Comments on: The Sabbath Day: Its Meaning and Observance

By: Allen

Allen — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 19:49:21 +0000

“Heck, the LDS church leaders allow for branches in Israel to congregate on Saturday. In Egypt and Jordan, LDS branches congregate on Friday. Why not extend that option in North America?”

Brad L, this isn’t an example of an option. In Israel it isn’t that one can meet on Saturday *or* on Sunday, it is that for the vast majority of us Saturday is the only day. Sunday is a regular work and school day. Allowing members to meet on Saturdays instead of Sundays is a pragmatic concession allowing members to attend regularly. We are expected to treat it precisely as we would were it on a Sunday. There is still only one day, and that includes no shopping.

By: WalkerW

WalkerW — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 00:51:33 +0000

“Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden “to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Labor is not only the destiny of man; it is endowed with divine dignity. However, after he ate of the tree of knowledge he was condemned to toil, not only to labor “In toil shall thou eat … all the days of thy life” (Genesis 3:17). Labor is a blessing, toil is the misery of man. The Sabbath as a day of abstaining from work is not a depreciation but an affirmation of labor, a divine exaltation of its dignity. Thou shalt abstain from labor on the seventh day is a sequel to the command: Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work [Ex. 20:9]…The duty to work for six days is just as much a part of God’s covenant with man as the duty to abstain from work on the seventh day” (Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath: Its Meaning For Modern Man. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005 [1951], Kindle edition, 15-16)

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 18:32:40 +0000

Six days shalt thou labor…

I suggest that half or even most of Sabbath observance is what you are doing the rest of the week.

Kinda like trying to determine the gravitational pull between two planets and not considering the mass of one of them. Or maybe even 6 of 7 of them in a system.

Many of the blessings promised are more likely to happen to the ambitious and diligent.

How does this factor into the other points made above in the contemporary context?

****

P.S.
My brother in the bishopric was describing how early he gets up on Sunday morning and all the meetings he attends and how little he sees his family including 3 teenage or nearly teenage sons and how exhausted his duties leave him. This is the same brother who called me to repentance for taking my son camping once a month with a non-LDS scout troop that includes being in the woods on Sunday and doing our own boy-created religious service. Seriously, how can any LDS leader with any significant responsibility claim they are keeping the Sabath? Not in my experience.

Might blogging during the week be against the Sabbath? :)

By: Stephen Wight

Stephen Wight — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 04:30:30 +0000

Exodus 31:15 & Numbers 15:32-36 makes me think the Lord was serious about how he regarded Sabbath observance. The “schoolmaster to Christ” was indeed pretty harsh at the time, but if left to their own devices before you know it those Israelite children would be off worshiping the golden calf again…as a nation. It’s reassuring to live in our own time, governed by the higher law of Christ, where people are trusted to do the right thing on their own. As Joseph said, to my recollection, “teach them correct principles and they will govern themselves.” I am sure enough of the Saints try to do that on their own, such that we can leave the stones on the ground. But, reminders from the pulpit and elsewhere are helpful from time to time. After all, God could be much more forceful in His reminders to us if he had a mind to, currently. Sometimes, if we look back on how seriously he took things anciently, it helps us to see what his mind and will is concerning us at present, even though there is much greater, apparent, leniency now.

As I see it, every moment I have walked this earth has been a gift from God through his Son, Jesus Christ. I believe in the paradigm that I had something to do, by choice, with all of us being here. (If I didn’t I would find other things to do with my time instead of reading columns like this). I also believe only one out of seven days to devote to the Lord, to do what He wants me to do, is quite reasonable and that he actually demands more, though not much, on the other days as well. Perhaps King Benjamin was thinking along these lines when he said:

Mosiah 2:
20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—
21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

By: jader3rd

jader3rd — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 04:28:30 +0000

When the Sabbath was first given, most people were working from sunrise to sunset, just to make sure that they could eat. Then the Sabbath was given as a way to say “Take a day off regularly, stop worrying about starving for a day, think of God, and have some fun”. But when do we have fun? Lots of nights, and most weekends. If I really wanted to make the Sabbath a delight now, I’d make a rule that I don’t get to watch any fun shows or movies, except for on Sundays. If I did that, I’d look forward to Sundays, because it’s a day where I could do something that I enjoy that I wouldn’t do on other days. I’m kind of torn with the idea that this is how God wants us to observe the Sabbath.
Am I the only one who sees making it a day full of nothing but worship, and trying to make it a delight, mutually exclusive?

