, love for your church, love for your family rhythms.
And the Confession pairs with this: WCF 21.8 says Sabbath holiness involves “ordering… common affairs beforehand” and due heart-preparation.
BCO 48 isn’t just pushing for schedule management. It is pushing for a posture.
You don’t necessarily need to cram everything into Saturday. How you use your time throughout the week informs your Lord’s Day. Using all your time well during the week can make Sunday rest possible. The Sabbath principle shapes your approach to all your days, not just one.
A thought on shepherding without policing
A tension emerges here for elders and pastors: we want to encourage our people to honor the Lord’s Day, but we are not meant to micromanage every detail of their lives.
The shepherding instinct matters. We’re not behind the flock driving them forward; we’re in front leading them and drawing them onward. That means patient teaching, positive encouragement, and a careful refusal to reduce Sabbath observance into a million case studies.
When people ask, “Can I do this? Can I do that?” the deeper issue is often the question behind the question. The Directory is trying to re-form our instincts so that the Lord’s Day becomes a delight rather than a boundary fence.
Conclusion
BCO 48 begins by doing something we often skip: it makes us slow down and ask what Sunday is before it tells us what Sunday does. The Lord’s Day is not a church tradition we keep because it worked for our grandparents. It is rooted in God’s moral law, repeated across our standards with intention, and grounded in the resurrection of Christ, who has sanctified the first day of the week as the day of gathered worship.
And then, almost immediately, the Directory presses on the most common point of failure for modern Christians: we don’t drift into a good Lord’s Day. We prepare for it. We order our lives so that worship is not crowded out by fatigue, distraction, and unfinished business. That preparation is not meant to produce anxiety or a new Saturday-night legalism. It is meant to produce freedom—space to worship, space to rest, and space to receive the day as a gift.
That’s also where pastoral wisdom matters. The aim is not to make everyone’s practice identical, but to cultivate a shared instinct: that the Lord’s Day is worth arranging life around, because communion with God is worth arranging life around.
In the next post, BCO 48 becomes even more concrete. It speaks of “the whole day,” of worship and holy rest, of neighbor-love and household rhythms, of prayer and mercy. And it does so with a goal that is both searching and sweet: not mere compliance, but delight. Isaiah’s language is the right destination—call the Sabbath a delight—and the Directory is going to help us see what that can look like in real life.