DO CHRISTIANS HAVE TO KEEP A SABBATH?

 

In the fifties, when I was a child, Sundays were a day of rest. No shops opened on a Sunday – except for the little corner grocery shop which opened just Sunday morning. Nobody worked on a Sunday unless they were on the TV, or in the emergency services, hospital, pubs and the like. Streets were eerily quiet.

Sunday for us was a day of rest, and many people attended church followed by a traditional Sunday lunch of perhaps roast beef and Yorkshire pudding followed later by tea of salmon sandwiches and cake in the late afternoon. Sunday was for watching the TV, walking in the park, or, if we were especially blessed, a trip to the seaside. All in all, Sunday was the sabbath, a day of rest.

How different today! With shops opening on Sundays, it is one of the busiest days of the week. Perhaps it shows that British people are no longer as religious as they used to be.

But wait! Wasn’t the sabbath to be held on the last day of the week, not the first? How did it change to Sunday? And, come to that, are Christians commanded to keep a sabbath?

The Jewish sabbath was, and still is, on the seventh day of the week, that is Saturday. The keeping of a sabbath was part of the ten commandments. “Remember the sabbath day to keep it sacred. You are to labour and do all your work for six days, but the seventh day is a sabbath to Jehovah your God. You must not do any work . . .” – Exodus 20:8-11.

Do Christians have an obligation to keep the ten commandments?

Many would say yes, and indeed the ten commandments give us a good guide to live by. But the ten commandments are part of the whole Law code given through Moses by God to govern their nation. This ‘handwritten document’ consisted not only of the ten commandments, but also laws dealing with the setting up of the Aaronic priesthood, sacrifices at the tabernacle (later the temple), moral conduct, cleanliness, and the judicial punishment for breaking the Law. Over six hundred laws in all.

It is interesting to note that this Law code ended for Christians when Christ died. Colossians 2:13, 14 tells us: “He kindly forgave us all our trespasses [against the Law] and erased the handwritten document that consisted of decrees and was in opposition to us. He has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the torture stake [or ‘cross’, Authorised Version Bible]. Thus, when Jesus died, the law was fulfilled, and ended.

So we are not obligated to keep the Law, including the ten commandments. If we were, we would be trotting off to Jerusalem every so often to offer an animal as a sacrifice! However, we do learn from the Law that God hates murder, the profaning of his name, idolatry, sexual immorality, adultery, theft, and other things. The Law tells us how Jehovah thinks.

Furthermore, the Bible does not give a command for Christians to set aside one day of the week for rest and worship. Colossians 2 goes on to say in verses 16 and 17: “Therefore, do not let anyone judge you about what you eat and drink or about the observance of a festival or of the new moon or of a sabbath. Those things are a shadow of the things to come, but the reality belongs to the Christ.”

But many Christians still keep Sunday, the first day of the week, as a sabbath. Why Sunday?

In 321CE pagan emperor of Rome, Constantine the Great, made a law: “On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrate and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agricultural work may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain growing or for vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.” – Schaff’s History of the Christian Church, vol. III, chap. 75.

Notice that Constantine called it ‘the venerable day of the sun.’ Hold on! That’s sun worship, isn’t it?

Yes, in ancient Rome, the day of the sun-god (named Sol, from which we get words like solar for sun) was Sunday. Incidentally, the day of the birth of the sun-god was on the day of the winter solstice, December 25^th. But that’s another story.  Sun worship was alive and kicking, and Constantine was obviously a devotee, and he wanted to honour his sun-god on a Sunday. Of course, Christians would not want to get involved in worshipping the sun-god.

Not long after that law was passed, the Catholic church decreed that the first day of the week should become a sabbath observance for Christians. That was at the council of Laodicea, Phrygia Pacatiana in Asia Minor in about 363-364CE when approximately thirty clerics got together to work out the basics of the Catholic church, and particularly the conduct of Catholics. Among the different edicts decided upon, canon 29 states: “Christians must not judaize by resting on the sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.”

The Lord’s day? That was Sunday, the first day of the week. Was it chosen in honour of Jesus being raised from the dead on the first day of the week? Or was it chosen because it was already law that people should rest on the ‘day of the sun’?

