Sabbath Thoughts 08

The Bible says that God rested on the seventh day of the week, and then later on it says that Jesus resurrected from death on the first day of the week, but for a long time now many Christians have called Sunday, the first day of the week, the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. Some Christians have even cut out the middle man and called Sunday the seventh day of the week (and there is an alarming trend to think of "Mondays" as the "first day of the week").

Perhaps this is more an arithmatic problem as opposed to a theological one.

Think about the difficulties that arise if we swap one day for another day. Let's run with the assumption that Sunday is the seventh day of the week and also that the Bible is infallible and consistent with itself. Okay, the New Testament is a more current "edition," correct? So we'll accept that Sunday is the seventh day, and since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and since He also created the world Himself (according to John Chapter 1 and many other verses), then Sunday, the first day, is now the seventh day, so Jesus, when He created the world, rested on Sunday, the seventh day, and so using this new arithmatic, Monday becomes the first day of the week.

In these modern times, so distant from the days when the Bible was actually written, Old and New Testaments, don't we kinda/sorta view Monday as the first day of the week, anyway? Think about all the songs that are written about it, "Monday, Monday," "Blue Monday," "Manic Monday," how Monday, the new improved first day of the week is such a lame day, after coming off of such a wonderful day, Sunday, to plunk down hard on the first day of the week, Monday.

So the Bible says God created light on the first day of the week, but that used to be Sunday, the first day of the week. In our New Math theology, God now divides the land from the waters, making that firmament thing -- are we still on terra firma, here? This isn't a shaky way to run our Biblically based theology, is it?

So skipping down to the day we call Saturday, today -- the Sabbath in Biblical speak, okay, the old-fashioned Biblical speak, instead of resting, now God . . . exactly WHAT do we have God doing, in this new improved accounting? Okay, so the first day is now Monday, but we couldn't really change what God did, or can we? If ultimately, we're going to have God resting on Sunday, that means we're going to have to do SOME shifting, aren't we?

Okay, maybe we're taking this New Math too literally, though I don't know what math and literature have to do with each other. But maybe we're not supposed to take Genesis Chapter 1 so literally, right? I mean, God might have meant "one in seven" as churches today teach, instead of "the seventh" as the Ten Commandments . . . well, as they command. So let's just say that on the New Monday, the New First Day of the Week, we go back to what the Bible says, and God created light and thought that it was most excellent. Then, this way, it all works out great in the end, hey kind of like the Book of Revelation, right? So maybe this IS a God-blessed way to reshuffle the Bible!

This could be a possibility, right? Haven't you heard that somewhere, way back in the days of yore before Timex starting taking so many lickings, that the order of the days may have been lost?

Of course, then there's Jesus. That heavenly Guy, He kept the Biblical Sabbath, didn't He, the Bible says it was actually His custom to go to the synagogue on the Biblical Sabbath, on the literal Seventh Day of the week. Great, that Jesus, He kind of messes up our New Math, doesn't He. Then there were His Disciples, including His mother and good friend Mary Magdalene, they all went and kept the Sabbath, "according to the Commandment" (you know, the Fourth Commandment, the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week) -- and this was after His death, even Jesus kept the Sabbath in death, He rested -- the Bible repeatedly, redundantly, overwhelmingly calls "death" -- um, do you remember what the Bible calls death? You should check it out, regardless of what your grinning pastor claims, or that New Age Guru who says you can chat tumors away.

Jesus rested on the Seventh day of the week, in death, in sleep. Then He seemingly confused everything by jumping up out of death on the first day of the week. Great, now what in the world does THIS do to our New Age Math?

Of course, that's what we claim, right? That Jesus changed the order of everything by resurrecting on the first day of the week. But those disciples, they kind of kept messing things up by keeping the Biblical order of things, didn't they? They kept worshipping God on the Sabbath. They actually -- now called Apostles -- had the temerity to invite the Gentiles to meet with them on the Sabbath!

Oy, headaches galore. Our New Age Math just keeps clashing with the Bible!

But still, doesn't it make sense. Why do our silly American calendars insist on putting Sunday as the first day of the week? Even the ones that print in garish red ink. Check it out, if you have a calendar on your wall, look up there, right now. Sunday is listed first, just like in the Bible (Jesus rose from the dead on the first day, didn't He? At least it's what the Bible says, doesn't it?), and six days later there is Saturday, the seventh day.

