Barry Metz 08/05/18

Sabbath ControversiesMatthew 12:1-14

If you have your Bible this morning, we begin in Matthew 12, verse 1, Matthew 12:1. Follow along as I read verses 1-14.

12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

9 He went on from there and entered their synagogue. 10 And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him. 11 He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

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I’ve titled the message this morning Sabbath Controversies. As we have just read, and you can plainly see, there were controversies about the Sabbath in Jesus’ time. We’ll be exploring that issue this morning. But as I have come to see as I’ve studied this issue over the past weeks, there are controversies regarding the Sabbath today. Some suggest that the right day to worship is still Saturday. Others suggest that the New Testament ‘Sabbath’ has been moved to Sunday and so Sunday is to be a uniquely different day for Christians. And still others believe that the Sabbath idea, the Sabbath principle was fulfilled in Jesus and that our resting in Jesus satisfies any demands on our lives regarding the Sabbath.

We could give a quick focus to the controversies that exist today with this question: Should the fourth commandment influence the way we live as New Testament Christians? Said differently, Is there an abiding significance for us today regarding the fourth commandment?1, the Sabbath commandment? We’ll look at it in a moment.

1 This question from Alister Begg

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My wife and I were talking recently and I brought this issue up and whether she thought that as Christians we should take the Sabbath more seriously. And I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it had this flavor: “Ye,a I sometimes wonder if we’re doing all that we should be doing.” I have to admit I can relate to her response. We would all benefit from some authoritatively sanctioned weekly rest wouldn’t we? We would all benefit from once a week breaking out of our usual routine. Perhaps you feel the same way. Is there something more we owe God regarding the Sabbath principle? Are we doing enough as New Testament believers?

So here’s where we’re headed this morning. We’ll first spend just a few minutes laying a foundation for the Sabbath--what is the Sabbath all about? Then we’ll focus in on the text here in Matthew 12 and explore why Jesus was in such hot water with the Pharisees regarding the Sabbath. And finally then we’ll close out our time by addressing the question, “Should the fourth commandment influence the way we live as New Testament Christians?”

So first let’s lay a foundation for the Sabbath. We’re going to look at several scriptures. Please turn to Genesis 2:2-3

2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Now the repeated comment that God rested doesn’t imply that God was weary from his labor in creation. How do we know? Well God is God--he doesn’t get weary. Isaiah 40:28 The LORD is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of earth, He does not faint or…..grow weary… And practically speaking, in Genesis 1 he spoke everything into existence; he only used his mouth. Now I get tired when I use my mouth but God doesn’t. It didn’t take any effort to create everything we see and know.

If that’s the case, if God wasn’t really tired, then why the emphasis on His resting? Well I suppose we could argue that God rested as an example for us. “I don’t really need to rest but having worked six days I’m going to rest so that you will see that you need to rest after six days of work” …kind of like a mother laying down with her young child at nap time; she doesn’t need the nap but it’s good example for her child. I suppose that could be the reason why God rested. But I’m intrigued by another idea that’s been suggested--God’s resting “hints at the purpose of creation.”2

What that would mean is that ‘resting’ is possibly one of the biggest ideas in the scriptures… that it’s God’s loving purpose for his creation in which the earth would be a temple of sorts and God’s people would live in his presence and that would be rest.

2 ESV Study Bible notes, page 52

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{If you were with us when we walked through Genesis we made the point that when Adam was put in the garden, he worked it and kept it3…..words that were later used of the work that the priests and Levites performed in the tabernacle, priestly work. } Adam and Eve had rest in the temple garden in God’s presence.

Now we know that because of sin, Adam and Eve were forced to leave the garden, the garden temple, and God’s rest for Adam and Eve, and all men and women after that, disappeared. I suppose we could then say that the remainder of the Bible tells the story of God’s plan to return his people to the rest he created them for.

Before we leave Genesis 2:2-3, let me highlight a point. Those who believe that the Sabbath has been moved to Sunday and that we as Christians owe God Sabbath observance, use Genesis 2:2-3 to make the point that the Sabbath command is a creation ordinance and therefore it applies to all people, religious and unreligious, Jewish and Gentile. In other words the point is--the Sabbath was made special by God before, way before, there was a Jewish people so it applies to everyone who has ever been born.

{The rejoinder to that is there is no command here in Genesis 2:2-3. And secondly, in the remainder of the scriptures, the Sabbath seems to be an exclusive badge of Judaism. There’s not an emphasis on getting Gentiles to keep the Sabbath.}

The next place the Sabbath shows up is as the fourth commandment in the Ten Commandments.

