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The Sabbath in the Bible isn't on any particular day, e.g. Saturday or Sunday. The purpose is general, and public, so whatever day is used in your particular culture is fine.

The Hebrew callendar was lunar, so they picked 4-5 days each year and just didn't count them, so if you were to make a computer program to trace the days backwards using our callendar, some years it would be on Sunday, some Thursday, etc..

So don't let anyone get you bogged down in whether Saturday or Sunday is the true Sabbath, neither were, but since Sunday is the public holiday in our culture, the Commandment points to this day as the proper day of rest.

Regards

Another"TWO"Thumbs Down, on some really BAD teachings ;D



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I'll add another two.

What on earth are you two on about? What possible problem can you have with Sunday being the day of rest in our culture? Are you Seventh Day Adventists?

LOL ;D

I am in His rest 24/7

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You said "two thumbs down", but from what I've read from you, I doubt you even understood the post. The person how claims to be a pastor suprises me though. I hope he will explain what his objections are rather than running away.

Tim, it's really very simple. Jesus Christ is our Sabbath Rest. The Sabbath under the Law was a shadow of things to come. The shadow was replaced by reality, the reality of Jesus Christ as the perfect Sacrifice on the Cross for us.

We don't have to make an appointment to worship Jesus, nor do we need a Levite Priest to pray for us or help us worship Jesus. Christians can worship and pray to Jesus 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Jesus Christ finished the work of Salvation, and Jesus Christ is our Sabbath Rest. HE lives in us, and we live in HIM. HE goes with us, and we go with HIM 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We are no longer under the Law of Moses, rather the Gospel of the Grace of God. We don't have to wait until Saturday, Sunday, or any other day of the week to worship or pray. HE is with us, and we are with HIM every step of every day. That's the rest, comfort, peace, and joy of being in Jesus.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Tom, I agree that the Law was a school master, and the reality was Christ, but do you honestly think that any of the Ten Commandments were done away with?

It's true that when the Bible says that you can't muzzle an ox while it's working it's really talking about supporting financially clergy, but does that give us the right to muzzle oxen now?

Surely you see that there should still be a day of rest? I don't consider myself a legalist, but the Law was fulfilled in Christ, not destroyed.

Also, my main point was that nobody should demand any certain day, like certain sects.

Amen.

Tim Vaughn,

We are no longer under the Law of Moses, rather the Gospel of the Grace of God. We look to Jesus and the CROSS, not Moses. Jesus and the Cross makes it possible for us to rest in Jesus every second of every day. One must read and understand the writings of the Apostle Paul to understand the reality of Jesus and the Cross, but the below will give you a start.

(Matthew 22:36)  Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
(Matthew 22:37)  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
(Matthew 22:38)  This is the first and great commandment.
(Matthew 22:39)  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
(Matthew 22:40)  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Our Sabbath Rest is Jesus Christ, our Living LORD and Saviour. HE is LORD over all days, all hours, all minutes, and all seconds.

Love In Christ,
Tom

 A typical Shabbat

At about 2PM or 3PM on Friday afternoon.

The next morning Shabbat services begin around 9AM and continue until about noon.

Shabbat ends at nightfall, when three stars are visible, approximately 40 minutes after sunset.

In Exodus 20:11, after Fourth Commandment is first instituted, G-d explains, "because for six days, the L-rd made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and on the seventh day, he rested; therefore, the L-rd blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it." By resting on the seventh day and sanctifying it, we remember and acknowledge that G-d is the creator of heaven and earth and all living things. We also emulate the divine example, by refraining from work on the seventh day, as G-d did. If G-d's work can be set aside for a day of rest, how can we believe that our own work is too important to set aside temporarily?

In Deuteronomy 5:15, while Moses reiterates the Ten Commandments, he notes the second thing that we must remember on Shabbat: "remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the L-rd, your G-d brought you forth from there with a might hand and with an outstretched arm; therefore the L-rd your G-d commanded you to observe the Sabbath day."


http://judaism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shabbos.com

Michael

Tim-

I think the 'thumbs down' rating was in regards to the inaccuracy of the info you presented in your first post.

The Jewish calendar is lunar/solar.  They never add single days in, they add in a leap month (Adar II) about 7 times in 19 years so that the festivals always fall in the same season, otherwise Passover would not be in spring every year, but would rotate around the calendar, just like the Muslim holiday ramadan. If you want it from the horses mouth-
http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm (http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm)

The month being added doesn't change the Sabbath cycle since they still number the days 1-7.

If you still are skeptical, just take Jesus word for it.  His custom was to go to the synagogue every Sabbath-

Lu 4:16 - And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read.

