Isaiah 58Take My Time
The fourth commandment, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy,” raises questions. First, the historical problem: was there sabbath observance before Sinai? The word “remember” introducing the command, plus the narrative of God’s earlier non-provision of manna on the seventh day because he had given it as a sabbath for rest (Exodus 16:22-30), suggests that there was, while Genesis 2:2ff. (God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested) takes sabbath-keeping back to creation itself.
Sabbath & Lord’s Day
Second, the dispensational problem: what is the relation between the Old Testament sabbath, the seventh day of the week, commemorating creation and redemption from Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:15), and the “Lord’s day” when Christians met for worship, the first day of the week, commemorating Jesus’ resurrection (see John 20:19; Acts 20:7; Revelation 1:10)? For Thomas Aquinas and the Westminster Confession, the relation is just a new way of counting six-and-one, so that Lord’s day observance is the Christian form of sabbath-keeping. “From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be a weekly Sabbath; and the first day of the week ever since . . . which is the Christian Sabbath” (Westminster Shorter Catechism).
This seems the natural reading of the scanty evidence (i.e., the three New Testament texts noted above); but Seventh-Day Adventists continue the Saturday sabbath, denying that a change has been made, while many, with Augustine, seeing that the commanded “rest” was typical of our rest of faith in Christ, conclude that, like other Old Testament types, this commandment is now abolished. Then their reason for keeping the Lord’s day is the church’s traditional practice rather than God’s direct command.
Third, the ethical problem: if the Lord’s day is the Christian sabbath, how do we keep it holy? Answer—by behaving as Jesus did. His sabbaths were days, not for idle amusement, but for worshiping God and doing good—what the Shorter Catechism calls “works of necessity and mercy” (see Luke 4:16; 13:10-17; 14:1-6). Freedom from secular chores secures freedom to serve the Lord on his own day. Matthew Henry says that the sabbath was made a day of holy rest so that it might be a day of holy work. From this holy work, in our sedentary and lonely world, physical recreation and family fun will not be excluded, but worship and Christian fellowship will come first.
Your Time is God’s
Inferences from these three questions may be disputable, but the underlying principle is clear—namely, that we must honor God not only by our loyalty (first commandment) and thought-life (second commandment) and words (third commandment), but also by our use of time, in a rhythm of toil and rest; six days for work crowned by one day for worship. God’s claim on our sabbaths reminds us that all our time is his gift, to be given back to him and used for him. “Take my life” includes “take my moments and my days—take my time, all of it.” This is where true obedience to the fourth commandment begins.
That Christians are stewards of the gifts and money that God gives them is a familiar truth nowadays; that we are stewards of the time we are given is less stressed, but just as true. We can learn this from the Puritans, who often voiced their sense of the preciousness of time, and from Paul, who urges, “Look carefully then how you walk, . . . making the most of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15ff.; cf. Colossians 4:5). “Time” means “moment” or “opportunity”; “making the most of ” is literally “buying up,” “redeeming from waste or uselessness”; and the days are still “evil” in Paul’s sense, namely full of temptation and opposition from satanic sources (cf. 6:11-17). Satan wants to see every minute misused; it is for us to make every minute count for God.
How? Not by a frenzied rushing to pack a quart of activity into a pint pot of time (a common present-day error), but by an ordered life-style in which, within the set rhythm of toil and rest, work and worship, due time is allotted to sleep, family, wage-earning, homemaking, prayer, recreation, and so on, so that we master time instead of being mastered by it.
Few of us, perhaps, take the fourth commandment as seriously as we should. My own failures here have been great. What, I wonder, about you?
Further Bible Study
How to give time to God:
Isaiah 58
Questions for Thought and Discussion
What relation do you see between the Old Testament sabbath and the New Testament Lord’s day? Defend your view against alternative views.
How can we keep the sabbath holy in our time?
Practically speaking, what is involved in giving all our time to God?