Turn to Exodus 20:8–11

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Now let’s highlight that the Sabbath command is deeply rooted in the Ten Commandments. Command number 4 is firmly lodged between three and five. And aren’t the Ten Commandments what some call the moral law? And isn’t the moral law the part of the law that never goes away? Perhaps you can begin to imagine someone using these verses to justify the argument that the fourth commandment should still be influencing our lives as New Testament Christians. (It’s part of the moral law and the moral law doesn’t go away!)

3 Genesis 2:15

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{But the rejoinder is that the Ten Commandments are part of the covenant that God made with Israel specifically AND, you’ve probably heard this, nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament; one commandment isn’t. Which one isn’t? The Sabbath command.}

Now why according to Exodus 20:8-11 is the Sabbath given? It’s to help the people of Israel remember that God ceased from his labor after creating everything. Maybe we could say it this way: The people of Israel were to celebrate the Sabbath--and I’ve chosen that word carefully…the Sabbath was to be celebrated--perhaps we could imagine Jesus and his disciples walking through the grain fields, plucking the grain off the stalk, rubbing it between their hands, throwing the husks at each other as carefree as they could be, celebrating that God created the world in six days and entered his rest.

Now what do I mean by the phrase ‘entered his rest’? Let me explain. At the end of day 1, there’s this refrain--And there was evening and there was morning the first day. At the end of day 2, there’s this refrain--And there was evening and there was morning the second day. And so it is for day 3, day 4, day 5 and day 6. But when we get to day 7, what’s the refrain? There’s not one. The implication is that the seventh day never ended. God entered his rest and he’s still resting. And his purpose for creation is that we would one day enter his rest; it’s his rest we are invited to enter. So fast forward to Jesus’ words last week in Matthew 11, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” We find rest in Jesus, and I’m tipping my hand, Jesus fulfills the Sabbath.

Now an interesting thing happens when the Ten Commandments are repeated in Deuteronomy 5. Turn there. We get to the fourth commandment, the Sabbath command, in Deuteronomy 5, verse 12 and everything is pretty much the same except that the reason to remember and celebrate the Sabbath is different in verse 15.

Deuteronomy 5:15 --15 You shall 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.

So as they celebrated the Sabbath they were to remember that God was their mighty redeemer.

So putting them together, Ex. 20:8-11 and Deut. 5:12-15, when the Jews were to celebrate the Sabbath they were to remember God the creator who entered his rest AND they were to remember God their mighty redeemer.

One more kind of background, foundational verse. Let’s look at it on the screen…..Isaiah 58:13-14a

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Two ideas from this verse--first, the verses offer a beautiful promise for those Jews who would honor and keep the Sabbath…I will make you ride on the heights of the earth… But secondly, it helps us understand what it originally meant to not work. Work was what you normally did during the week, the forty to fifty hours a week. If you were a mechanic during the week, then not working would mean not being a mechanic….if you were an artist during the week then on the Sabbath you were not to do art. How about the disciples? They weren’t normally farmers who sowed and reaped and harvested and so doing what they were doing in the grainfields wasn’t what they normally did 40-50 hours a week--so technically they weren’t working. See the phrase at the end of verse 13 on the slide not pursuing your own business. (those words are in parentheses because they are from the margin). Again one honored the Sabbath when he didn’t pursue his own business.

So in this first part of the message we’ve looked at some of the foundational verses regarding the Sabbath. We’ve looked at Genesis 2:2-3 where God finished his work and entered his rest and where God blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. We highlighted that some make a big deal that the Sabbath principle is a creation ordinance--that the Sabbath applies to everyone, Jew and Gentile alike. We looked at two of the places that Sabbath commandment shows up in the list of Ten Commandments, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 and highlighted that the Jews when they celebrated the Sabbath were to remember God the creator who entered his rest AND they were to remember God their mighty redeemer who delivered them out of Egypt. And then we looked at Isaiah 58:13 where we saw a beautiful promise for those who honored the Sabbath but we also saw that ‘resting’ may have meant not pursuing your normal business.

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Well with those foundation ideas on the Sabbath in mind, let’s look at the passage here in Matthew 12…

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In verse 1, Jesus and his disciples are strolling through the grainfields on the Sabbath and because they are hungry, they began plucking heads of grain for a snack of sorts. The scene is

innocent enough. And we should make the point that what the disciples are doing is lawful. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 23:25 on the screen…

The problem isn’t with the what that the disciples were doing--the law made provision for one to go into his neighbor’s standing grain and have a snack. He couldn’t go into his neighbor’s field with a combine harvester or a large wagon or a sickle but he could use his hands and like I

said have a snack. No the problem wasn’t with the what that they were doing, but it was with

the when. It was the Sabbath when no one was to work.

