The Importance of Free Time and the Bibles teachings on it.
Introduction
Sometimes we take free time for granted but there is always a danger that quietly without you realizing it companies and political pressure group can start to undermine your freedoms and liberties. In some jobs one is forced to work at the Weekend. Other jobs working is necessary such as in hospitals and other services. Taking these things into account Israel’s covenant with God gave the Sabbath as a gift for the peoples spiritual, mental and physical refreshing.
- Spending time with God
- Family time
- Communal time for the good of society
There are many non-religious and religious views on the Sabbath rest:
- Some people don’t take any break whatsoever.
- Jews take Saturday off.
- Christians are supposed to take Sunday off.
- The Victorians with the Trade Unions were responsible for Saturday and Sunday as days of rest.
If we were to work seven days a Week, we would soon burn out and the mortality rate would shoot up as more people would die younger through illnesses and fatigue due to burn out. As a society we don’t seem to learn because companies through the back door and modern culture have put wealth in front of wellbeing. Society seems to have forgotten that not only are we physical beings, but we are also spiritual beings. Up to now I haven’t brought religion into the discussion so that resting is actually and should be seen as universal phenomenon. Since the 1970’s with the advent of new shop opening times, restlessness has again entered into our society in the 21st century. The unions actually played an important role in workers having two days of rest and now it seems to be the case that society again is pushing society to be full of workaholics which has the effect of many early deaths.
Genesis 2; 1-3 is therefore seriously important for any society to have healthy citizens. Sunday early closing times were relinquished and although it had a religious dimension it was also good for society at large. The onslaught against the Bible recently in the West is growing all the time with many Christians finding themselves in court over their faith. I read this morning on my phone that the Bible itself was banned in many primary schools in Utah. The world is going crazy and over time certain religious liberties we had are being eroded as other meta narratives push into ‘fertile Christian territory’.
With the relaxed Sunday shopping laws, it was annoying for a lot of people not being able to buy even small groceries but at least you had time for your families. Protection for the Lord’s Day is now gone but perhaps the next push is to stop people going to a spiritual house and spend time with the Divine.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. Genesis 2:1-3
Parsing of key verbs in Genesis 2. 1-3
Verse 1
The root verb Cala (pual passive form of the piel)(to complete) which begins at the beginning of the Hebrew sentence has a perfect meaning.
Verse 2
Completed; The same root verb kala (piel active) has a perfect meaning.
Rested; שָׁבַת shabath; a prim. root; to cease, desist, rest, Perfect in meaning.
Verse 3
All the following verbs are perfect or perfect in meaning; blessed, sanctified, rested, created; (preposition accomplished (infinitive))
Comments on these three verses.
The general creation story has now come to an end with the seventh day being sanctified by God. Here everything is in the perfect. In English the perfect tense carries the idea of a completely completed action. Bt the end of the sixth day all plant life, animal life and human life reached their completed number, and everything was perfect. There were no mistakes in God’s creation as everything was good and perfect. Although it says that God rested, it does not mean that God got tired because He does not get tired. It means that on the seventh day God was full of joy and was enjoying His creation. This resting also has serious implications for the whole of the human race as it has universal implications for how we treat human and animal life. We are expected to Follow God’s pattern and also rest at least one day a Week.
Below are some other reflections from the history of the Church:
Benson Commentary
“Exodus 31:17. On the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed — And, as the work of creation is worthy to be thus commemorated, so the great Creator is worthy to be imitated by a holy rest on the seventh day. The expression, was refreshed, is spoken after the manner of men. It seems to signify that delight and complacency with which God surveyed all his works, and pronounced them good, Genesis 1:31. Of this divine pleasure we may form some faint idea, by comparing it to that solace and refreshment which a benevolent mind enjoys upon bringing into execution some noble and arduous, some generous and well concerted plan for advancing the glory of God and good of mankind.”
Matthew Poole’s Commentary
“It is a sign, a sign of the covenant between us, that I will be their God, and they will be my people; both which depends upon this amongst other duties, and upon this in an eminent degree.
Was refreshed; not as if he had been weary with working, which surely he could not be with speaking a few words, nor can God be weary with any thing, Isaiah 40:28; but it notes the pleasure or delight God took in reflecting upon his works, beholding that every thing he had made was very good, Genesis 1:31.”
(From biblehub.com/commentaries/exodus/31-17.htm)(Image taken from wikipeadia)
The Sabbath in the Life of Israel and then the Church
The Sabbath has universal meaning, but it also has particular meaning for Israel and the Church:
- It is found in the 10 Commandments, the constitution of Israel.
- The Sabbath is respected by the Christian Church although some theological confusion is found between the original Sabbath and the Lord’s Day.
Exodus 20.8-11
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore, the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. Exodus 20:8-11
Then later in the same book it says;
16 So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.’ 17 It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.”
18 When He had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God. Exodus 31:16-18
Take special notice of verse 17; It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labour, and was refreshed.” Exodus 31:17
The Sabbath is a covenant with Israel for all generations between the Lord and his people. Verse 17 is an amazing verse because it says that God was refreshed. In the same way God wants his people to be refreshed. For Christians the Sabbath took on a new meaning with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Under the new covenant Christians are supposed to keep Sunday Holy. This does not mean that the Sabbath was abrogated (overturned as a Commandment).
What more can be said about the relationship between the Lord’s Day and the Sabbath. Firstly the Sabbath is made up of two parts:
- Moral
- Ceremonial
For some only the ceremonial aspect is not needed but the moral aspect stays.
On the seventh day God was refreshed and enjoyed His Creation. We are invited to also have recreational spiritual time. One thing is certain though that the Lord’s day is on a Sunday and from Bavincks quotation he says that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath instituted by the Apostles:
“As it is of the law of nature that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him:a which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week,b which in Scripture is called the Lord’s day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath day”
Exod 20:8, 10-11; Isa 56:2, 4, 6-7. • b. Gen 2:2-3; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:1-2. • c. Rev 1:10. • d. Exod 20:8, 10 with Mat 5:17-18. Taken from (apuritansmind.com/westminster-standards/chapter-21/). (image taken from wikipedia)
Reflection
For many Christians in the UK the Sabbath is seen as a Sunday not a Saturday for the reasons above and it is ingrained into British society. We have seen that even God was refreshed on the seventh day. This are to follow the Lord’s pattern and celebrate the new creation in the work of Christ. There is no set view on this in the Churches but it is obvious that the Apostles instituted Sunday as the new Sabbath. Perhaps this happened because of the persecution that Christians faced in the Early Church. I don’t know the answer to this yet.
Simple Bibliography
- Reformed Ethics; Herman Bavinck; edited by John Bolt;Baker Academic; Chapter 17.
- Bible Hub.
- Olive Tree Bible App
- Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
- apuritansmind.com
These are some books I have considered. I have also watched and read videos by Rabbi Sacks. Some of my views are from memory.
Weaver1has's Blog 
Leave a comment