Chrisitian1,
You just hit the nail on the head: It is interesting how people interpret the bible, but just so you know, Orthodox Christians do not do this. I think it is clear by now that a hundred people will conclude with a hundred different meanings of Holy Scripture which is why there are so many denominations today. I think it would be important for you to know that Orthodox Christians do not interpret Holy Scripture, rather its meaning is passed down to us from generation to generation, in verbal and written form. This is what we call Holy Tradition. In fact, Holy Scripture itself says to do this.
Now about the Sabbath: you are accusing the Orthodox of things we have not done. You said, “If you change the saturday sabbath of the 4th commandment to Sunday…” We have not done this.
I believe you are applying what you know of other churches, mainly of Roman Catholic and Protestant lineage, to us Orthodox. This is quite ironic for us, because we are the only ones to have indeed kept Holy Tradition while everyone else was changing anything and everything in the west. Saturday (as well as Sunday), has always been regarded by the Orthodox as a festival, and while it originally was also in most churches of the West, but like everything else, this was changed and lost. To see this you should read the Apostolic Constitutions, the Apostolic Canons and canons xvi, xlix., li of the Council of Laodicæa. We wrote these canons hundreds and hundreds of years ago as this is what we have always practiced.
Now you say, “Honoring sunday above Gods sabbath, would be breaking Gods law.” In our cycle of services (which was the way all Christians once practiced), every week represents the last week of Christs life; so just as Friday represents the Crucifixion before the Sabbath, Sunday was the day of the resurrection. So we do not honor “Sunday” above the Sabbath, rather, we honor the great and glorious and holy resurrection of our Lord far above the Sabbath, because the greatest of all the commandments is to love our Lord and Savior with all of our hearts and all of our minds; He who sacrificed Himself for our sake.
In addition, it is also written, “And sanctify ye the Sabbath of the Lord with clean hands and a pure heart.” We cannot do this truly except through the Resurrection.
So we don't break God's law, we uphold it perfectly.
In the Lord's Resurrection, as in a lens, the greatest proofs of Christian Truth are concentrated. Gospel preachers, let the Resurrection of the Lord be the center of your teaching. Refer to it constantly.
Do you want to preach about the holiness, the sinlessness of Christ? Preach about His Resurrection. This is the greatest tangible proof of His blameless, sinless life; for, being impure and guilty through original sin and our own sin, everyone without exception falls under the penalty, the sword of death. Death is the reward of sin, but there is One who committed no sin, who was without guile. He is outside original sin, free of any sin of His own, devoid of sin. Proof? The Resurrection.
Death could not hold the sinless One. It had no power over Him. Do you want to preach that the sacrifice on Golgotha was unique, that it was offered to remit the sins of the world, and that the Blood of Jesus Christ purifies us of every sin? Use the Lord's Resurrection. This is the answer of Heaven, that the sacrifice on the Cross was accepted.
This is like another fire which once descended from the sky and consumed the sacrificial offering of the prophet Elijah and certified that the sacrifice was accepted. Do you want to console those who are grieving the death of a loved one? Show them the empty tomb. Just as the Lord rose from the dead, so the dead will arise and on their tombs will be written, "they are not here." Do you want to show that the power of evil and deception is temporary, that the victory ultimately belongs to purity and truth? Use the Resurrection. It is the triumph of the Righteous One.
Do you have before you sinners -- and who isn't? -- who can groan under the heavy burden of their sins, and who cannot, with all their knowledge and philosophy, budge this burden, who live a wretched life, worse than a thousand deaths in their multifarious graves of sin? Do you find yourself before sinners? Ah, then, above all preach with all your lungs' power, with all the vehemence of your believing heart, the Resurrected Lord. He who rose from the dead can raise those dead in transgressions from their graves of sin. He "grants resurrection to the fallen."
Gospel workers, open your Bibles. See how the prophets and Apostles preached, above all the Apostle to the Nations, St. Paul. Study the appropriate New Testament passages which extol the magnificence of the Resurrection and see how priceless a diadem comes from this foundation of truth (Matt. 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20 and 21; Acts 3:15, 5:30, 10:40-41; Romans 1:4, 4:25, 5:1-11, 6:4; 1 Corinthians 15; Phillipians 2:7-11; Col 3:1-4; I Thessalonians 4:14; Hebrews 13:20-21; I John1:1-4; Revelation 1-18). "Follow Me," by Bishop Augoustinos N. Kantiotes (Bishop of Florina in Greece), (Belmont, Massachusetts:Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1989), pp. 265-269
That is no fault of your own I suppose, but I would like to offer a small glimpse into this one point.