And out of nowhere the Pharisees pop up.

Now the Pharisees didn’t wear double breasted suits and fedoras, but they were overly vigilant

about infractions against the Law-- that which was written in the Old Testament-- and they

were vigilant about infractions against the oral law, that which was accreted, that which was

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added by the religious leaders. Let me see if I can illustrate the why people were burdened and heavy laden before Jesus stood up with his offer of rest with this slide.

So at the top of this slide, you see the line, “No work on the Sabbath.” And then at the bottom of the slide, “But what constitutes work?” The entire blue area on the slide represents the entire area we would call ‘work.’ The individual boxes refer to specific written commands in God’s word regarding work on the Sabbath: You couldn’t kindle a fire in your house on the Sabbath (Ex. 35:3); you couldn’t sell goods (Nehemiah 13:15-22); you couldn’t plow or harvest (Ex. 34:21); you couldn’t pursue your own interests on the Sabbath (Isaiah 58:13). This is the verse we looked at on the screen a few minutes ago; you couldn’t carry a load on the Sabbath (Jeremiah 17:21-22). How many specifics are there? Five! Only five.

What about the boxes with question marks? Well they represent all the areas of work that aren’t addressed specifically in the Old Testament scriptures. Are you following? Are you getting the picture that there were a host of areas that the Old Testament scriptures didn’t speak to? That there were probably a lot of things that would fall under the category of ‘work’ but they weren’t addressed?

Well the religious leaders felt the need to speak into that silence. In their way of thinking, there weren’t enough specifics to really help people (or to help God to make sure the Sabbath wasn’t desecrated).

So they began to decide what constituted work, they began to decide what work shouldn’t be done on the Sabbath. So to fill up the blue space on the screen, so to speak, to make it really specific so that no one would even come close to desecrating the Sabbath by working, they came up with 39 ‘main classes of work’ which could not be performed on the Sabbath. And this oral law was compiled and contained in what’s called the Mishnah. A body of oral tradition took shape to flesh out ‘What is work?’ The first three areas of work not allowed on the Sabbath in the Mishnah were ‘sowing, plowing, and reaping.’ AND somewhere in the list are these others:

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--You could walk 5 steps on the Sabbath, but you had to have a rest before you could take a sixth step

--Women couldn’t have ribbons in their hair because that would be carrying a burden

-- You couldn’t drag a stick on the ground because that would be akin to plowing.

-- If you saw a gray hair in a mirror you couldn’t pluck it out on the Sabbath because that would be akin to reaping.4

And in view of all this we hear Jesus in the background crying out to the Jewish people and Gentiles alike, “Come to me all who labor under the crushing load of religious rules and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

Indeed even the Mishnah itself laments, “the rules about the Sabbath…..are as mountains hanging by a hair, for (teaching of) Scripture (thereon) is scanty and the rules many.”5

Do you hear that? Little scripture, many rules. You realize, don’t you, that that’s the heart of legalism….little scriptures, many rules.

Let’s go back to the picture of the Pharisee with their binoculars….

So they’re watching the disciples pluck the heads of grain and eat them as they pass through the grainfields. And they begin to tally the infractions:

“They’re plucking the grain…that’s reaping!” Strike 1!!!!! “They’re rubbing the heads to separate the grain from the husks6….that’s threshing! Strike 2!!!!! “They are blowing away the husks”….that’s winnowing!” Strike 3!!!!!

Look Jesus! Your disciples are doing what’s not lawful to do on the Sabbath!4 From a Allister Begg Sermon5 Hag. 1:18 as quoted by Morris6 Luke tells us that they did this

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{We laugh at that but many of us are Pharisees at heart. We’re busy inspecting others’ lives all the time. “Why are they doing that?” “Don’t they know it’s wrong to do that?” “These are the rules. Why aren’t they following the rules?” We can be quick to jump out and confront people at every intersection, “Why are you doing that?’

And when we add requirements to the requirements that God has set forth in his written word, we pervert God’s law, we impugn God’s wisdom, basically saying we are wiser than God, and we usurp God’s authority.7

Now there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with ritual, regulations and rules. But over time ritual and rules can easily swamp what is vital and real. 8

Well how did Jesus respond? Verse 3 and 4: Haven’t you read in your Bibles what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

Jesus references a story from I Samuel 21, where David and his men were on the run from Saul. And David came to the priestly city of Nob where the tabernacle was located. David asked the high priest, Ahimelech, if there was some bread for him and his men because they were famished. Ahimelech responded that there was no ordinary bread but only holy bread--the 12 loaves of bread that had just been taken out of the holy place because it was the Sabbath.

