![]() ![]() It is an act of regular and intentional trust of God’s rule on Earth. Sabbath rest is an invitation to practice for eternity in God’s presence. Sabbath is not a commandment we are bound to it’s a promise we’re invited to enjoy. However, the wisdom of these laws remains, and the law of the Sabbath is rich with significance for us today. So what does this practice look like for modern Jesus followers? Does it mean attending a weekly church service, turning off work emails, or volunteering in your community? Does it matter what day you observe the Sabbath? Sabbath could certainly include those activities, but the whole of the biblical story seems to emphasize the purpose of the Sabbath rather than specific rules for observing it.Īs followers of Jesus, God does not expect us to live by Israel’s laws. Observing the Sabbath for Modern Christians When we trust God’s invitation to come to him and truly rest, we become places where his presence can dwell. We take a break from the broken rhythms of hustle and hardship to set aside a time to honor Jesus’ rule, enjoy his presence, and extend rest to the world around us. When followers of Jesus observe the Sabbath, we live as if this restoration has already taken place. ![]() Jesus teaches that the Sabbath points to him, the one Israel’s prophets promised would come to mercifully restore the rhythm of all creation. Jesus reminds the people of God’s original intention for the Sabbath: unity with God, creation, and each other. He is God’s rest, and the people can come to him and find the true seventh-day rest that God intended. And Jesus is here to usher in the full promise. The people are in need of rest-to stop hard work ( shabbat) and be present with God ( nuakh). Jesus wants to clarify the meaning of Sabbath for them. The people have become weary and burdened by the heavy weight of observing the Sabbath, following the letter of the law while missing God’s intent behind the command. To understand Jesus’ point, we have to look at the context in which Matthew placed these stories.Īll this talk of rest right before a passage that deals with Sabbath? This is no mistake. Jesus understood the heart of the Sabbath-what God’s original command was pointing to. Jesus responds with an argument that clarifies the true definition of the Sabbath, asserting his role as the promised Messiah and pointing to his divinity (Matt. 12:9-14), saying that Jesus is ignoring the command to keep the Sabbath found in the Hebrew Scriptures (Exod. They also object to Jesus healing a man’s shriveled hand (Matt. On one Sabbath day, the leaders object to Jesus’ friends picking corn as they’re walking through a field (Matt. In his Gospel, Matthew includes a series of connected stories where Jesus is confronted by Israel’s religious leaders and teachers. And Jesus had a lot to say about the Sabbath and the true rest that God intends for humanity. Jesus was God come to live among his people. We see the clearest picture of God’s presence on Earth in the life of Jesus. ![]() These opening chapters of Genesis communicate the importance of rest to God, but how will these concepts develop throughout the rest of the biblical story? God leads by example as he rests from work ( shabbat), and then he dwells ( nuakh) with his people. The literary structure communicates a link between the concepts of shabbat and nuakh-they are connected. Only a few verses later, we read that God creates humans and then immediately “rests them” or “settles them” ( nuakh) in the garden with him (Gen. After six days of bringing order to chaos, he takes the time to shabbat from his work. In the creation account, God works for six days creating the world, and he rests on the seventh day (Gen. God introduces the ideas of shabbat and nuakh right around the same time in Scripture. This type of rest is like sitting in front of a fire with a loved one or unpacking a suitcase to stay at grandma’s house for the holidays. ![]() This means to “dwell” or “settle.” This is not the same as clocking out from an hourly job. The other main Hebrew word for rest used in the Hebrew Scriptures is nuakh. The work is done, and there’s no more until you clock back in. Think of an hourly job where you clock out at the end of a shift. The first is shabbat, which gets partially translated into the English word “sabbath.” So what is shabbat? This word simply means to stop working. There are two main Hebrew words used for rest in the Bible. Before we answer that question, let’s take a quick look at the idea of Sabbath rest in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament. ![]()
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