Matthew 12:9-14 (ESV)
“ He went on from there and entered their synagogue. [10] And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"— so that they might accuse him. [11] He said to them, "Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? [12] Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." [13] Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. [14] But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. “
Jesus it seems was the kind of guy who liked to rub his Christian freedom in the faces of others. When challenged for breaking the rules of men concerning the Sabbath, he not only discusses it with them in terms that come off a bit harsh, but then he goes on to heal on the Sabbath after asking if it was o.k. or not. Before he even gets the answer he does it.
The Pharisees were hypocritical about the Sabbath, Jesus is right, they would go and rescue a sheep. So Jesus would rescue his sheep. And he didn’t care what day it was. Actually, it was the Sabbath when he died for us. He rose on Sunday that we would all have freedom in him. Worshiping on Sunday is a statu confessionis thing against the Sabbath laws of the Old Testament. We should not be importing those ideas and imposing them upon Sunday.
5 comments:
I don't know how you know what day of the week the Sabbath was for the ancient Jews, or where you're getting the justification for the use of the word "should" here
Having the Christian day of worship on Sunday makes alot of practical sense. Muslims worship on Friday, Jews on Saturday and Christians on Sunday. That way people of different religions could conceivably take over the jobs of people of other religions on their worship days and no two of them are on the same day
Benjamin,
Really? It is common knowledge that from Friday evening to Saturday evening is the Sabbath. I suspect because God said so. But this is the day that Jews celebrated or observed the Sabbath in Christ's day, and Jesus, who is God by the way, did not contest that that was the Sabbath.
As far as Sunday, yes it is our day of worship. That is different than Sabbath also. It is the day we worship, and it makes more than practical sense. We worship on Sunday for many reasons of theological import, chief being that it is the day Jesus Christ rose from the dead. (One reason Christians are never supposed to fast on Sunday, it is a weekly feast day, and considered quit impious to even continue a Lenten fast on Sunday.) It also hearkens to the concept of the eighth day motif of the Old Testament, in which all things are made new, which also has its roots in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But to go with your second theory, I'd have to believe that it was good for people not to be worshiping Jesus Christ, and believing he is our God and Savior. And I don't believe that is a good thing at all. So I'm going to pass on that justification. There is one Lord and savior of us all, There is but one who is The Way, The Truth, The Life, except by whom none come tot he Father. And that is Jesus Christ, who died on a Friday, and rose from the dead on a Sunday.
How do we know that the days of the week in our Gregorian calendar have been perfectly preserved and nobody ever missed a day?
Benjamin,
Your question is absolutely nonsensical. We know, because an entire nation does not sleep for 48 hours and miss a day, especially a day like the sabbath.
We know, because Jesus Christ himself never contests that the Jewish day of Sabbath is the Sabbath.
We know, because the Disciples began worshiping on the first day of the week already in the book of Acts, as being the day after the Sabbath, the day that Jesus rose from the dead.
To contest that the Sabbath of the Gregorian Calendar may not be the Sabbath as Jesus observed it is then a rather dubious contest, and one that puts the burden onto you to determine that we are infact wrong about that.
However, all of this is still way beyond the point, because what Christians have is not the sabbath. Jesus is our sabbath rest. He is our Sabbath rest, because it was on the sabbath that he "rested" in the tomb. In doing that he put an end to the Sabbath and its rules. So Christians worship on Sunday, because in doing so we celebrate Christ's victory over death.
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