So this was bread that the priests (and the priests alone) lay before the LORD in the tabernacle once a week on the Sabbath. One week later, on the next Sabbath, they replaced the 7-day old bread with fresh bread on the table and then they, the priests (and the priests alone) were allowed to eat the bread that had been removed from the table; the bread belonged to Aaron and his sons.9 7 Allister Begg8 Don Carson9 Leviticus 24:5-9

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Well David and his men ate the bread and it was unlawful for them to eat it. “Eating the loaves was a priestly prerogative--laymen were not allowed to (have) it.10”

By eating the bread, David and his men broke the law…but the scripture… never… condemns… him. “Haven’t you read about that?” we can hear Jesus asking each of the Pharisees. “Haven’t you read about that?”

How do we reconcile this that David was guiltless when he did this? I think that one of the issues here is that our faith can’t be reduced to rules alone. There’s context at times. There are other considerations that come into play.11

Secondly I think we could say that our faith sometimes observes a hierarchy of values. And in this case, the need to satisfy hunger overrode a liturgical provision in the Law.12 I found myself wondering if the Bible has other examples of this. What about the midwives in Exodus 1? Didn’t they lie to save lives? And didn’t God commend them?

So Jesus is making a case using a well-known rabbinic argument--the light and the weighty. “If something was true for the ‘light,’ then how much more would it be true for the ‘weighty’.”13

If it’s true for David then it’s surely true for the Son of David.

“If one can justify David’s actions in the light of his special circumstances and the dignity of his person, how much more are the actions of Jesus’ disciples justified in light of the (end times) circumstances surrounding Jesus’ kingly presence?

Said differently, if David and his men were justified in transgressing the letter of the Law, how much more are Jesus and his disciples justified in ignoring mere scribal tradition?”14

Jesus gives a second example in verse 5-6…. 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, that something greater than the temple is here.

Jesus’s point with this second example is that the priests are forced to work every Sabbath and yet they are guiltless. Let’s look at Numbers 28:9-10, which describe the special Sabbath sacrifices, on the screen.

10 Morris11 Chouinard, “Given the special circumstances of David’s predicament (his flight from Saul), along with the dignity of the special role he was to occupy on behalf of the nation (anointed king) his technical breach of the Law must be seen in the light of broader circumstances. For the sake of the greater good (i.e., the preservation of David) the letter of the Law cannot always be rigidly enforced. Not only must discernment of God’s will take into consideration higher priorities, the Law of God cannot be interpreted in isolation, but must be understood in light of God’s total will.12 Morris13 Morris14 Chouinard

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So what’s Jesus’ point? Don’t the priests profane the Sabbath by working every Sabbath? And yet they’re guiltless, how come? Again the assumption is that there is a hierarchy of values….that sacrificial service supersedes the Sabbath. And Jesus seems to be making the point that the Jewish religious leaders have created a Sabbath of their own making--a Sabbath that isn’t biblical!

I tell you, verse 6, that something greater than the temple is here.

“What God was doing in the sending of Jesus far surpassed what he did in setting up temple worship.”15

Jesus’s point seems to be that temple service superseded the Sabbath. And there was something right under the Pharisee’s noses that was way more important than the Temple. So the Sabbath wasn’t as important as they made it to be. Temple service superseded the Sabbath. And the Pharisees were in the very presence of one who was more important than the temple. So do you see the hierarchy? Jesus was more important than the temple which was more important than the Sabbath.

Don Carson says, “Real Christianity finds all the light of revelation coming to a sharp focus in Jesus Christ.” The temple pointed to Jesus. The Sabbath I believe pointed to Jesus.

Jesus continues in verse 7, And if you had known what this means, verse 7, I desire mercy and not sacrifice--that’s Hosea 6:6-- you would not have condemned the guiltless.

In quoting Hosea 6:6, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, what is Jesus saying? He’s saying that the practice of sacrifice should not compare in importance with the practice of mercy. He’s saying that the practice of compassion should distinguish the people of God instead of an over-the-top ultracareful focus on obeying rules.16

Come to me, Jesus said, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

15 Morris16 Morris, “It is the practice of compassion that should distinguish the people of God rather than the punctilious observance of outward regulations, no matter how sacred.”

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This is an important thought. We are the people of God. How do people, how do outsiders ‘taste’ us? What’s out there on our leading edge? God says that it needs to be mercy rather than fastidious rule keeping.

Verse 8 For the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.

