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Consider the Sabbath

A Jewish believing friend alerted me to a very important issue about a year ago, which is the way we honor the Sabbath.  As she said, it is one of the Ten Commandments - and they are called the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions.

Exodus 20:8-11
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Jehovah thy God: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Now our culture is predicated on a 24/7 business schedule, which allows no one a legal day of rest.  People born before around 1965 will probably remember that it used to be a law in most states throughout the U.S, that businesses were closed on Sunday.  You couldn’t even buy gasoline or go to a restaurant in respect of the Sabbath.

Mark 2:27:
Jesus said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” We all need the rest.  But slowly a culture that denied the Sabbath crept into place.

Jesus also said:  
Luke 13:15:  “But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him?”
The “labor” question is perhaps not about physical exertion - but rather to abstain from labor in the sense of commerce.  This is because it is the day we revere the One from whom all our goods and money come and meditate on our faith in Him to sovereignly supply all our needs.  

Or consider the conflict about engaging in commerce in Nehemiah:

Nehemiah 13:15 In those days I saw in Judah some who were treading wine presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys, as well as wine, grapes, figs and all kinds of loads, and they brought them into Jerusalem on the sabbath day. So I admonished them on the day they sold food. 16 Also men of Tyre were living there who imported fish and all kinds of merchandise, and sold them to the sons of Judah on the sabbath, even in Jerusalem. 17 Then I reprimanded the nobles of Judah and said to them, "What is this evil thing you are doing, by profaning the sabbath day? 18 " Did not your fathers do the same, so that our God brought on us and on this city all this trouble? Yet you are adding to the wrath on Israel by profaning the sabbath." 19 It came about that just as it grew dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and that they should not open them until after the sabbath. Then I stationed some of my servants at the gates so that no load would enter on the sabbath day. 20 Once or twice the traders and merchants of every kind of merchandise spent the night outside Jerusalem. 21 Then I warned them and said to them, "Why do you spend the night in front of the wall? If you do so again, I will use force against you." From that time on they did not come on the sabbath

Or what Isaiah says:
Isaiah 58:13-14
13 "If you keep from desecrating the Sabbath, from doing whatever you want on My holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, seeking your own pleasure, or talking too much; 14 then you will delight yourself in the Lord, and I will make you ride over the heights of the land, and let you enjoy the heritage of your father Jacob."
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Consider the Sabbath in the U.S., where people bail out of church and head for Wal-Mart, buy gasoline to get to and from this and that, and some are forced to head for their jobs.  

The Sabbath, in the U.S., is in the gutter.  Even Christians do absolutely anything and everything on the Sabbath.  Or how many wealthy/privileged people do you know who are compelled to spend Sunday in the office?  But we as Christians go to the waffle house after church, just look at who brings out the brunch and waits the tables - the poor, by the nature of commerce and law of the land, are worked to death - on the Sabbath.  Any Islamic society puts the U.S. to shame for reverence.

So, are we sick of the culture of commercialism?  How about a radical alternative - honor the Sabbath and abstain from commerce and work for a day meant to honor God?  This should even be available to every person whether a believer or not:  

Matthew 5:16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Shalom.

Cactusflower,

This topic has been beat to death from every point of view in numerous and lengthy threads already on the forum.

For now, I'll simply say that those who love JESUS are already in HIS REST. JESUS is our sabbath rest 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. JESUS is also LORD over all days, all minutes, and all seconds. This is only one of the many reasons and results of the CROSS.

The Jewish Sabbath under the Law was only a shadow of what was to come, JESUS CHRIST!

Maybe you will wish to revive one of the many massive threads that are already on the forum. If you have any trouble finding them, let me know.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 10:4  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

Colossians 2:8  Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Colossians 2:9  For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Colossians 2:10  And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
Colossians 2:11  In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
Colossians 2:12  Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
Colossians 2:13  And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Colossians 2:14  Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Colossians 2:15  And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Colossians 2:16  Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Colossians 2:17  Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

Teach us then, how would you disable the other nine commandments?

You have a lot of scholarship distinguishing the singular Sabbath from plural sabbaths in the passage you quote.  Here are some views which would contradict your view, and enhance the Aramaic:

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/JamiesonFaussetBrown/jfb.cgi?book=col&chapter=2#Col2_16  (Jamieson, Fausset, Brown)


the sabbath--Omit "THE," which is not in the Greek (compare Note, SABBATHS" (not "the sabbaths") of the day of atonement and feast of tabernacles have come to an end with the Jewish services to which they belonged (Leviticus 23:32,37-39). The weekly sabbath rests on a more permanent foundation, having been instituted in Paradise to commemorate the completion of creation in six days. Leviticus 23:38 expressly distinguished "the sabbath of the Lord" from the other sabbaths. A positive precept is right because it is commanded, and ceases to be obligatory when abrogated; a moral precept is commanded eternally, because it is eternally right. If we could keep a perpetual sabbath, as we shall hereafter, the positive precept of the sabbath, one in each week, would not be needed. Hebrews 4:9, "rests," Greek, "keeping of sabbath" (Isaiah 66:23). But we cannot, since even Adam, in innocence, needed one amidst his earthly employments; therefore the sabbath is still needed and is therefore still linked with the other nine commandments, as obligatory in the spirit, though the letter of the law has been superseded by that higher spirit of love which is the essence of law and Gospel alike (Romans 13:8-10).

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/MatthewHenryConcise/mhc-con.cgi?book=col&chapter=2#Col2_16  Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
on the Whole Bible

The first day of the week, or the Lord's day, is the time kept holy by Christians, in remembrance of Christ's resurrection. All the Jewish rites were shadows of gospel blessings.

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/RobertsonsWordPictures/rwp.cgi?book=col&chapter=2&verse=16
Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament
For the Jewish feasts see on "Ga 4:10". Josephus (Ant. III. 10, 1) expressly explains the "seventh day" as called "sabbata" (plural form as here, an effort to transliterate the Aramaic sabbathah).

Cactusflower,

I have no desire to argue this topic with you. It's already argued from just about every conceivable view in several existing areas of the forum. So read those areas. If you have any problem finding them, let me know. Someone else on the forum might want to discuss ground with you that has already been covered an untold number of times, but I don't.

The below and many other answers are already posted on the forum in much greater detail, but this should 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.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 3:24  Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Actually, in the Hebrew they are called the "Ten Sayings."


But Sunday has never been the Shabat.(Mat 28:1)  In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.

As we all know Iesus is said to have risen upon Sunday.








(Exo 35:3)  Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath-day.