Portland Biblical Community

I feel like our discussion on the Sabbath is intimately related to what can be construed as Holy and whether or not our communal relationality can be construed as work.

The command in Exodus is as follows:“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.�

In Matthew chapter 5 Jesus says that he came not to abolish the law but fulfill the law. Christ valued the Sabbath among the other moral laws and the disciples after him continued to keep it and value it. Christ valued the Sabbath and the disciples after him continued to keep it and value it. God still values the Sabbath, that we would make it Holy and that we would rest from our work. For some of us it is hard work to pursue the kingdom and increasing relational intimacy so constantly though the work is very valuable. For some of us to rest I believe we must purposely withdraw to quiet sanctuary with Christ. I think rest is as important a component of the Sabbath as holiness. From what I can tell it’s a Holistic rest not just an isolated one (i.e. physical rest or just a spiritual rest) but rest from all our labors.

Jesus says in Mark 2 that the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a Holy rest to the Lord. We should not serve the Sabbath for the Sabbath’s sake but use it as a boundary to protect our relationship with the Lord and our unity with his heart for our lives. Relational intimacy can become a law as much as any other value and though we value it we should not let it separate us from the Lord.

Respecting what Paul says in Romans 14 and the teachings of Christ on the subject I think we can honor God’s heart with grace toward one another. If tragedy has struck a house in our community on a Sabbath we should not resist helping them and loving them, but in the day to day we shouldn’t pass judgment on one another’s communal relationality or relationality with Christ as we each will have to give an account for what we have been given.

All this being said I value our community and want to pursue each of you in love and respect for the values God has given us and the priorities that result. Let us each live to the Lord and to each other as we have been called. 1 Cor 7:17-23 And let us continually encourage one another to be transformed both in mind and heart to be ever truer reflections of the Savior as His church. I think its important to talk through these things and I’d welcome any feedback any of y’all have.

written by Matt Lawer \\ tags: relationality, sabbath, theology

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