...If We Listen.
TL;DR – God (YHWH)/Jesus wants Christians and Jews to keep the same Sabbath day Holy, Saturday. Because that is when He rested and that is what He commands us to do. It was not until ~300 years later that it became commonplace for a Sabbath observed on the 1st day of the week, Sunday. No man has authority to overrule scripture. God sets us apart from the rest of the world to be a light unto the world.
This is the story that led up that TL;DR statement and to the blog entry, “I Just Experienced The Holy Spirit”, so if you haven’t read that, I invite you to because it was (and still is) exciting. This was a big event for me and I want to share the Good News, so excuse the lack of brevity with adding the “Side note” expansions (in parenthesis and italicized). The verses that relate to the research will be in tables at the bottom of the blog entry.
On Saturday, God decided to give Teresa, my wife, and I a ‘gentle nudge’ to get back into the Word since it had been a few days. She came in to our office complaining of pain in her abdomen area after moving around some furniture. Instead of diving into internet searches and doctor calling, we decided to do a Bible study.
(Side note: she is a pancreatic cancer warrior and is a little over 1 year out from surgery that removed the cancer. So, since some internal organs are missing, we can’t rely on our own research to figure out what might be the issue.)
We have been reading in the “Gospel of John”, so we prayed asking for healing on Teresa and guidance on what we need to do.
(Side note: over the past few years of our lives, we have been striving to understand God’s will and plan especially when it comes to ‘bad situations’, so we had faith that something would come of this and Teresa’s health was all good.)
We left off in John, chapter 11 verse 1 (NKJV). Well, this raised an eyebrow. The title of the section is “The Death of Lazarus” and the verse is “Now a certain man was sick…”; however, we continued on. 😊Another funny thing happened while I was reading about Jesus raising Lazurus from the dead, we were listening to Newsboys’ “King of Kings” and it was in the verse that starts at 2:25 referencing Jesus’ resurrection. Reminding me that one day we will be with our Father in Heaven and I’ll get to kick it with J.C.
After John 11:25-26 (NKJV), I realized what we needed to research. The verse states, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’
What He said to me after reading this was “Do you believe Me?” and of course I said, “Yes”. Then He said, “Sabbath”. (Again, this is happening on Saturday.)
(Side note: I have not done a lot of research yet, but over the last couple of weeks leading up to this, I have been curious about what is commonly known as Messianic Judaism. I brought this up to Teresa a couple of days ago and she was interested in it, but wanted to concentrate on gaining more general Christian knowledge through more studying first before changing any traditions or customs. With the little knowledge I have, I have a feeling this is The Way we should be living. Messianic Judaism incorporates some of the Jewish traditions along with the evangelism and salvation of Christianity. One of the differences between Judaism and Christianity is when the Sabbath is observed, Saturday verses Sunday.)
As we were studying, we were listening to music and the line “Lion of Judah” from Elevation Worship’s “Lion” is what connected what I am to understand about what God was trying to demonstrate to me and how Messianic Judaism is a ‘bridge’ between Christianity and Judaism. I cannot say this for certain, as it is just a feeling and I still need to do research.
So, we paused on reading John and started jumping around the Bible learning about the Sabbath. In the ‘Subject Index to Annotations and Features’ section of the Study Bible, I looked for ‘Sabbath’. We started at Deuteronomy 5:12-15 then went to Exodus 20:8-11 based on the annotation. After those two verses and annotations, we were convinced that we need to keep the Sabbath day, Saturday, Holy. So, we bowed our heads to pray and then the blog entry, “I Just Experienced The Holy Spirit” occurred.
(Side note: We have not been the best about going to church on Sundays. Which hurts our kids more than us and honestly, we do feel bad that we have done this. We have been trying to make up for it by watching “Superbook” at least once a week and having a family discussion afterwards.)
After that research and after I ‘recovered’ from my experience, Teresa and I had a discussion.
Well, what did God do on the first day, Sunday? He got the Universe ready for the rest of the week of creation. What do we typically do on the first day of the week? We get everything ready for the week. Chores, bedding laundry, regular laundry, daily dishes, errands, and the like.
Saturday, the last day of the week He rested. What do we typically do on Saturdays? Well, me personally, I try to be as lazy as possible, but when I can’t be, I join Teresa in little household projects or I do IT work.
We want to understand and align as much as possible to what we understand as God’s will, so we decided, starting that day, that we would be observing the Sabbath on Saturday. So, for the most part we have the resting part down, but major projects will move to any other day of the week. Now, keep in mind, the Sabbath is not so strict that you cannot do certain ‘works’, so we will let the Holy Spirit guide and convict us on what we believe He considers work. She did stop the furniture movement and I, my IT work for that day. Our church offers a 5:00 pm Saturday service, and we attended that online the same day. We look forward to going out next week and adding a new family routine centered around fellowship and food.
As you can imagine, there are a lot more verses then the ones in the tables below concerning the Sabbath, so I will actually be writing part 3 of my experience with the Holy Spirit, the final blog entry containing the verses I researched after our Sabbath decision.
Book, Chapter, | John 11:25–27, |
NKJV Verse | “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.’” |
Book, Chapter, | Deuteronomy 5:12-15, |
NKJV Verse | “‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” |
Annotation | These verses contain the positive command to regard the Sabbath as holy—separated for God’s purposes. ‘you shall do no work…rest’: On this Lord’s day, the Israelites were to rest from work and celebrate God’s good gifts. ‘remember that you were a slave’: The Israelites were to remember Israel’s past oppression and celebrate their current freedom. Christians differ as to how this commandment relates to believers in Jesus Christ. The Sabbath was Saturday, the 7th day of the week. Christians generally worship God on Sunday, the 1st day of the week, because it was on a Sunday that the Lord rose from the dead. Even so, Christians follow the principle of this command. |
Verses Cross- | Exodus 20:8-11 |
Book, Chapter, | Exodus 20:8-11, |
NKJV Verse | “‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.’” |
Annotation | The fourth commandment, ‘remember the Sabbath day’, was the special sign of the covenant with Israel at Mt. Sianai. With this command, God set Israel apart from its neighbors. Other peoples had their own various patterns of work and rest, but Israel was to set aside one day in seven for rest. The word ‘Sabbath’ means ‘rest’. The day was kept ‘holy’ by ceasing all labor on that day. The Sabbath was specifically ‘the seventh day’, Saturday. It was patterned after the seventh day of rest for God following the six days of creation. During the Sabbath, the Israelites worship God and recalled his deliverance of them from slavery. The observance of the Sabbath included even foreign guests. |
Verses Cross- | Exodus 31:12-18; Deuteronomy 5:15 |
Before I let you go, “My good and faithful servant” was still repeating in my head, so I went to the verse. The following is an excerpt of Jesus telling the Parable of the Talents. I may have found a new favorite verse!
Book, Chapter, | Matthew 25:21, |
NKJV Verse | “His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’” |
God bless and thank you for your time,
Works Cited
- Holy Bible, New King James Version | Thomas Nelson, 1982.
- NKJV Study Bible 3rd edition, New King James Version | Thomas Nelson, 2018.
Saturday, January 27, 2024
Volume 15 Issue 04 (66)
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