blhowes
Puritan Board Professor
I heard an excellent sermon at church Sunday on John 5:1-16 about the man that was healed at the pool of Bethesda. What a blessing!
I'm getting better at not allowing myself to dwell on the negatives when listening to a sermon. At the beginning of the sermon, a point was made sort of in passing that I jotted down so I could think about it later (so that I could maintain a positive focus during the sermon).
Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath, which caused quite a stir among the Jews. The Sabbath was part of the law, that was given to the Jews. The point was made that we don't follow the Sabbath law anymore, we worship on the Lord's day. For us its no longer a day of rest, because the Sabbath was fulfilled by Christ and therefore our rest is in Christ. Christians are to observe the Lord's day, which is not a day of rest, but a day of service.
That's the gist of the point that was made. I'd rather this thread not get into a debate about the Sabbath (though, if you want to, go for it), but I'd like to take a look at the Sabbath from the perspective of why God commanded the Jews to observe the Sabbath and the benefits God intended the Jews to reap when they did observe it.
Gen 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
God could have made all the trees ugly and poisonous, but He commanded the trees to grow, they were good, and we reaped a blessing from it. What good blessings do the scriptures say the Jews (and us) reaped by observing God's Sabbath command?
Here's my reasoning for this train of thought. In many churches, there's a distinction made between law and grace, the OT and the NT, where its kind of implied that one is good and one is bad. What I'd like to be able to do is point out all the blessings that God intended, then ask (those who make the distinction), "Is there some reason why God doesn't want the church to be blessed the way He blessed the Jews?"
I'm getting better at not allowing myself to dwell on the negatives when listening to a sermon. At the beginning of the sermon, a point was made sort of in passing that I jotted down so I could think about it later (so that I could maintain a positive focus during the sermon).
Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath, which caused quite a stir among the Jews. The Sabbath was part of the law, that was given to the Jews. The point was made that we don't follow the Sabbath law anymore, we worship on the Lord's day. For us its no longer a day of rest, because the Sabbath was fulfilled by Christ and therefore our rest is in Christ. Christians are to observe the Lord's day, which is not a day of rest, but a day of service.
That's the gist of the point that was made. I'd rather this thread not get into a debate about the Sabbath (though, if you want to, go for it), but I'd like to take a look at the Sabbath from the perspective of why God commanded the Jews to observe the Sabbath and the benefits God intended the Jews to reap when they did observe it.
Gen 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
God could have made all the trees ugly and poisonous, but He commanded the trees to grow, they were good, and we reaped a blessing from it. What good blessings do the scriptures say the Jews (and us) reaped by observing God's Sabbath command?
Here's my reasoning for this train of thought. In many churches, there's a distinction made between law and grace, the OT and the NT, where its kind of implied that one is good and one is bad. What I'd like to be able to do is point out all the blessings that God intended, then ask (those who make the distinction), "Is there some reason why God doesn't want the church to be blessed the way He blessed the Jews?"