Why Sunday

[Esaias]

If Jesus is Lord of all my life, then isn't He Lord of my schedule, too?

[votivesoul]

We are created in the image of God, as His representatives and messengers. We live in imitation of Him. This can mean many things, and I believe sometimes, we get too much of this wrong, but chiefly, the way in which we image God the most, in my opinion, is as creators. The first commandment to Adam and Eve was to reproduce after their kind, that is, create!

The Sabbath of God was a time in which God could, as it were, reflect and enjoy the goodness of all that He had made. Think of it: He knew it was all going to come down soon enough. The serpent, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Eve's deception, Adam's transgression, and thousands of years until the Christ would undo all the undoing of creation.

God resting then, I think, in a manner of speaking, was time taken, as it were, to enjoy the good times, the pure times, the times when all was right with the world and not a single thing was amiss. After Genesis 3, it's not until Revelation 20-21 that all that went wrong gets fixed. How many millennia is that? Who knows for sure.

So, why are we given the Sabbath? As imagers of God, we are creators like Him. We have time enough each week to survey all we have, by His good grace, created, that is, our personal world, our family, our home, our church, our neighborhood, and enjoy it for all it is worth. Because all of it entropies in time. Life doesn't stay great forever. Hurts, pains, sorrows, and losses all come. Tears will be, if not constant, at least consistent.

If you and your family have been able to, by God's good grace, create a good life out of this fallen and ready to pass away world, then take the time you have been given, and cease from your works long enough to really appreciate how wonderful and amazing it is that you've got something good going when the rest of the world lives in hell 24/7.

There's your reason to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Life is too fast, and it passes in blinks of the eye. Set apart the necessary time, week by week, to memorialize it and sanctify it in your hearts, so you can slow life down and really become present in the moment. Our lives are a vapor, our days are like smoke. Sabbath is the means whereby we construct something solid, temporary as the case may be until our mortality puts on immortality, and so, that which is temporary becomes eternally permanent.

Enjoying Sabbath now prepares us for the forever rest we are going to experience then.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

We are created in the image of God, as His representatives and messengers. We live in imitation of Him. This can mean many things, and I believe sometimes, we get too much of this wrong, but chiefly, the way in which we image God the most, in my opinion, is as creators. The first commandment to Adam and Eve was to reproduce after their kind, that is, create!

The Sabbath of God was a time in which God could, as it were, reflect and enjoy the goodness of all that He had made. Think of it: He knew it was all going to come down soon enough. The serpent, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Eve's deception, Adam's transgression, and thousands of years until the Christ would undo all the undoing of creation.

God resting then, I think, in a manner of speaking, was time taken, as it were, to enjoy the good times, the pure times, the times when all was right with the world and not a single thing was amiss. After Genesis 3, it's not until Revelation 20-21 that all that went wrong gets fixed. How many millennia is that? Who knows for sure.

So, why are we given the Sabbath? As imagers of God, we are creators like Him. We have time enough each week to survey all we have, by His good grace, created, that is, our personal world, our family, our home, our church, our neighborhood, and enjoy it for all it is worth. Because all of it entropies in time. Life doesn't stay great forever. Hurts, pains, sorrows, and losses all come. Tears will be, if not constant, at least consistent.

If you and your family have been able to, by God's good grace, create a good life out of this fallen and ready to pass away world, then take the time you have been given, and cease from your works long enough to really appreciate how wonderful and amazing it is that you've got something good going when the rest of the world lives in hell 24/7.

There's your reason to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Life is too fast, and it passes in blinks of the eye. Set apart the necessary time, week by week, to memorialize it and sanctify it in your hearts, so you can slow life down and really become present in the moment. Our lives are a vapor, our days are like smoke. Sabbath is the means whereby we construct something solid, temporary as the case may be until our mortality puts on immortality, and so, that which is temporary becomes eternally permanent.

Enjoying Sabbath now prepares us for the forever rest we are going to experience then.

Hey, that's very good! Excellente!

[votivesoul]

Thanks, Esaias

It seems to me that God's first rest was a climax, a point of culmination, in which that which was formerly formless and void, was now perfectly formed and full, replete with life and hope and goodness.

Imagine if you spent great amounts of time and money and effort building a house, and finally, the day arrives when a barren plot of land is going to be your home, the first thing you might want to do is, have a seat on your sofa, put your arm around your wife, sit your kids on your lap, and bask for a while.

Why is that instinct in us? Why do we like taking a step back and admiring the work of our own hands? Paint a wall and if you've done a good job, you're pleased. Put a crib together getting ready for baby number one, or baby number ten, and you see in yourself the divine spark placed there by God. You are a maker, like Him. You savor those moments. The child comes and you are in awe of God as you see his or her face for the first time, unconditionally in love with someone you have never met, that you and your wife created nine months earlier in the most intimate and powerful and profound relationship you can ever have with another human being.

Rebuild an engine and hear it roar or purr as the case may be, and you can't help but smile. Tag-team a piano down the stairs with your brother and you and he just might high-five each other, glad no one got hurt.

These are the little things we rejoice in every day. All these little life moments where we exercise our capacity to create and reenact and embody our roles as imagers of God. Sabbath is the memorial for all of this. I can think of no good reason why not to take time each week, as a typology for the creation of Genesis 1, to do exactly what God Himself did.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

We are created in the image of God, as His representatives and messengers. We live in imitation of Him. This can mean many things, and I believe sometimes, we get too much of this wrong, but chiefly, the way in which we image God the most, in my opinion, is as creators. The first commandment to Adam and Eve was to reproduce after their kind, that is, create!

