The version used is KJV
Before July 2017
When I first started working 2 decades ago, I worked all days, with almost no real rest. Most of this was driven by compulsion, pride and fear. Compulsory - just my attitude to be busy; pride - wore it as a badge of honor that I was a workaholic; fear - that if I was not responsive and working I might loose my job, status. I almost took no vacation, unless forced by situations - sickness, family visits or entertaining my growing family.
Then at some point, the weekend american set in, and I started taking the entire weekends off, now with an attitude of I deserve it or an escape from work. Most of this was driven by the media and the chatterbox that was the Internet.
July 2017 - Summer 2018
As I became a believer, I started to read about the Sabbath around how the western church viewed it. Even though, I came to Faith starting to read from OT, I didnt think it applied to me fully. The formulations of the sabbath rest was driven by the fact that I had to rest. From GBC and Internet, primarily protestant evangelical preachers and other places, I learnt that
- the laws from OT didnt apply to us, so I dont need to observe Sabbath
- it might be good for the busy world to take the sabbath (this one from a series Tim Keller did), still very secular and worldly (as others in the self-actualization movement had similar thoughts)
- I can take any day as the sabbath rest, since Jesus is the Lord of Sabbath Mar2:28
Therefore I started keeping Sunday as the sabbath. I still had the mindset of "weekend was mine and I deserve to take off as I had put in a full work week". I did chores reluctantly and running around on Saturday and went to church and did evening life group on Sunday. There was something amiss about this still, as I did not feel rested. In addition, I forced my family to follow this. My wife was spent from the running around and preparations for Sunday, only to come back and get ready for the week ahead Sunday evening. Sunday became a burdensome day.
Summer 2018 - Fall 2019
As Sunday became a day of running around - waking up early to go to church, planning for lunch with friends or coming back to grab something and relax before heading to evening groups; I was being drawn to the teachings of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I also started re-reading the OT, as we had begun our Friday night reading through the Bible series with few college and singles from GBC.
I was convicted to re-look at the sabbath, starting from the 4th commandment of the ten. This took me in various directions of what my foundational beliefs were around how I view my life, work, family and everything. I also had the strong desire to follow what was in God's Word. The conviction grew stronger in late 2018 that I had to keep the 7th day sabbath. The notion of week, calendar and how I keep time in todays world is not what I learnt from the Bible. There is a longer post on calendar and feasts coming soon, following this post.
Fall 2019
I started keeping the sabbath on Saturday around late Summer of 2019. It started with just me spending quiet time under the trees in my back yard through most of the day. I also declared that my family should also keep Saturday. I was also convicted that there was no weekend in the Bible. I work 6 days and rest on the 7th day. I started numbering days differently. Before this time, my week ended on Sunday and began Monday AM. After this revelation from the Bible, the week day began in the evening of the said day. Therefore, the week ended on Friday evening and began Saturday evening. I also started calling the days by their creation order. Friday was the 6th day of the week and Saturday was the 7th day. The first day was Saturday evening thru Sunday evening and so on.
Winter 2019
We started to enforce the 7th day sabbath in my home as a family. We started working the day of sunday, whether it was my job or work around the house or anything that we considered work. Saturday was a true day of rest, outside of meal preparations etc. My wife also started treating Friday day as her preparation time to get the house ready and prepared for our Friday night bible reading. Around this time, I started the family time of worship on 7th day (saturday) around noon time. This included reading the Parshah portions, the New Testament related portions and reading Psalms and prayer. You can see part of the schedule of when we started it here. We just started the reading of the Torah portions, renewed, Oct 17 2020, which was 29th day of the seventh month.
Reasons and such
Here are some reasons for my belief in the seventh day sabbath
- Our Heavenly Father, Yahuah, the Most High, our Creator said so Gen2:2
- It is one of the appointed times of our Creator. More on appointed times coming.
- Its part of the 10 commandments
- The punishments and curses that came to Israelites when they violated this command in the wilderness
- Yeshua, Jesus Christ, our Messiah, followed it during His first coming. He was perfect as He obeyed the written instructions of God or the Torah
- The original apostles and the early followers in the first century followed it
- The Gospel of Mark in Chapter 16 mentions the Sabbath and the first day as Sunday.
- It was followed until 321AD when Constantine changed it to Sunday as the sabbath and day of rest.
- It is acknowledged by the Roman Catholic church as sabbath. But Sunday is claimed a mark of the Roman Catholic authority. see p64 of Convert's Catechism. A link is provided to show they acknowledge Saturday is sabbath and it was changed to Sunday. Further proof of this, was used by Archbishop Reggio in the Council of Trent to state that Prostentanism accepted the authority of Roman Catholic church, as they also follow (and followed) Sunday as sabbath, from their 1530 Augsburg Confession.
So the questions will arise, how can the Protestant church be wrong for so many years and follow the traditions of Roman Catholic Church. There are some proofs using Acts20:7 given to show that Paul was meeting with disciples on the first day. A quick study of Acts20:7 in proper context will reveal the following:
- Paul was coming after keeping the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread
- Paul met with the disciples on the 1st day, which begins Saturday evening and went longer than expected which would put closer to midnight, since he will not be seeing them for a while.
- Paul was staying in Troas for a short time (7 days). Following the Torah, he wouldnot have travelled on the 7th day, sabbath. Therefore he met with other disciples on the 7thday, as the day was coming to a close (which would be evening) and preached a long while, through the night, which would take us to the midnight, when Eutychus fell, died and was made alive.
- Paul left the 1st day morning, sunday morning to sail away to Assos.
Other passages in epistles of Paul, must also studied with full context and with the intent that letter was addressing and not as doctrine that nullifies established precepts.
Therefore I dont use single passage or general writings around any day by Paul to supersede what was given in the instructions, lead and lived by my Messiah and changed by the Roman Catholic Church.
More questions around what is rest, how to rest, legalism vs obedience and other such queries will be addressed in subsequent posts.
An appeal
Independent of your doctrines and how you came to faith, I urge you the reader, to read search and seek the Holy Scriptures to see how it can apply to your life and what The Most High has decreed as command and instructions to follow. Be convinced in your mind with the faculties The Most High, our Heavenly Father has given you to follow which day is your rest.
May the God of our Messiah, Jesus Christ, bless you on this journey.