If the Jew's had it wrong, the synagogue would have been empty....

Not to mention, if the Jewish people can't be trusted with the Sabbath, then can we really trust the Scripture they preserved for us?

Chesed

What is that supposted to prove in terms of my post? It is totally irrelavant.

And there is no such think as lunar/solar. Even your link doesn't say that. Your link says it was changed in the 4th century, which has nothing to do with my post. You briefly read the link without understanding it.

Actually, the verse you quoted just adds evidence to what I said, since Christ in our exemplar.

So when you you people meet for worship? Whenever you all get the same urge?

I do keep the Sabbath on the 7th day, the day God sanctified in Genesis 2.

My point in the verse was that if the Jews of Jesus day were keeping the wrong day, then when Jesus kept the Sabbath, he would have done it on the right day, which shows that Biblically, the Sabbath is a certain day (the 7th) and the Jews were keeping the correct day.

Secondly, the link I gave doesn't say the words lunar/solar, but it is implied-

In the fourth century, Hillel II established a fixed calendar based on mathematical and astronomical calculations. This calendar, still in use, standardized the length of months and the addition of months over the course of a 19 year cycle, so that the lunar calendar realigns with the solar years. Adar II is added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the cycle. The current cycle began in Jewish year 5758 (the year that began October 2, 1997).

If it is kept aligned with the solar year, it is also a solar calendar. Hillel just fixed the calendar (made it so they could map it out ahead of time), he didn't change the way they did it.  The real difference was that before Hillel, there was a Sanhedrin, and they would observe the new moon to declare the beginning of the month, and with Hillel, they just used the known lunar cycle to fix the days as 29 or 30.
The bottom line is the months still line up with the cycle of the moon, and the solar year (same seasons).

I don't see how the verse I quoted gives any support to your position, it shows the Messiah honered the Shabbat on the 7th day confirming that the Jews had it on the right day.

We meet on the Seventh day of the week like our Messiah the Lord of the Sabbath.  Even in our culture, we still call Sunday the 1st day of the week, and so do the scriptures. In fact, in the new testament Greek, they number the days "the first day from the Sabbath", "the second day from the Sabbath" etc.  A pity that isn't indicated in the English.

How does the commandment to keep the 7th day holy point to the 1st day of the week?

Chesed

You show a total ignorance of both Biblical law, history and logic. There is no way to prove that the day Christ attended synagogue, the seventh day, corresponds to our Saturday. It didn't, as even the article you posted says the reforms of Hillal didn't come until 4 centuries after Christ.

The Jews adjusted the callendar several different ways during their history, and this included adding extra days without counting them, thus there could be two first day's of the week in a row several times per year.

And as to the argument that somehow our Saturday corresponds to the seventh day of the time of Christ is parochial on your part, as there are other countries where Sunday is the seventh day of the week and Monday the first.

You shouldn't resort to ad hominem attacks because you can't answer my questions.

Historically, the Jews in some number have always kept the Sabbath on the seventh day. And they have been scrupulous at keeping their calendar.


The link I posted didn't say anything about Hillel reforming the calendar, it said he fixed it.


Could you please cite your source?


Again as I said before, if you can't trust the Jewish people to keep the Sabbath on the right day, then how can you trust the Scriptures they preserved?

In France, Sunday is the Seventh day of the week, during the time of Christ and before it varied, as I tried to explain it to you. The founders of the Seventh Day Advenists, World Wide Church of God and other cults now realise they have founded churches based on bad scholarship, parochial attitudes and a lack of even basic, informed research, which is why they aren't as aggressive in promoting it as they used to be.

All religious Jewish communities all over the world keep the same day as a Sabbath, whether in France, Israel, Russia, US, Uganda, etc. Changes in the Gregorian calendar don't affect the Jewish calendar.

You still have not shown documentation that the Jews added in 4-5 days and didn't count them. Could you produce your source please?

I'm not a 7th Day Adventist or a member of the World Wide Church of God. But they seem to be still pretty aggressive about the Sabbath.

I am a Christian who is learning the Jewish roots of my faith and I belong to a Torah community. Many churches are now keeping the Sabbath realizing that Sunday worship is based on centuries of syncretism and flawed hermeneutics.

Once the Beth Din had evidence that the new moon had been seen, (see FIXING THE CALENDAR) a new month was declared to have started, and people would know when to observe festivals. Some were informed by chains of beacons and signal fires; but this system was sabotaged by the Samaritans who lit fires on the wrong nights.8. Then messengers were sent to other towns and villages; 9. but by the time of the Roman period, Jews were living throughout the Roman Empire. Eventually it was decreed that Jews outside of Palestine should observe extra days of festivals in order to be sure of observing the correct date.


http://www.rigal.freeserve.co.uk/jewish/calendar/jcalendar2.htm
There are thousands of references. What, do you think that your small band has been given knowledge hidden to the vast majority of Christians who've lived over the centuries?