The Sabbath of God was a time in which God could, as it were, reflect and enjoy the goodness of all that He had made. Think of it: He knew it was all going to come down soon enough. The serpent, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Eve's deception, Adam's transgression, and thousands of years until the Christ would undo all the undoing of creation.

God resting then, I think, in a manner of speaking, was time taken, as it were, to enjoy the good times, the pure times, the times when all was right with the world and not a single thing was amiss. After Genesis 3, it's not until Revelation 20-21 that all that went wrong gets fixed. How many millennia is that? Who knows for sure.

So, why are we given the Sabbath? As imagers of God, we are creators like Him. We have time enough each week to survey all we have, by His good grace, created, that is, our personal world, our family, our home, our church, our neighborhood, and enjoy it for all it is worth. Because all of it entropies in time. Life doesn't stay great forever. Hurts, pains, sorrows, and losses all come. Tears will be, if not constant, at least consistent.

If you and your family have been able to, by God's good grace, create a good life out of this fallen and ready to pass away world, then take the time you have been given, and cease from your works long enough to really appreciate how wonderful and amazing it is that you've got something good going when the rest of the world lives in hell 24/7.

There's your reason to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Life is too fast, and it passes in blinks of the eye. Set apart the necessary time, week by week, to memorialize it and sanctify it in your hearts, so you can slow life down and really become present in the moment. Our lives are a vapor, our days are like smoke. Sabbath is the means whereby we construct something solid, temporary as the case may be until our mortality puts on immortality, and so, that which is temporary becomes eternally permanent.

Enjoying Sabbath now prepares us for the forever rest we are going to experience then.

What are your thoughts on Galatians 4:1-11?

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Esaias

How is Sunday church service, EVERY Sunday, not "ritualistic" and not making Sunday a day set apart from the other days for corporate worship? In fact, how is footwashing not ritualistic? The Lord's Supper? Baptism? Lifting hands in prayer? Standing for the reading of the Word of God? Altar call at end of just about every service? Greeting one another? Prayer service in the prayer room before the main service? Anointing the sick with oil? Laying on hands for ordination, healing, deliverance, receiving the Holy Ghost? Wearing your Sunday best? And a dozen other things most of us do as Christians?

Also, Paul never said "we are not to keep holy days".

Attending a meeting to hear the word of God is not ritualistic unless we feel the actual day and the mere attending without anything else confers a blessing from God and is considered holy acts.

If that is ritualistic, then picking up a bible to gain revelation from the word makes a ritual out of the act of picking it up physically, and everyone should hush their voices and gaze in silence at the mere act of picking up the bible.

Paul was afraid for them for their observances of days. Observing a day is considering the day to be holy.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

In Galatians 4:10 Paul is directing the readers to not being contentious over the calendar. From what we are reading in Galatians and the other epistles is that the different rabbinical schools could of been making issue concerning the calendar. Yet, the issue wasn't about the seventh day. Romans 14:5 Paul asks that their disputes concerning the calendar be settled in their own minds. while in Colossians 2:16 Paul speaks of the calendar not to be a point of judgement, that Christ had brought all under the power of the cross, and therefore the calendar was a shadow and that the shadow stemmed from the Body which is Christ's. Still my question is, concerning the seventh day isn't it part of the moral law?

I think it's more simple than that.

Gal 3 says the law was an elementary schoolmaster to bring Israel to Jesus. Once Jesus arrived, the day of graduation from the school took place and Paul essentially said, "If we Israelites were not supposed to be under a schoolmaster after Christ arrived, why are you saved Gentiles putting yourselves under our schoolmaster? Stop keeping sabbaths and experience the rest that the sabbath day foreshadowed."

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by mfblume

In Antarctica, sabbath would last WEEKS! That WOULD be a problem! seventh sundown to sundown would be WEEKS where the sun rises and sets after weeks at a time in Antarctica. lol

Originally Posted by mfblume

Yes, exactly. Like the temple. It was in Jerusalem and you had to go there for the three feasts. But now it is spiritually everywhere. Sabbath foreshadowed a universal opportunity for people to rest because it is not based on what time period the sun is in relation to the earth to cause physical days.

Originally Posted by mfblume

I think it's more simple than that.

Gal 3 says the law was an elementary schoolmaster to bring Israel to Jesus. Once Jesus arrived, the day of graduation from the school took place and Paul essentially said, "If we Israelites were not supposed to be under a schoolmaster after Christ arrived, why are you saved Gentiles putting yourselves under our schoolmaster? Stop keeping sabbaths and experience the rest that the sabbath day foreshadowed."

Makes me think of Daniel 2:33-35 where all the occupying forces are consumed by the rock, and all or overwhelmed by the new mountain. Now, the commonwealth of Israel goes from one geographical location to a universal location? Spiritual Israel, spiritual temple, spiritual priesthood, spiritual offerings, and spiritual rest?

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Esaias

If Jesus is Lord of all my life, then isn't He Lord of my schedule, too?

I need a break.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Makes me think of Daniel 2:33-35 where all the occupying forces are consumed by the rock, and all or overwhelmed by the new mountain. Now, the commonwealth of Israel goes from one geographical location to a universal location? Spiritual Israel, spiritual temple, spiritual priesthood, spiritual offerings, and spiritual rest?

Yes!