Today's readings are Exodus 31.1-18 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Ex.+31.1-18 ) and Luke 6.1-19 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Luke+6.1-19 ).
God's Sabbath commands are often hotly debated and disputed. How do we deal with these difficult commands? What does it mean to keep the Sabbath? Does this change in some way in our modern, 24/7, technological world? How would the early Christians in the Roman Empire deal with a calendar involving a seven day week, a Sabbath, and the conflict with a civic and work calendar which had days for rest and merchandising on Kalends, Nones, and Ides?
When we review the Old Testament we see that God makes no bones about it. The Sabbath is to be kept, those who don't keep the Sabbath are stoned or cast out, no fuss, no muss. Theonomistic Christians will assert that we are still to keep the Sabbath. Some will make philosophical arguments that it changed from the sundown-Friday to sundown-Saturday period to start at sundown Saturday, midnight Saturday night, or sunup Sunday.
Jesus makes this issue more difficult as he goes around purposely violating the Sabbath by allowing his disciples to do what their culture classified as harvesting (picking handfuls of grain), by healing people, even by having formerly crippled people pick up their mats and carry them home.
A good understanding of this concept is that Jesus is the mighty God who gives a new covenant in his blood, and who has fulfilled the old covenant. While Jesus restated all the other commandments, he did not restate the Sabbath. He fulfilled it and calls believers to enter into his rest, a rest from sin, fear, guilt, doubt, and striving with this fallen world. Jesus has instated a permanent Sabbath.
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