So, do Christians have to keep a sabbath? The answer from the Bible is no. But, of course, it is not wrong to set aside one day every week for rest and worship if a person so desires.

Let no-one judge.

A Hurricane Of Love

 

Let’s get a dog, we said. It’ll be fun, we said. Let’s get a puppy.

It’s not exactly as though we are without experience. We’ve had five other dogs, all raised from puppy, so you would think we would be prepared for the onslaught that is Rosie. OK, we are quite a bit older now, but still…

The mistake we always make is that of thinking the new dog is going to be like the old one who just passed away. We miss our old dog; she was easy, and at fourteen, let’s face it, she didn’t have that much energy left.

Enter Rosie, a red (they call it ‘ruby’) cavapoo. Now don’t make the mistake of thinking a fluffy, curly-haired little sweetie. This one has long legs a long snout, and a long body. And is, so far, smooth haired. We think there may be a hint of ‘feathers’ on her legs and tummy, and she certainly has fluffy ears, so we await developments. Not your typical cavapoo, then.

Enter a whirlwind of needle-sharp teeth and hypodermic claws, ideally suited to pulling at clothing, and biting people. We have given up trying to look smart for the time being, reassuring ourselves that it will pass. She’s only a puppy. Currently I have jumpers with threads pulled, a pair of gloves which are wearable only to take the dog for a walk, skirts with pulls and hems unravelled. And people who come to our house wearing good clothes, leave looking just as dishevelled as we do!

So, you’ve seen her picture. Butter wouldn’t melt, right? Wrong! Anything that comes within range is chewable, including lumps of concrete, stones, and pieces of wood from the log store in the garden and the log basket in the house. In no time they are in pieces, and our newly vacuumed floor looks like I haven’t bothered in months! Also coming in for chewing is any item of clothing she can find lying where you just dropped it, and the woollen blankets I have used as protective covers on the sofas. One has a particularly unattractive hole in the centre. And they both have the fringes chewed.

Time passes, and discipline comes into play. Someone suggested a rolled-up newspaper to make a noise. We slapped it (no, not on the dog!) on the furniture. Sudden and absolute obedience! For the first couple of times. Obviously, use sparingly. But it does stop her mugging visitors in the hope of a fuss. As for the teeth, (no, we didn’t have them all pulled out, although the thought did cross my mind!) but we put in place a ‘no teeth on skin’ rule and dumped her unceremoniously on the floor when she broke the rule, with a loud shout of ‘No’ or even ‘Owww!’ as we dived for the box of sticking plasters in the cupboard.

Now she has stopped chewing us, she is quite lovable if she can stay still long enough. Like yesterday. She was so pleased to see me when I came in. I thought we had got the whirlwind greeting out of her system and dared to sit in the easy chair in the kitchen with a cup of coffee when she suddenly launched herself at me and jumped straight onto my lap. Hot coffee sprayed up the white wall, over the little side table, over my lap, and over the dog who, to my shouts of protests, shot into her ‘crate’ and pretended it was nothing to do with her!

She’s nearly four months old now. I take her for walks in the park, where her favourite thing is to mug everyone there for a fuss. I think of the mud stains she dawbs on their clothes, and the pulled threads, too, and try desperately to call her back to me. She comes. Eventually. (She has good recall when she isn’t distracted.) Thankfully, most people are good-natured about it, as they can see she is a puppy, and they all give her some leeway.

I thought, therefore, it would be a good idea to take her to a country lane near where we live where there are hardly any people. And it worked. No people to molest, not near a road. Good, I thought, I’ve cracked it! I found out my mistake when we came to the first muddy puddle, and by the time we got back to the car the mud was half way up the dog. The recent rain had turned the place into a quagmire in places and a marsh in others.

Well, it’s all a work in progress, and she is progressing very well. She learns quickly. The jumping up, though, has to go, so that is something we are still working on.

Someone said recently that puppies are like a whirlwind of love. More like a hurricane of love! Worth it? Oh yes. Most of the time.