Unpop Culture

Sabbath Study, Part 10 After escaping the Egyptians at the Red Sea, the Israelites are led through the desert until they reach Mount Sinai. Moses climbs the mountain to meet with God and receives the Ten Commandments. The fourth commandment, as spoken by the very mouth of God, states the following: 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. (Exodus 20:8-11) Remember. As we have seen, the Sabbath was already known to the Israelites before the giving of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 16:23-30). Here, God makes an explicit connection between...

Sabbath Study, Part 9 In Exodus 16, the Israelites (having just witnessed the destruction of Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea) are introduced to manna, the food God sovereignly and miraculously provides for them in the wilderness. Each morning, manna covers the ground, and the Israelites are to collect only enough for that day. Then, on the sixth day of the week, a further command is given: [Moses] said to them, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning.’” So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Then Moses said, “Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, there will be none.” Now it happened that some of the people went out o...

Sabbath Study, Part 8 Now we will begin our trek through Scripture, starting at Genesis and ending at Revelation. Our first Sabbath-related passage is found in Genesis chapter 2, which, as we will see, is referenced in the Ten Commandments. So, let’s just start at the very beginning—a very good place to start. Here we see how the pattern for man’s workweek was set at the very beginning of history. Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 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) On the sevent h day. The concept of the week itself is unique. All other measurements of time (days, months, years) are based on the trajectory and rotation of the stars and planets, but there is no celestial basis for the week. The reason man lives in ...

Sabbath Study, Part 7 When we get to the actual Ten Commandments (in Exodus 20), we will see that God quotes directly from Genesis 2 to provide the basis for the Sabbath rest. Beginning with the next post, we will start to work our way through Scripture from the beginning, focusing first on Genesis 2 and what it means. In the meantime, I want us to examine the nature of all of God’s creation-week ordinances. As far as I can tell, there are three: 1. A RESPONSIBILITY: work (or labor). 2. A RELATIONSHIP: marriage. 3. A RITUAL: weekly rest. Before sin ever entered the picture, there existed these three divinely ordained aspects of man’s existence. Each gives us a greater understanding of the reason for which man was made. Let’s briefly examine each one and see what we notice about the perpetuity (or brevity) of each. Work First, the responsibility. When God placed Adam in the garden, He did so with a specific purpose. “Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to te...