strick@gatech.UUCP (henry strickland) (12/23/84)
> > After having gone through many passages of the Bible that things > > like "Blessed are those who keep my Sabbath" what justification > > do we give for worshiping on Sunday's rather than on the Sabbath? > Many Christian denominations view Sunday as the Sabbath, especially > among Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Since God's Law, expressed in the > Ten Commandments, is just as applicable to us today, we are still obligated > to keep God's Sabbath holy just as we are obligated not to commit adultery > or make graven images. The Sabbath was a creation ordinance (1 day of rest > in 7) and has never been undone. It was meerly reissued at the time of > the Mosaic law. If you really believe that "God's Law, expressed in the Ten Commandments, is JUST AS APPLICABLE to us today" [as it was to Moses and his gang], then I don't see where you have any alternative except to observe the Sabbath on Saturday. (Yahweh never said "Pick any day out of the seven", and I'm sure Moses would've thrown a fit if someone had suggested Sunday or Wednesday night.) This is where I have a hard time with Christians who don't say what they mean. They use words like "inerrant" and "infallible", but if you start to ask them about specifics, it becomes clear that they really mean "sort of inerrant" or "kind of infallible" (although they will never admit it). They like the idea of inerrancy, because someone told them that you can't be a Christian if you don't accept it, but they don't really believe it. It's more a status symbol. I get annoyed with these people mostly because they make others believe that Christianity is not logically consistant. Now I don't mean to say that Christianity is rigorously provable .... I just mean that you don't have to accept that apples equals oranges if you know Christ as Lord. Christianity isn't Zen.... Many non-Christians don't really understand that. I used to assume that most people didn't lump all Christians with Fundamentalists, but listening to many friends' "arguments disproving Christianity," they really do. Maybe this is a result of living in Georgia. I posed a question a week ago concerning divorce, and I recieved only one response. He didn't claim or deny being a fundamentalist, but his response sounds more like literary criticism and reasoning than a proof of inerrancy. I thought basic to fundamentalism is that things that are in the bible are inerrant, with no contradictions, and there could be no doubt as to what they mean. Yet Larry says that fundamentalist churches disagree on such things. For the benefit of anyone interested, here's the response I just mentioned. It has references you might like to explore. Also I'm enclosing a correction I recieved on IXThYS, the fish. ===== from: Larry Bickford, {amd,sun,decwrl,idi,ittvax,cbosgd}!qubix!lab Strick, From different fundamentalist churches, you can different views. From Mark, Luke, *and Matthew*, plus Romans 7 and Malachi 2:16, I find no grounds for a Christian to get a divorce. The "escape clause" in Matthew (the gospel to the *Jews*) refers to the kind of incident described (not accidentally) only in Matthew - chapter 1, where Joseph would have divorced Mary "before they had come together," i.e., infidelity during the betrothal. See also Psalm 15 "He who swears to his own hurt *and changes not*" and Ecclesiastes (better not to vow than to break a vow). ===== from: Roger L. Hale <seismo!harvard!godot!mit-eddie!rlh> IXThYS (iota chi theta Upsilon sigma) Ihsous Xristos Theou `Yios Swthr [except for the Th in Theou, single letters map to single letter above. h = eta, w = omega. ` = aspiration (initial h).] translation: as you gave it. [ I had said: Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior -strick ] ===== Now for my own ideas on the Sabbath and the relevency of the Old Testament Law: In Acts 15 there was enough contraversy over this that a meeting was held in Jerusalem. It resulted in sending an apostolic letter to "brothers of pagan birth" [15:23] saying "It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves not to saddle you with any burden beyond these essentials: you are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from fornication." [15:29, The Jerusalem Bible. There are interesting footnotes in this chapter, which I won't type in here, but they give good pointers to other related scripture. Two I will include are Galatians 2 and Acts 21. What's my favorite study bible?] These all relate to pagan religious practices in cities where the letter was sent. I am very anti-legalistic. I think this is what Jesus spent most of his time on earth talking about, but it doesn't seem to get through to some Christians. I heard some very interesting interviews with several renouned Jewish theologians on All Things Considered (National Pubic Radio) in August when the Jewish lady was in space. They asked the Jews how one was supposed to observe the Sabbath in space. I was amazed at the (from a Christian sheep's point of view) crudeness of the Jewish theology. One common response was that one is not required to keep any Sabbath in space. The idea of what is required, rather than what the person feels inspired to do and wants to do for love of God, was the only consideration. And I realized that if Judiasm is so different from Christian theology, imagine how difficult it may be to speak of love to members of some other major religions in the world (Islam comes to mind). I think the spirit of the Sabbath is the important thing. That I give a day back to the Lord. But because I want to -- not because any law is applicable. If I do it because of a law, I'm surely condemned, for I've never worried about any Sabboth-related prohibitions. The law can only condemn us -- the gospel redeems us. Messianic holidays .... strick! -- -- henry strickland -- the clouds project { akgua allegra hplabs inhp4 } -- school of ics / ga tech !gatech!strick -- atlanta ga 30332
