Those who keep most to a sacred day in the week seem to be the Muslims who do not skip their Friday prayer.
We can wonder if God has commanded that there should be kept one day in the week by abstaining from all forms of self-indulgence? Should this then be the first, or seventh, a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, a special day of the week? Do the Jewish sabbath day laws have any meaning for today's society? Should they be kept by followers of Christ?
Quite apart from religious belief, most people accept that the pattern of five or six days of work, followed by a shorter period of relaxation or rest, is a healthy one. They would soon complain strongly if their employer suddenly decided to require them to work with no weekly break at all! It is not the pattern of work and rest that creates the difficulty. The question focuses on what men and women can or should do on their day of rest, and which day of the week that should be.
Did God say people would be punished for not resting on the seventh day? Was there a pattern of work and rest enforced for the nation of Israel?
Six days of gathering and one day of rest? We do find such an example in Genesis. Did God's activity in Creation became the example for His nation? Can we say that by resting on the sabbath, man would identify himself with God, and with the completion of His creation, when He was able to review "everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31)?
Did God provided the sabbath to confer benefits on anyone who was oppressed-it was "made for man" and do you need to keep the Sabbath?
POSSIBLE ANSWERS:
- The Sabbath, NOT Sunday, is divinely ordained and must be kept.
- In Christ, every day is a Sabbath day, not just one day.
- Sunday is now the Sabbath for Christians.
- Keeping the Sabbath or not is irrelevant to a Christian.
- Don't know
Go to Do you need to keep the Sabbath? to give your reply at This is yourbible.
Please do find also about the Sabbath or Sunday: Sabbath according to the Scriptures.
ReplyDeleteIn the `the Watchtower’ of 1 February 2010 one reminds the readers there that the Dutch word ‘sabbat’ (Sabbath) comes from a Jewish word that means ‘to rest, to stop, abandoning’.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the Genesis report says that Jehovah God rested on the seventh day of His labour at the Creation, God gave people only in the time of Moses the order to take a 24 hour rest day or Sabbath to observe (Genesis 2:2). After the Israeli fled from Egypt in 1513 BC., Jehovah provided them with manna in the dessert. Concerning collecting this manna they got the task: Six days you shall collect it, but on the seventh day it is Sabbath. Then it will not be formed” (Exodus 16:26). Then we read that the people kept the Sabbath then on the seventh day, from sun perdition on Friday evening to sun perdition on Saturday night (Exodus 16:30).
Not so long after those instructions had been given, Jehovah enacted a law on the Sabbath keeping, which was incorporated in the ten orders which Moses got (Exodus 19:1). The fourth order sounded partially: For the remembrance of the Sabbath day, to keep that holy, you must perform six days service and you must then do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath for Jehovah, your God (Exodus 20:8 - 10). Thus the Sabbath celebration for the Israeli food became a fixed component of their life (Deuteronomy 5:12).
One recognises that Jesus kept indeed the Sabbath also. We read concerning him: “and when the fullness of time did come, God sent forth His Son, come of a woman, come under law,” (Galatians 4:4 YLT) Therefore the complete time border had come, by God’s Son who was from a woman born and who came to stand under the law. Jesus was as Israelite born and stood as such under the law, of which the Sabbath law was a determined part. Just after Jesus dead the law treaty was abolished (Colossians 2:13 14).
“Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to annul, but to fulfil” Jesus has said (Matthew 5:17). Jesus has not violated the law or has not torn it, but fulfilled it by apprehending himself perfect to it. Because he has complied with the law contract once complete, it is for God’s people no longer binding. Now Christ has fulfilled the law, we are not any more obliged to keep the weekly Sabbath.
The apostle Paul answers under inspiration: “As a result of this do not let anyone criticize you with regard to what you eat and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths. All of these are mere shadows of future things, but the framework belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17 MHM) Those inspired words indicate for its admirers on a complete change in God‘s requirements. Because Christians stand under a new law, the law of the Christ (Galatians 6:2).
To the former law treaty, which had been given through Moses to Israel, did come an end when it was fulfilled by Jesus' dead (Romans 10:4; Ephesians 2:15). After Paul said that we have been dismissed of the law, he called thereupon mentioned one of the ten laws (Romans 7:6, 7). “But, now, having died to that which held us fast, we have been released from the Law, that we should be slaves in a newness of spirit, and not in old writings. What, then, will we say? Is the Law sinful? Never! However, I would not have known sin if not for of the Law. I would have not known what covetousness was but for the Law which said, “You shall not covet.”” (Ro 7:6-7 MHM)
The ten orders, the Sabbath law included, are therefore part of the law to which came an end. By that there also did come an end to the order concerning the Sabbath celebration and we need not anymore to have the certain rest day on Saturday or on Sunday on which we should carry out a worshipping service. Any day of the week is good for the Lord.