By: mem

mem — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 03:56:03 +0000

It’s not so hard to be LDS and keep the Sabbath when compared to what Orthodox Jews go through to keep it.

By: Ben S.

Ben S. — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 00:50:23 +0000

The Sabbath and sabbath-keeping were held to be the sign of the covenant, not merely a suggestion. They took it a bit more seriously than we do. Whether this is an actual account or (like others) legal rhetoric is up for debate.

By: Brad L

Brad L — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 22:51:06 +0000

The following verses from the Old Testament make me think that “enforced day off” is not an adequate description of the practice of Sabbath-day observance among early Hebrews, and that “control mechanism” is more apt:

Exodus 31:15

Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.

Numbers 15:32-36

32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.

33 And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.

34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.

35 And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.

36 And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.

By: Clark Goble

Clark Goble — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 20:41:55 +0000

Ditto to Ben S. I’d also say there’s a bit of classism in the discussion as well. We’re rich enough to want to indulge our leisures all the time. The problem Ben mentions, of being poor enough that one never gets a rest remains a real problem. Of course just requiring an absence of work doesn’t help the poor alone. If you need to work 7 days to earn enough then stopping that will just make you worse off. I just note that there is a huge difference in perception between the rich and the poor that’s tied to what one does with ones time.

By: Ben S.

Ben S. — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 20:21:37 +0000

I really don’t think the sabbath originated as a control mechanism. That strikes me as excessive cynicism, not exegesis of ancient evidence. Sure it was something the collective community enforced. But in a world where the vast majority of people had to be in their fields seven days a week, an “enforced” day off is hardly a bit of power-struggle and control.

By: Old Man

Old Man — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 19:45:49 +0000

Wonderful post. Walton’s thesis suggest to me that the very purpose of the Genesis account was the establishment of sacred space (temple) and time (Sabbath). Without these elements we are lost in the universe.

Long ago, while reading Heschel’s classic “Sabbath,” I learned that the Sabbath is to time what the temple is to space. The temple is a holy space. The Sabbath is holy time. Jews reverence G-d, His creation and the Exodus by observing the Sabbath. Latter-day Saints reverence those things and the atonement as well. I have enjoyed the Sabbath much more knowing that it is my effort to recognize the sacred rather than imposed rules or mere duty. Sabbath is to one’s relationship with Deity what dating is to marriage. Sabbath without joy is like marriage without love and laughter. Sabbath observance for me is simplicity, a recognition of beauty and mystery, an homage to the divine in ourselves and each other. It is rest.

By: Brad L

Brad L — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 18:57:16 +0000

Thanks for sharing your observations, Walker. Although I must confess that I have long found the idea of a Sabbath Day meaningless. Its early observance was a means through which early Hebrews controlled their own and distinguished themselves from the Gentile heathens. Its traditional practiced carried on into Christianity. In the LDS church, the idea of Sabbath observance is still used as a control mechanism. It is a way to evaluate members’ devotion and a way for people to distinguish themselves from the heathen non-LDS. But thankfully the LDS leaders and members don’t ostracize Sabbath-breakers like the Hebrews did in days of old. They allow for personal interpretations of how one should best keep the Sabbath and allow for people who have to work. It is seen as bad to tell on-call doctors that they are in violation of the Sabbath for working.

I’ve never understood is the rationale for not shopping on the Sabbath. It is said that in so doing, you keep others from being able to observe the Sabbath (going to church, I guess). I have a way around that: have multiple days of observance. Heck, the LDS church leaders allow for branches in Israel to congregate on Saturday. In Egypt and Jordan, LDS branches congregate on Friday. Why not extend that option in North America?