Keeping the Sabbath Day
A regular and repeated time of rest
Sabbath-Keeping
Sabbath-keeping is something that we should be doing to enhance and grow our relationship with Christ as Christians.
We see God set the example of Sabbath at the very beginning of creation. “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done” (Genesis 2:2-3).
- Repeated rest that helps us commune and enjoy God and all He has made
- Laid out in the story of creation & the Ten Commandments
- The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath
“Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Matthew 12:9-12
Keeping the sabbath Day
In many cases, the Pharisees made the Sabbath day a burden or took a legalistic approach to keeping it.
“One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain.
The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?
In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
- Mark 2:23-27
God created the Sabbath with the original intent of rest and celebration. Although the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus with fallacies, Jesus himself was the giver of the law.
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