bnapl@burdvax.UUCP (Tom Albrecht) (01/03/85)
In article <gatech.11433> strick@gatech.UUCP (henry strickland) writes: > > If you really believe that "God's Law, expressed in the Ten Commandments, >is JUST AS APPLICABLE to us today" [as it was to Moses and his gang], >then I don't see where you have any alternative except to observe >the Sabbath on Saturday. (Yahweh never said "Pick any day out of the seven", >and I'm sure Moses would've thrown a fit if someone had suggested Sunday >or Wednesday night.) I believe I stated in my original posting that the law regarding the Sabbath was a creation ordinance and was not something brand new at Sinai. Does the Bible require that the seventh day be observed as the Sabbath (as Adventists believe) or does it require the setting aside of one day in seven as a day devoted to the Lord (proportion or order)? Many covenant theologians believe that proportion is the key to resolving the issue. If there were nothing in the New Testament regarding the worship practices of the apostles and their disciples, we would be constrained to continue to observe the seventh day as the Sabbath. However, there are numerous passages in the New Testament to indicate to us that the Sabbath observance changed from the last to the first day of the week in rememberance of Christ's resurrection from the dead. The Sabbath law was never abrogated by Christ and we are still obliged to keep this creation commandment (see Gen. 2:2,3). This was not something simply given to the nation of Israel, but to Adam, the federal head of the human race, and so we are all obligated to keep it. > This is where I have a hard time with Christians who don't say what >they mean. They use words like "inerrant" and "infallible", ... I said exactly what I meant and I never used the words "inerrant" or "infallible" although those words were certainly implied in my comments. > I get annoyed with these people mostly because they make others >believe that Christianity is not logically consistant. If you intended to show how I said something that was logically inconsistent then I believe you failed to make your point. Keep up the good work. -:) -- Tom Albrecht Burroughs Corp. ...{presby|psuvax1|sdcrdcf}!burdvax!bnapl
fred@mot.UUCP (Fred Christiansen) (01/04/85)
Seventh-day Adventists are not the only ones observing Sabbath as outlined in Scriptures (both Old and New Testaments). I have met Seventh Day Baptists, Seventh Day Church of God (I seem to recall this is the church that Bobby Fischer (sp?), the chess player, belonged to), and Seventh Day Pentecostals. There may well be others. The assertion that the New Testament shows examples of the Apostles observing other days as Sabbath bears examining in the light of Scriptural and patristic evidence. I would refer the interested to a seminal paper by Dr. Samuele Bachiochi (sp?) as his PhD thesis for the Pontifical Gregorian University. Dr. B is the only Protestant of record to attend (or at least complete doctorate) at the "Pope's University". Pope Paul gave Dr. B a gold medal for it. Among other things, it demonstrates what Catholics have been saying for some time (in several catechisms) that Sunday is the Sabbath for Catholics because the Pope made it that way; thus Protestants who disbelieve his authority should, rather, be worshiping on Saturday (sunset Fri -> sunset Sat. - FC). Not only is Jesus Christ my Savior (by faith alone and NOT by works, lest any man should boast) but also my Lord. What a Christian does is an outward demonstration of the inward transformation. We obey God because we love Him (see John 14:15)s, not for any legalistic "brownie points".
davidb@shark.UUCP (01/08/85)
tom> However, there are numerous passages in the New Testament to tom> indicate to us that the Sabbath observance changed from the tom> last to the first day of the week in rememberance of Christ's tom> resurrection from the dead. fred> The assertion that the New Testament shows examples of the Apostles fred> observing other days as Sabbath bears examining in the light of fred> Scriptural and patristic evidence. I would refer the interested to fred> a seminal paper by Dr. Samuele Bachiochi (sp?) as his PhD thesis fred> for the Pontifical Gregorian University. Dr. B is the only Protestant fred> of record to attend (or at least complete doctorate) at the "Pope's fred> University". Pope Paul gave Dr. B a gold medal for it. Among other fred> things, it demonstrates what Catholics have been saying for some fred> time (in several catechisms) that Sunday is the Sabbath for Catholics fred> because the Pope made it that way; thus Protestants who disbelieve fred> his authority should, rather, be worshiping on Saturday fred> (sunset Fri -> sunset Sat. - FC). I would like to point out that the Bachiochi document clearly shows that there is no New Testament basis for the switch from Sunday to Saturday. One way in which the New Testament has been missinterpreted is that we recon our days at Mid Night. The New Testament authors still used sundown to sundown reconing. For example, they would refer to a Saturday Night meeting as being held in the evening on Sunday. Bachiochi's document uses New Testament, other religious and secular sources to show that the New Testament authors were in their graves before Sunday was even being taken seriously in the Early Christian church. Sunday observance started up in the Roman Christian church (not in Jerusalem) many years later as a way of making it clear the Christians were not Jews. The Jewish Zeolots at the time were returning the blood shed of the Romans with a double vengeance. The Christians wanted to avoid any possible confusion. In fact, as I scan through Bachiochi's document, Sunday observance starts to have some very strong Anti-Semitic undertoans. I would imagine that this could have been because many of the converts in Rome had friends and/or relatives who had been killed and/or tortured at the hands of the Jewish Zealots. Dave Buxton tektronix!davidb