I recently received a query from an excellent friend from days past when I served as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. He discovered that I now pastor a Free Methodist Church and he asked me this question: "Do you still think the Sabbath is an important part of the commandments?"
In this entry I share briefly some thoughts related to the Sabbath. My prayer is that each of us focuses more clearly on the blessing of God's gracious gift of Sabbath in our lives.
Yes, I feel the Sabbath is an important part of the commandments. I feel the commandments are all equally true and that God's good and wise counsel remains good and wise.
I don't see the ten commandments as "binding" on the Christian in relation to our gaining salvation. St. Paul makes clear our salvation is "not by works of the law" but by receiving the Gospel of justification through faith in Christ. But the commandments reflect God's excellent principles lovingly given to help us live the good life with God, self and others.
I recently read a fun little story on this topic: A country pastor is out fishing on his day off. A parishioner spots him and says, "You know pastor, the Devil doesn't take a day off." "And if I didn't take a day off," replies the pastor, "I'd be just like him!"
In Deuteronomy the Sabbath command is repeated as part of the 10 commandments, only its justification is different (than the one given in Exodus 20). Deuteronomy 5:15 states: "Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day."
In other words, not only are rest and relaxation necessary for staying creative (Gen. 20), but without them, we're little more than than slaves in this world. The most important event in the Old Testament is God's liberation of the Hebrew slaves from bondage to Pharaoh. Linking the Sabbath command to this liberation event effectively says, "If you don't integrate at least one full day of deep rest into your life, not even God can liberate you!"
God does not want us to view rest as a luxury but rather as a necessary part of a balanced, free lifestyle.
In Jesus' day, when a particular day (Saturday) was commonly recognized among Jews for Sabbath observance, Jesus continually reminded people to see beyond its legal requirement to the heart of what it was all about: "The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). When the Pharisees challenged Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, Jesus countered, "Is it lawful to do good or to harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?" (Mark 3:4).
Christians need to be dialoguing openly with one another about what Sabbath means in our day and age and what the integration of rest, relaxation, prayer, worship and play in everyday life really looks like on a personal and communal level. Individually, we must evaluate our own priorities and Spirit-led convictions, then live by them.
May the Sabbath experience lived-out in our lives liberate and refresh us both spiritually and physically.
Blessings!
Duff
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2 comments:
Please accept my apologies for these long comments. Needed to get this off my chest as they say.
Pastor not quite sure what you meant by these words> “I don't see the Ten Commandments as "binding" on the Christian in relation to our gaining salvation.”
I think you meant that the grace of God would forgive even those that have failed to live by one of the commandments. Would not a God of perfect love and compassion always give complete grace? Preachers teach the wrath of God I think they are revealing their own wrath not God’s.
I suspect it is not God’s wrath that holds us back from entering a heavenly environment but our own imperfections and the lack of understanding of our divine nature.
“St. Paul makes clear our salvation is "not by works of the law" but by receiving the Gospel of justification through faith in Christ.”
It appears to me that Jesus entire message or at least much of it was not to be law bound but be love bound. As a nation that has more people attending church then any other industrialized nation should this nation not be more “love bound and not war bound”.
When I talk to evangels on the Internet and in person in my mind there is not a more self-righteous group of people especially concerning this so called war in Iraq. Please don’t tell me I see you struggle with this war, should not all Americans struggle with this war. I see Americans going about their daily business shopping till they drop with little concern for this war. In fact most Americans are now more concerned about their pocket books than this war.
Forgive me for mentioning this again but the United States has the largest military and the largest military industrial complex in the world. Not exactly love bound.
Should we not be the most peaceful nation on earth with all those Christians running around and learning from sermons on love and peace that Jesus taught? Why has Jesus words not had the affect of peace and love on his followers? This is confusing to me.
I know I am judging the followers and not the words of Jesus as I find no fault with Jesus teachings and his judge not teachings ring in my ears loud and clear but as I watched Vietnamese die by the hundreds of thousands and now Iraqis it breaks my heart that I live in a so called Christian nation that is causing such suffering in the world and for the most part due to conditioned fears and greed and not love.
Please note most Americans never asked for forgiveness for that war in Vietnam as that war was also based on lies and deception. In fact the other day on the net one former American soldier stated he wished he had fought ten times harder and I assume he meant to kill ten times more Vietnamese. Oh by the way he considered himself a Christian.
Mc Cain who most evangels support would have bombed every man woman and child in Vietnam to win that war to gain the respect of his high ranking military grandfathers. Please please tell me what is Christian about that belief.
“May the Sabbath experience lived-out in our lives liberate and refresh us both spiritually and physically.”
Here I go judging again but I do not see this spiritually lived out in Americans lives. I see religion but not spiritually. 47 million Americans without health care pretty well sums up the spiritually of most Americans. Mega profits from the sick and needy. Not exactly spiritually. Most Americans care more about economic capitalism than spiritually.
A child has an 800 thousand dollar hospital bill and the neighbors throw a barbecue and raise two thousand dollars and they all feel good about themselves for raising those 2000 dollars. The parents could not get health insurance for their child because of pre existing conditions.
My point is how can we have a government with elected representatives in a heavily populated Christian nation that sees nothing wrong with making profits off the sick and needy. Please how? And people ask me why I am not a Christian.
“Individually, we must evaluate our own priorities and Spirit-led convictions, then live by them.” Good advice not sure my comments indicate that I am living up to such standards.
Please I do not expect you to take a stance on this war in this blog as I suspect most of your attendees in your church are for this war so don’t get into trouble over my ramblings.
Dear Anonymous,
I greatly appreciate the interaction we're engaged in on spiritual perceptions and faith-related realities.
We're in a series on Romans and the section on my mind currently is Romans 2:1-16. I like Paul's radical suggestion that there is no excuse for anyone, for God writes his moral law in each heart. Being a Jew and receiving Moses' Law, or being a Gentile and not being the recipients of Moses' Law is irrelevant. God judges impartially according to the awareness of Godself given to each person.
So, I was suggesting that we are obligated to follow and obey God according to the revelation we each receive from God, in our hearts. The Mosaic Law (where we find the Sabbath commandment) is not the standard of God's judgment.
Even though I don't see that we're obligated to keep the Law of Moses (in an effort to gain salvation) I believe in the continued value of the Divine principles embodied in the commandments. I believe in the good gift of Sabbath, and know the joy and refreshment of weekly and daily rest. I think Christians too often neglect this privilege.
Regarding the war, I don't know where the majority of our folk would stand on support for the Iraq War. I've been tempted to ask! I agree with you that the majority of evangelicals probably do line up with supporting the war in some way or another. I believe the evangelical bias tends to be toward protecting Israel at all costs, and there is a strong connection between our activity in the Middle East and evangelical theologies of eschatology.
Blessings my friend! Thanks for keeping in touch!
Duff
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