Keeping the Sabbath

[Scott1]

Somehow, you must approach keeping the Forth Commandment with faith. Faith that God will provide for your needs and bless you for obedience. There are many examples of Sabbath-keeping farmers and ranchers in Scripture.

 

[satz]

suggest that if you are asking a man to risk losing his job, the answer does indeed require refutation,

It's not any of us. It's our Creator who commands that we do...

8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Hi Scott,

In the sentence which you quoted, I was responding to Adam’s paragraph which stated:

That said, is there a difference between gathering food and gathering wood? The answer is too simple to require refutation. Could the wood be gathered the day before? Could the food? I think the wood could have, but was not. The food seems not to have been available for gathering the day before. The gospels tell us of Jesus on the move, and the disciples with Him. He had no permanent dwelling, unlike the birds who have nests, etc.

So simply quoting God’s command not to work on the Sabbath does not answer my question, because God’s command was not absolute, it allowed for works of mercy and necessity, as the Confessions state.

My question was not to ask if God forbade work on the Sabbath, it was to ask what is and is not a work of necessity, something which Adam was answering when he drew distinction between gathering of food and gathering of wood (assuming I understand him properly).

 

[Scott1]

satz
I would respectfully (and I mean that sincerely) suggest that if you are asking a man to risk losing his job, the answer does indeed require refutation, instead of simply being assumed.

Your quote gives the impression you think it is outrageous that one would risk losing one's job (e.g. commercial gathering of firewood on the sabbath) in order to obey God.

Yes, God may call us to sacrifice, trust Him, and in faith, to obey. It's not easy, but that is, in fact, what God calls us to do- trust and obey in relation to the Forth Commandment (and all the other Commandments).

You are giving the impression you dispute that.


You re-enforce this with your later quote:

Even if Jesus and his disciples were constantly on the move, I am sure the disciples could have obtained some kind of food which would keep for at least a day, and place it in a carrying bag of some kind. If God’s law requires a man to forsake his job and source of livelihood, surely the disciples could have made that little effort to avoid having to gather food on the Sabbath. But they didn’t, and Jesus approved, not rebuked their actions.

The other posters you are interacting with did not say "God's law requires a man to 'forsake' his job and source of livelihood"- that was the false choice you presented that was commented upon in post#24.

What God calls us to is obedience- working six days and resting so that we focus on worshipping Him on the Sabbath.

This even includes farmers and those who would gather wood for a living. Somehow, by God's grace, they, like their predecessors of old who kept the Sabbath, are called to do likewise.

 

[satz]

satz
I would respectfully (and I mean that sincerely) suggest that if you are asking a man to risk losing his job, the answer does indeed require refutation, instead of simply being assumed.

Your quote gives the impression you think it is outrageous that one would risk losing one's job (e.g. commercial gathering of firewood on the sabbath) in order to obey God.

No, I do not consider it outrageous that one would consider making any sacrifice to obey God, and I think that if my comments are read in their full context, they make no such implication.

I will try to explain what I objected to:

God has commanded men not to work on the Sabbath. But God has also provided that works of necessity on the Sabbath are allowed. A pious man faced with the choice between working on the Sabbath and losing his job might well wonder if working for one Sabbath day would qualify as a work of necessity.

I my post I pointed out that Jesus allowed his disciples to gather food because they were hungry. This despite the fact that gathering manna, or gathering wood had already been held to be wrong in the OT. I wondered why the Lord would not also allow a man to work to preserve his job.

Adam replied that the difference between gathering sticks and gathering food was ‘too simple to require refutation’. I disagreed with him, which was when I wrote the statement you quoted.

What I had meant to express was that since God himself has allowed exceptions to the Sabbath, the question of if a man should work or lose his job is one which ought to be answered carefully, not simply dismissed.

To set out my point again:
- gathering of food (i.e. manna ) on the Sabbath was forbidden for Israel in the OT.
- Gathering of wood on the Sabbath was forbidden for Israel in the OT.
- Yet Jesus allowed his disciples to gather food on the Sabbath. The difference being that they had a need - they were hungry.
- Jesus (in Matt 12) answers the Pharisees’ accusations by reminding them of the story of David, who ate the shewbread meant only for the priests because he was hungry. Jesus did not defend his disciples by saying that picking corn was not work. Rather he made an argument based on the fact that necessity (i.e. the hunger of David and his disciples allows for things usually forbidden to be done on the Sabbath.
- If hunger allows a man to work on the Sabbath, why can’t a man work to preserve his job and livelihood on the Sabbath?

Yes, God may call us to sacrifice, trust Him, and in faith, to obey. It's not easy, but that is, in fact, what God calls us to do- trust and obey in relation to the Forth Commandment (and all the other Commandments).

You are giving the impression you dispute that.

I don’t dispute that. I made some points about whether there are instances where a man working his job on the Sabbath might fall under the God ordained exceptions to the general rule not to work.

You re-enforce this with your later quote:

Even if Jesus and his disciples were constantly on the move, I am sure the disciples could have obtained some kind of food which would keep for at least a day, and place it in a carrying bag of some kind. If God’s law requires a man to forsake his job and source of livelihood, surely the disciples could have made that little effort to avoid having to gather food on the Sabbath. But they didn’t, and Jesus approved, not rebuked their actions.

Again, if you look at the context of my quote, I was discussing whether something was, or was not an allowable work of necessity for the Sabbath law. Here is the paragraph I was responding to:

That said, is there a difference between gathering food and gathering wood? The answer is too simple to require refutation. Could the wood be gathered the day before? Could the food? I think the wood could have, but was not. The food seems not to have been available for gathering the day before. The gospels tell us of Jesus on the move, and the disciples with Him. He had no permanent dwelling, unlike the birds who have nests, etc.

Adam was responding to me and he seems, if I understand him correctly, to be saying that the reason God allowed for gathering food, as opposed to gathering wood, was that the wood could have been gathered before the Sabbath, but the food could not.

I responded by saying that if the Sabbath law was strict enough to require a man to lose his job rather than work on the Sabbath (which is certainly within God’s prerogative), surely it would have required the disciples to either take measures to obtain food the day before, or to go hungry.

I agree that God may call us to sacrifice, trust and obey, even at cost. I do not deny that this is a difficult thing to be lived out in our daily and practical lives. However, I do not believe it is impious to want to understand exactly what is God’s command and promise before we act out in faith and obedience.

That is all I have been trying to do in this thread.

The other posters you are interacting with did not say "God's law requires a man to 'forsake' his job and source of livelihood"- that was the false choice you presented that was commented upon in post#24.

What God calls us to is obedience- working six days and resting so that we focus on worshipping Him on the Sabbath.

This even includes farmers and those who would gather wood for a living. Somehow, by God's grace, they, like their predecessors of old who kept the Sabbath, are called to do likewise.