Brothers and Sisters,

It's all a completely moot issue. Jesus Christ is LORD over all days, and Jesus Christ is our Sabbath Rest 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One doesn't need a calendar or an appointment to pray and worship Jesus.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Tom I agree, and go back to my original post, when I said that the Lord's Day is basically public, in the sense that a basically God honoring, or nowdays at least a culture that has been influenced by Christianity sets aside a day of rest.

Tim -

Your quote from Mishna Rosh Hashana, showing that some festivals days were kept as a 2 day festival for Jews outside of Jerusalem does not explain what you said in your intial post. Taking a one day festival and celebrating it for 2 days would not have affected the week days, it did not make the 7th day fall on a Thursday, Friday, etc. as you said earlier.

BEP -

You are right that we should be praying and worshiping 24/7. Jesus is our spiritual rest and in Him we can rest from trying to earn our salvation by ourselves. This rest is 24/7.

But the Sabbath day is a physical rest that God asks us not to work, to focus on Him, our families and our communities.

Hebrews 4:9 "So there remains a Sabbath-keeping* for God's people. "

*The word here in the Greek is sabbatismos used only here in the NT. In the Septuagint, the related Greek word "sabbatizein" was coined to translate the Hebrew verb shabbat when it means "to observe the Sabbath." (From David Stern's Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 673.)

My initia post was correct. If the first of Nisan was a Sabbath, and the eighth, fifteenth and so on then you could corelate it with our chalendar. But if the first of Nisan is a Sabbath, and two days ellapse between the first and the second day of Nisan, then you can't corelate the two chalendars unless you had a list of the extra days, and exactly when they fell, from the 4th Century AD backwards till the giving of the Ten Commandments. No such documentation exists, nor will it ever.

We count every day, even leap year's Feb 29th. The Jews didn't during the time between the giving of the Ten Commandments (or posibly before) until the time of Christ.

There are seven days in our week and we count them all. During OT times some weeks had 7 days, some had 8,9 and possibly ten, but only 7 were counted. So on any given year, if we could use a computer to go back, and we had records, some years the seventh day would equate to our Saturday, and some years it wouldn't. It could even vary during a given year.

TimV's original post:

The Sabbath in the Bible isn't on any particular day, e.g. Saturday or Sunday. The purpose is general, and public, so whatever day is used in your particular culture is fine.

The Hebrew callendar was lunar, so they picked 4-5 days each year and just didn't count them, so if you were to make a computer program to trace the days backwards using our callendar, some years it would be on Sunday, some Thursday, etc..

So don't let anyone get you bogged down in whether Saturday or Sunday is the true Sabbath, neither were, but since Sunday is the public holiday in our culture, the Commandment points to this day as the proper day of rest.



I think this is all a good point.

ANd bep's point 'bout Jesus being our 'sabbath rest'.

After all, that's what the whole 'sabbath' was/is about - 'rest.'

'Rest' is very important.   I think that is what Hell is all about - absolutely NO rest - ever.   :-X

Hebrews 3 and 4 talks at length about "entering His rest", mentioning it repeatedly.

You are mistaken Tim,

never would one or two days occur between the 1st and second day of Nissan.  They count the days of the month the same as us, the second day is always the second day, etc.

If you are referring to the practice of waiting till the spotting of the new moon, if the moon was spotted on the day they expected it, then that was declared the 1st day of the month, and all counting went on from there.  If they didn't see the new moon on the day it was expected, then that day became the 30th of the month they were currently in, and the next day was declared a new moon (the 1st of the next month).  No days were ever lost.
We can't necessarily backtrack and find out how many days were in a given month unless we have records on the calendars from that time that recorded when they declared the new moon in a given month, but that doesn't have any affect on the Sabbath, since every week was kept at 7 days.

I don't expect you to take my word as gospel or anything, just find a Jewish forum and ask a rabbi how the calendar works, and how we can be sure that the Sabbath today is the same as it was back then.

-onebook

Brothers and Sisters,

This is really a very foolish matter to contend over. Born again believers are already IN JESUS, Members of His Body, the CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST. Any mature Christian knows this. I could care less about what day of the week it is now, OR what day of the week it was 2500 years ago. I could care less what a Rabbi or a Levite Priest would have to say about the matter, and I certainly don't need a calendar. It would make absolutely no difference at all if a Christian never looked at a calendar again and didn't have a clue what day of the week it was.