What does this mean?It means that Jesus is the Sabbath’s superior.It means that Jesus is the Sabbath’s master.It means that the Sabbath serves Jesus. And I believe the Sabbath ultimately points to Jesus. So we must come to him, who is the LORD of the Sabbath, to find our rest in him.17

More on that as we answer the question ‘Should the fourth commandment be influential in our lives as New Testament believers?” in a few minutes.

Well, verse 9, Jesus went on from there and entered their synagogue. And a man was there with a withered hand, literally a ‘dried up hand’ ….he was probably paralyzed. And they asked Jesus, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” so that they might accuse him.

So it would seem that this situation is a setup. The religious leaders have purposely staged this interaction so that they might accuse Jesus.

It’s interesting to me that they believe that Jesus can heal the man. And that means nothing to them. They’ve got one purpose and one purpose alone--they’re out to catch Jesus healing on the Sabbath, doing what they think is the wrong thing.

Now first century Jews discussed at length what was and was not lawful in caring for the sick on the Sabbath. And the general consensus was that you could heal or engage the sick 1) to prevent death or 2) to relieve extreme pain. Otherwise the ‘work’ of healing was to take place on the next day.

Well was this the case here in Matthew 12 with the man with the withered hand? No. Was the man going to die? Probably not. Was he in extreme pain? It doesn’t seem like it. There’s no evidence of extreme pain and it seems likely that he would have lived another day. So in the minds of the religious leaders Jesus was going to be found guilty.

Well, verse 11, Jesus counters with a question of his own. “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? The answer was easy. This was an underhand pitch. Every religious leader there would have lifted his sheep out of the pit on the Sabbath, no questions asked.

17 Don Carson

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12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

If it was acceptable to help a sheep in trouble on the Sabbath, wasn’t it right to help a man on the Sabbath? Of course!!! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

Then he said to the man, verse 13, Stretch out your hand. And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

There’s such irony here. Jesus has just done a stunning miracle, but the Pharisees can’t even acknowledge it; they could care less. Instead they gave themselves to evil --how can we destroy this Jesus?--on the Sabbath.

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Now I mentioned at the beginning of the message that there was controversy about the Sabbath today. I said that some suggest that the right day to worship is still Saturday. That would be our Seventh Day Adventist friends. Others suggest that the New Testament ‘Sabbath’ has been moved to Sunday and so Sunday is to be a uniquely different day for Christians. Allister Begg, one of my favorite preachers, is one who would fall in this category. He argues that we as New Testament Christians do have an obligation to follow the 4th commandment but on Sunday. I’m sure there are others in that category. Those in this camp, the Sunday Sabbath folks, emphasize that the Sabbath principle is a creation ordinance and it’s binding on believers and unbelievers alike. And they emphasize that because the 4th commandment is ‘moral law’ then it’s binding for believers even today. Now as a church--at least by the way we practice our faith, whether you knew it or not we fall in the camp of those who believe that the Sabbath idea, the Sabbath principle, was fulfilled in Jesus and that our resting in Jesus satisfies any demands on our lives regarding the Sabbath.

Let me buttress that thought with a few reasons (you’ll see them on the back of your sermon notes).

1. I think you can make a good case that the rest that God entered at the end of creation, and the weekly Sabbath rest that the Jewish people were commanded to undertake, and the rest that the people of Israel entered when they entered the Promised Land, and I’m quoting Don Carson here, “all point, finally, pervasively, deeply to the rest that God’s people enter when they put aside their works, their self-confidence, their self-conceit and (find their rest in Jesus)”. (Those last words were a quote from Don Carson)

The Sabbath was fulfilled in Jesus and we enter God’s rest not by keeping a New Testament Sabbath but we enter God’s rest when we put our faith in Christ and have our sins forgiven. The Sabbath was a shadow that pointed to Christ and we longer need the pointer.

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Listen to Colossians 2:16-17…. 16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

2. The Sabbath was a sign of the Mosaic Covenant. We, as New Testament believers, are no longer required to observe the sign of the Mosaic Covenant.

3. The New Testament never commands Christians to obey the Sabbath.

4. In Romans 14:5 Paul forbids those who observe the Sabbath (probably Jewish believers) to condemn those who don’t (probably Gentile believers).

5. Galatians 4:10 would seem to say that observing the ceremonial days like the Sabbath is to miss the mark.

6. The apostle Paul in his various letters warns believers about many sins, but breaking the Sabbath was not one of them.

Now each of us can have different convictions about how we spend our Sundays. Some of us might conclude that we would like to get more physical rest. Or worship more. Or do more good on Sundays.

“We can disagree about how the Old Covenant principle of one day in seven be observed today. What we must not disagree on is that the ultimate and deepest fulfillment is in the rest that we have in Jesus Christ.”18

Let us pray.

18 Carson

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