A delightful Russian friend of mine informed me recently that the Russians actually are brighter than Americans, and Englishmen for that matter too -- because on Russian Calendars MONDAY is the first day of the week and Sunday, blessed Sunday, is now the seventh! Genius! Why didn't WE think of that!?

Of course, MANY countries have pulled this tricky switcheroo -- those Frenchies, peace-loving folk that they are (they'd even provide asylum to Saddam Hussein, and not the mental kind that he should have been locked away in when he was just a torture-loving teenybopper), they have been running their calendar this way for a long time. Makes sense, don't it, yeppers, it is really, really, really SMART.

Shouldn't the United States do the same thing? Don't we already call Monday "the first boring, horrible, cruddy" day of the week? And doesn't that make Sunday the seventh, and doesn't that kinda/sorta make the Bible jibe with Christian tradition, or at least the New Age Christian version of Christianity (the one that pulls together all the pagan traditions and blesses them, sanctifies them, hallows them -- hey, kinda like what God does, huh?)?

Hey, employing the New Age Math, we can also look at it this way: Jesus was raised on the first day of the week, we want the first day to become the seventh day, so let's just add them together! One plus seven equals 8, or maybe it will help if I annotate this way:

1 + 7 = 8

So our Sabbath will now be the eighth day of the week! Yes, let's roll with this. Jesus, raising from the dead, creates a new order of things, a new order to the days, and in fact a new day:

The Eighth Day!

Doesn't this kinda/sorta make sense in a New Age Math kind of way? In fact, in a "Da Vinci Code" kind of way, it almost rings historically true, doesn't it? Hey, people have been rewriting history for thousands of years -- we ought to employ the same technique, applying our New Age Math to the past.

In the spirit of ecumenism, we'll make the eighth day our Sabbath (okay, so there's nothing in the Bible about an extra day being added to God's list of days, but hey, Tradition with a capital "T" has never, ever relied on the Bible, has it?), we can all get behind such a New Age concept, can't we? You know, this might sound like a novel concept, but I think some New Age Teachers have already picked up on this Eighth Day Sabbath and are preaching it from their twenty feet above the congregation pulpits.

Ah, you know, I have something to admit to you. I'm a very right brain kind of person. Math just doesn't jibe in my noodle, I'm sorry to say. I really wouldn't mind being a math wiz, but I'm not. Especially this New Age kind of math. I know it melds better with Tradition than does the Bible, but as for me and my family, we'll stick with the Bible.

Sabbath Thoughts #9

Will the Sabbath Become

an Issue in the End Times?

If ye then,

being evil,

know how

to give

good gifts

unto your

children,

how much

more shall

your Father

which is in

heaven give

good things

to them that

ask him?

Matthew 7:11

God gives us good gifts, He gave us the Sabbath, do you believe Him? Or is the Sabbath a day of dread, instead?

The Sabbath is our gift from God, the first gift in the Garden of Eden!

Do not err,

my beloved

brethren.

Every good

gift and

every

perfect gift

is from above,

and cometh

down from

the Father

of lights, with

whom is no

variableness,

neither shadow

of turning. Of

His own will

begat he us

with the Word

of Truth, that

we should be

a kind of

firstfruits

of His

creatures.

James 1:16-18

Make no mistake about it, God's Sabbath day, a gift to us, is a perfect gift, from the Father of lights, Who does not change, doesn't even hint at turning or changing!

The New Covenant:

For this is the

covenant that I

will make with

the house of

Israel after

those days,

saith the Lord;

I will put my

Laws into their

mind, and write

them in their

hearts:

and I will be to

them a God,

and they shall be

to me a people:

Hebrews 8:10

Are you a part of

the New Covenant?

Has God written

His laws, including

the Fourth Commandment,

in your heart? DId

He put His Sabbath

in your mind?

SABBATH THOUGHTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21

Sabbath Resources

For the

Son of

man is

Lord

even

of the

Sabbath

day.

Matthew 12:8

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. Do you believe it? It is His own holy day, it is the Lord's day, the Seventh Day, blessed by God at the creation of the world!

And He said

unto them,

"The Sabbath

was made

for man, and

not man for

the Sabbath:

Therefore the

Son of man

is Lord also

of the Sabbath."

Mark 2:27-28

This is Jesus speaking about Himself. Do you believe Him? Did He really make His own holy day a gift for all mankind? Or do you prefer the "traditions of the elders?"