Jesus Christ is LORD over all days, we are in HIM, and HE is in us. Here's a clue for those of you who are mired in the law: our heart is HIS Temple. HIS Holy Spirit is ALIVE in us, and we are ALIVE in Jesus. Forget about the sun, the moon, and the stars - a born again Christian blind and in a coma has entered our Sabbath Rest, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour forever. Stop worrying about born again Christians in your family who have Alzheimer's, had strokes, or otherwise lost their mental faculties. They are fine - safe and secure in the mighty hand of Jesus. Here's a final hint:  The Sabbath is Jesus Christ - Not a day.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Nobody cares how modern Jews keep the calendar. Read the whole thread.

There are a few people, mostly modernistic Baptists, who believe the way you do, but to say any mature believer knows this is one of the most arrogant statements that I've heard in my life. You are condeming men of God from Luther to Bunyan to Wycliffe to millions alive today.

One would expect the Jewish people to maintain the tradition they were brought up with, just as the trdition to hoinor God for those of the Gentile branch or even Ephraim who was absorbed by the Gentile nations would follow after their tradition to meet on the Lord's day. Either way, the Bible tells us to not judge the other for the day they keep unto the Lord.

Romans 14:4  Who are you to condemn God’s servants? They are responsible to the Lord, so let him tell them whether they are right or wrong. The Lord’s power will help them do as they should.
5  In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. Each person should have a personal conviction about this matter.
6  Those who have a special day for worshiping the Lord are trying to honor him. Those who eat all kinds of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who won’t eat everything also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God.
7  For we are not our own masters when we live or when we die.
8  While we live, we live to please the Lord. And when we die, we go to be with the Lord. So in life and in death, we belong to the Lord.
9  Christ died and rose again for this very purpose, so that he might be Lord of those who are alive and of those who have died.
10  So why do you condemn another Christian? Why do you look down on another Christian? Remember, each of us will stand personally before the judgment seat of God.

Chalk me in with that few please!



(http://www.rr-bb.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif)  Then you are either very young, or possibly have some maturing to do


(http://www.rr-bb.com/images/smilies/confused.gif)  Which just proves the prior.   There was no condemnation what-so-ever in what was posted.   Truth spoken from the word, in humility I might add.

Grace and Peace!

Amen BEP, I agree completely.  Jesus Christ is our rest and sabbath, and there is no condemnation for those that in that rest.   This sabbath keeping business is getting rather tiring though.... ;)

Grace and Peace!

Brother,

Yes, it is tiring and sad. It's a smoke screen that effectively gets some peoples' eyes off of Jesus and onto themselves. What goes with it is also very sad: Going about trying to establish self-righteousness instead of yielding to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It goes on and on to varying degrees, much denying Jesus Christ and the Cross.

me, me, me
NO! - Jesus Christ!

my righteousness
NO! - The Righteousness of Jesus Christ!

my works
NO! - The Works of Jesus Christ!

Our faith in Jesus Christ is accounted unto us as righteousness. That's a good thing since we have none of our own. We live under the Grace and Love of God - not the Law. If one wants to holler about the law, there is one that we should most definitely be hollering about:


Love In Christ,
Tom

I only have one word to say:

AMEN!!!!!


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I guess I got confused and thought this was on the debate forum, that is why I was 'debating' Sabbath.  I don't blame y'all for being tired of talking about resting in the Sabbath :P

I'll try to keep debates in the debate forum from now on.

Just a parting thought on the Sabbath-
I used to have the same view point, that we have Jesus and focusing on the physical commands was a waste of time because we have the spiritual rest.  Then while reading, praying, and fasting, God called me to enter His Sabbath rest.  At first I resisted, after all, I liked being master of my schedule, I could worship God on the day that suited MY schedule.  I wanted to buy things and travel when it was convinient for me.  The Sabbath rest (in the physical world) distilled in me the meaning of our spiritual rest, and the two testify to the different aspects of our existance.  If we were just spiritual beings, I would agree all we need is the spiritual Sabbath, but since God made our bodies too (and said they are good), He also has physical laws.  What I found was that I learned to have to give up my schedule for His, and work my calendar around God's.  Later He persisted and conquered different areas of my life- what I eat, how I dress, what I say, and what I think.  He asks 10 % of our money, why not ~1/7th of our time?

To clarify so that no one accuses me of relying on my works, I don't do the Sabbath to be saved.  God finished the work of saving me through His Son on the cross.  I do it because it is the least I could do to listen to His voice and live in the footsteps of the Messiah.

-oneBook