This Dutch website shuts down on the Lord’s Day

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Seeking_Thy_Kingdom

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Dear visitor,

Due to Lord’s Day observance our website is closed from Saturday evening until Monday morning.
On all other times you are most welcome.

Have a blessed Sunday!
 
Zondagsheiliging = "Sunday holy-ing"

Dutch is such a lovely language. One of these days I'm going to sit down and learn it.
 
I know Facebook groups that do this, too, but I find it annoying. We read signs on Sunday, and websites are often nothing more than signs. We can talk to others in conversation on Sunday, so why not a Facebook group. Do we refuse to speak on the phone on Sunday as well?
 
But if it were secular it could stay up? It seems ironical that a church would close access to religious info on Sunday but would be okay with secular info being up.
You might be missing his point.
 
But if it were secular it could stay up? It seems ironical that a church would close access to religious info on Sunday but would be okay with secular info being up.

I suspect the people behind this decision probably think that both secular and religious websites should be closed on the Lord's Day. For reasons that you mentioned earlier, it does not make very much sense for websites dealing with spiritual matters to be closed on the very day that people should have more leisure to use them.
 
Zondagsheiliging = "Sunday holy-ing"

Dutch is such a lovely language. One of these days I'm going to sit down and learn it.
The long prayer in the Dutch liturgy is beautiful, I was in the Netherlands a few weeks ago and went to my first traditional Dutch Reformed service, the prayer was almost 10 minutes long.
 
The TBS store also closes on the Sabbath. I appreciate that (although the time zone difference makes it ever so slightly inconvenient for me).
 
Question: I know quite a few churches who operate bookstores out of their church. If they close on Sunday then this is sometimes the only day some congregants are near the church building. They've got to work during the work and are not near the church to ever buy a book there, and the store is closed on Saturdays. So how do these churches handle their bookstores (besides just giving away the books for free and hope donations cover the costs)?
 
Question: I know quite a few churches who operate bookstores out of their church. If they close on Sunday then this is sometimes the only day some congregants are near the church building. They've got to work during the work and are not near the church to ever buy a book there, and the store is closed on Saturdays. So how do these churches handle their bookstores (besides just giving away the books for free and hope donations cover the costs)?
Our church sells books at or below cost. We do this at loss to the church each year. We give away as much as we sell. We do not view it as a commercial enterprise with goal of turning a profit but rather an effort to get good books into the hands of our folks. It is a supplement to our teaching ministry. And you are right. If we refused to do this on the Lord's day, there would be very little reason to continue it seeing that is the time when we are together at the meetinghouse.
 
I know Facebook groups that do this, too, but I find it annoying. We read signs on Sunday, and websites are often nothing more than signs. We can talk to others in conversation on Sunday, so why not a Facebook group. Do we refuse to speak on the phone on Sunday as well?

Yes we should abstain from phone calls on the Sabbath except in cases of necessity. Going on the internet is not necessary on the Sabbath.
 
I can appreciate why a book seller would close its site for business on the Lord's day. But for a church, it seems down-right counter productive. The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland does this. I think it's silly.

Our church sells books at or below cost. We do this at loss to the church each year. We give away as much as we sell. We do not view it as a commercial enterprise with goal of turning a profit but rather an effort to get good books into the hands of our folks. It is a supplement to our teaching ministry. And you are right. If we refused to do this on the Lord's day, there would be very little reason to continue it seeing that is the time when we are together at the meetinghouse.

This is just trying to justify a practice already engaged in. There is no reason to be selling or distributing books to the congregation on the Sabbath. This is breaking the Sabbath. The only work to be done on the Sabbath is that which is of necessity and mercy (and it must be necessary). Selling or distributing books on the Sabbath is not necessary. If people can't be bothered going to get spiritual books during the rest of the week I doubt their interest in such books to begin with.

People seem to think the Sabbath is the day on which one dumps all one's spiritual duties and activities. This is wrong. The Sabbath is for particular things, laid down in Scripture. It is the Lord's Day. It is not there to make it more convenient for us to buy Christian books. Or to sell Christian books.

Another example of special pleading for and "baptising" practices which would have been unthinkable on the Sabbath a couple of generations ago.
 
Yes we should abstain from phone calls on the Sabbath except in cases of necessity. Going on the internet is not necessary on the Sabbath.

Naw. You talk to people on Sunday right?

Maybe you should file out of church and go straight home without talking to anyone. The phone is just a tool to use to talk.

It is overly rigid sentiments like this which makes people dislike the Sabbath.
 
Naw. You talk to people on Sunday right?

Maybe you should file out of church and go straight home without talking to anyone. The phone is just a tool to use to talk.

It is overly rigid sentiments like this which makes people dislike the Sabbath.

No it's hatred for Christ and spiritual things which make people dislike the Sabbath.

Talking to people in the same congregation is not the same as phoning someone in a different loaction. Conversation on spiritual matters is encouraged on the Sabbath, but better to do it with those who have been under the same preaching. One can easily phone a friend in a different location on Monday to discuss the sermon heard the day before. It doesn't have to be on the Sabbath. The conversation will be far more profitable with someone who heard the same sermon. It would be different if one is phoning a member of the same congregation who is housebound. That is an act of mercy and is done. But conversations with people in far off locations are not necessary.
 
No it's hatred for Christ and spiritual things which make people dislike the Sabbath.

Talking to people in the same congregation is not the same as phoning someone in a different loaction. Conversation on spiritual matters is encouraged on the Sabbath, but better to do it with those who have been under the same preaching. One can easily phone a friend in a different location on Monday to discuss the sermon heard the day before. It doesn't have to be on the Sabbath. The conversation will be far more profitable with someone who heard the same sermon. It would be different if one is phoning a member of the same congregation who is housebound. That is an act of mercy and is done. But conversations with people in far off locations are not necessary.

The Book of First Opinions.
 
It is the Bible Book you are referencing. Your own opinions. I see no such rule in Scripture that conversations within the congregation are allowed but a conversation by phone is disallowed.

That's because you're evaluating it in terms of conversations when it's the phone call itself which is at issue. Using the phone is a work. One must determine whether its use, therefore, is one of necessity and mercy. Phoning a friend on the Sabbath, even to talk about spiritual things, is not necessary therefore it is not allowed. Spiritual conversation with those one has been in worship with (i.e. those one would be in company with on the Sabbath) is something else. Such conversation is to be encouraged. However one should not converse with these people about worldly things which are to be left for the other 6 days of the week.
 
Selling or distributing books on the Sabbath is not necessary. If people can't be bothered going to get spiritual books during the rest of the week I doubt their interest in such books to begin with.
There is no place to buy doctrinally sound books anywhere for at least a hundred miles. We believe the habit of reading godly Christian literature is a necessary part growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. So we provide them to our congregation. And with no one at our building except when we meet, it would not be possible to provide them during the week. This, I believe, gets back to the Sabbath being made for man and not man for the Sabbath.
 
That's because you're evaluating it in terms of conversations when it's the phone call itself which is at issue. Using the phone is a work. One must determine whether its use, therefore, is one of necessity and mercy. Phoning a friend on the Sabbath, even to talk about spiritual things, is not necessary therefore it is not allowed. Spiritual conversation with those one has been in worship with (i.e. those one would be in company with on the Sabbath) is something else. Such conversation is to be encouraged. However one should not converse with these people about worldly things which are to be left for the other 6 days of the week.

You make the Sabbath look like an unpleasant thing by your added rules.
 
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