sunday, a day of rest -- how do you interpret it?

this seems open to interpretation.

 

the commandment says to remember the sabbath and keep it holy. genesis says on the 7th days god rested. this was the original sabbath day, it is saturday not sunday. sunday has been the 1st day of the week since the calender was invented. constantine changed the sabbath day from saturday to sunday when he converted from paganism, fulfilling Daniel's prophecy.

i usually work on sunday but take it easy on saturday.

 

how do you define "take it easy"?

do you do any work?

 

I take it to mean that this was in a world very, very much different than our 40-hour, 5-day work week.

when we moved down, people gave my dad shit about mowing his grass on Sunday.

And one of our current pastors did, in fact, point out that the sabbath is saturday and that the word roots are similar.

 

There are some rather surprising similarities to what I believe & practice now compared to when I considered my a practicing Christian.

My Christian perspective was that the bible itself never "authorized" a change from a Saturday to a Sunday Sabbath; that the Sabbath was meant to offer both a respite from regular labor & an opportunity for special worship & fellowship; that all the strict prohibitions against doing ANYTHING but worship on that day were the result of people taking it too far & disregarding the real meaning of it; & that it was to be a day of turning your primary focus from your own mundane & selfish concerns to more spiritual learning & concerns.

My pagan view is not that far different. I don't observe a particular "day," but realize that it's important to have regular times of withdrawal from the usual work of making a living & to both physically & spiritually renew. People who spend all their time working run themselves into the ground physically & lose all perspective on what the meaning of life truly is. They're so busy making a living that they never really make a life.

 

The whole "day of rest" thing was always an interesting conversation between me and my ex (the turkish one). Evidently, in Islam, they don't believe God needed to rest. Afterall, he is all powerfull/omnipotent, etc. My reasoning was, if God could do all, why couldn't he rest? Seems like a sound question to me.

 

"The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." --Mark 2:27

We get the idea of rest first from Genesis 2, where it says that God "rested" on the seventh day of creation. However, a more literal translation of the Hebrew would be "stopped working". The Bible says that just after he "stopped working", God set apart the seventh day and made it holy.

Thousands of years later, Jesus told the Pharisees that "the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath."

I understand that to mean that God's purpose for the Sabbath is not only a day of physical rest (because we need it), but overall a break in the busyness of everyday life. I believe it's meant to be a day of peace and reflection. A day of minimal distraction. A day set aside to focus on God and be thankful for everything He is doing through us, for us, and around us.

And what do we get out of it? A day like that is physically, emotionally, and spiritually good for us. It recharges us on every level. At least, it does for me, and I think that's what it was meant to do.

 

I would agree 100% with Hasbeen. Sunday is the day I worship God (more so then other days) and take a break and spend time with my family. It refreshes your mind and soul. I have had jobs where I had to work on Sundays and could hardly stand it. And I have Sundays where I decide I'm too tired to spend time going to church. Doesn't work out so well for me. I have to do the whole enchilida.

 

I worship by standing in line until 12:00 until I can get some beer and then hit the couch for some football. All hail Delhomme!

 

You should just wait until 12:05 and then you wouldn't have to tax yourself by standing in line!