The Sabbath is just one more topic for Legalists to make their list of rules to impose upon others. I don't mind if they want their own personal list of rules. Just don't impose your pious works of legalism on others. This is the very reason why Jesus rejected having a list of specific rules for Sabbath.

Yes, Clio, thanks! You are very much on the right track. (And have been all along I must say.) This is the direction some of us have been trying to keep the topic moving. It is keeping it on track, contrary to the efforts and opinions of some.

Thanks.

Tom

I'd like to point out in the Pentateuch, when the Sabbath was first instituted, that there doesn't seem to be an emphasis on it being a day of "gathered together" worship.

When the Sabbath is instituted, it is clearly a day of rest from the daily activities in which the COI engaged during their wanderings. There was a focus on family togetherness, fellowship, and a recovery from the arduous activities of the week.

Through out the books of the Pentateuch there are numerous instructions on "how" to worship... but none is given for the Sabbath day, except in Exodus 16.

"Do they not realize that I have given them the seventh day, the Sabbath, as a day of rest? That is why I give you twice as much food on the sixth day, so there will be enough for two days. On the Sabbath day you must stay in your places. Do not pick up food from the ground on that day." 30 So the people rested on the seventh day. Exodus 16:29-30.

Arguably, this could mean they only stayed in their tents and did not pick up food, but it's interesting with so much emphasis placed on the concepts and forms of worship that the only explicit instructions given for Sabbath is to rest.

Perhaps it would behoove us to take a look at what constitutes "rest" in all it's forms... not just extra naps?

And the same to you, Neil! Thanks for also helping to get us back on track. This really helps answer the obvious follow up question to Jesus command, "It is lawful (the right thing to do) to do good on the Sabbath." One should ask, "So what is good?" to which Jesus reply is "To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God."... Which should remind us of what he also said through the prophet Isaiah.

Tom

How are we to understand Jeremiah 17: 19-27 where, because of failure to "keep the Sabbath day holy," God threatens to "kindle a fire in Jerusalem's gates" "which shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched"?

Daniel and most of the rest of Judah were taken into captivity and moved to Babylon because of their failure to keep the Sabbath, according to a comparison of 2 Chron. 7: 19, 20; 2 Chron. 36: 20, 21 and Daniel 1: 1, 2; 9: 3-15. God had even sent many prophets to the people to bring them back to Him, and back to true Sabbath keeping (which can only be done, really, by a holy people), but the record is that they only rebelled further and rejected and killed the prophets. (Jer. 14: 13-16; 23: 21-40; 29: 8-19, etc.)

""...They [those who accepted the words of false prophets] did not heed my words, says the Lord, which I persistently sent to you by my servants the prophets, but you would not listen, says the Lord" (Jer. 29: 19).

What lessons, if any, should we learn from those events?

But it was, actually. The record so states it, as I recall in the book of Numbers. It may also be helpful to study Jewish historians writing about the customs of the time.



Incorrect. The weekly Sabbath is referred to as a "day of sacred assembly," I believe the wording goes. Also of interest is what God did to the Sabbath day--'sanctified' it. But that is a topic for another thread, perhaps.

Please be specific. What is the beginning and end of the passage, and what are its major divisions?

The very fact that God "sanctified" the seventh day signifies that it was appointed as a day of religious worship. The concept scarcely makes any sense if it means individuals are to stay alone.

The only "church" that Jesus attended was the Jewish church. Is that our example?

Jesus is a perfect example, yes. From the Biblical standpoint the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church are virtually the same. The first century Christians worshipped with the Jews at the synagogue, as we find Paul and others doing in the book of Acts. In the NT, the church, or ecclesia, is not a building but the people-- the called out ones-- who met at the synagogue for Sabbath worship (Acts 13).