4th Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. My interpretation: The American calendar (which is the one I’ve known since childhood starts with Sunday and ends on Saturday. Therefore, the Sabbath (7th day) is Saturday. The Italians start their calendar week on Monday and end on Sunday, making Sunday the Sabbath, which is the day most Christians use as their day of rest. I always thought of the weekend as the ends of a string with Sunday at one end and Saturday at the other. Once upon a time everything shut down on Sunday. We live in a more advanced world with a need to make every day a work day. Certain careers call for working on Saturday and Sunday such as 1st responders, lodging employees, medical personnel, manufacturers who find it impossible to shut down their machinery for one day per week, and so many others. Those who work revolving shifts and schedules do not have the luxury of a preordained Sabbath. Would our loving God punish them for breaking this commandment? I must confess that I have broken this commandment a multitude of times over my lifetime. I confess that I do not always manage a full day of rest unless I am forced - and I don’t consider that restful. I have the luxury now, in my later years, of attending church on a regular basis to share in the fellowship of worship. My truly hallowed moments are not scheduled, not planned out and certainly do not last all day. I try to keep to the spirit of the commandment by stopping to smell the roses, admire the ever changing trees and to watch my loved ones grow. If more is needed by God, I will hear his calling.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:30:12 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015