looking for help reconciling the Sabbath with common observation?

[Roger316]

Of course you do, all who refuse to keep the commandments do try very hard to find a way out.

Maybe this is true of some people. But you don't have enough information about me personally to make that determination.

whatever the young rich ruler said NEVER changed what Jesus said: "If you will enter into life keep the commandments." obey Jesus or not if a choice we all have to make just make the right one.

why do you still reject what Jesus out Lord said, the young ruler refusal changes nothing of what Jesus said. Jesus told us clearly what one must to to enter into life.

I am not, of course, rejecting what Jesus said. I simply disagree with your take on it for two reasons: First, Jesus is talking to a fellow Israelite who is already keeping the commandments. Second, Jesus adds that the man should sell all his possessions.

Since Jesus is talking to a fellow Israelite in the first century, we cannot draw any conclusions from the text about what Modern Gentiles ought to do. Since that conversation, the church has learned that Gentiles are not obligated to keep Moses. For example, the question was put to the Jerusalem council and James decided to write a letter to the Gentiles. That letter made no mention of keeping the 10 commandments.

When the rich young ruler said that he was already keeping the commandments, Jesus told him to sell all of his possessions. It is interesting that there is NO commandment that a man should sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor. I don't think the Torah says this directly or even hints at it. What Jesus told the man seems novel, new, and quite unexpected.

Finally, I wonder how many Sabbatarians obey Jesus' word to sell all their possessions and give the money to the poor. I have never heard anyone on a message board argue that a man can't find eternal life unless he sells his possessions. Have you?

 

[Roger316]

The young man thought he was keeping the commandments, but Jesus needed to help him see that he wasn't.

Really? What part of the conversation led you to conclude that the man wasn't keeping the commandments?

Sell all you have and follow me..

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Choosing between Jesus and money.

He couldn't surrender the money because it was a greater god then Jesus.

The 10 are broader then most realize.

Aren't you assuming something about the man's heart and motives?

 

[2Christ]

Maybe this is true of some people. But you don't have enough information about me personally to make that determination.

I am not, of course, rejecting what Jesus said. I simply disagree with your take on it for two reasons: First, Jesus is talking to a fellow Israelite who is already keeping the commandments. Second, Jesus adds that the man should sell all his possessions.

Since Jesus is talking to a fellow Israelite in the first century, we cannot draw any conclusions from the text about what Modern Gentiles ought to do. Since that conversation, the church has learned that Gentiles are not obligated to keep Moses. For example, the question was put to the Jerusalem council and James decided to write a letter to the Gentiles. That letter made no mention of keeping the 10 commandments.

When the rich young ruler said that he was already keeping the commandments, Jesus told him to sell all of his possessions. It is interesting that there is NO commandment that a man should sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor. I don't think the Torah says this directly or even hints at it. What Jesus told the man seems novel, new, and quite unexpected.

Finally, I wonder how many Sabbatarians obey Jesus' word to sell all their possessions and give the money to the poor. I have never heard anyone on a message board argue that a man can't find eternal life unless he sells his possessions. Have you?

if your logic holds only Jews can be saved. Please do not label me as a sanitarian.

 

[ScooterJackson]

Well that would be dumb

Yes, but losing salvation is very possible according to God's Word.

 

[stilllearning]

Because I'm promoting obedience, does that mean I'm worshiping obedience rather then Jesus. ???


Obedience is the highest and most genuine form of worship we can offer to our Creator.
True worship is not merely an outward ceremony or the speaking of beautiful words; it is the submission of the heart and the alignment of our lives with the divine will.

I'm promoting the decalog which as God's divine will.

Notice the connection between worshiping and serving.
Mat 4:10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

"Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" 1 Samuel 15:22

"Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man" Ecclesiastes 12:13.

(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Romans 2:13.

1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

The reason I'm asking people to consider the true sabbath is because Sunday is a tradition of men. Mat 15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

So your worship isn't in vain.

What you are promoting is a well devised system of self righteousness. One that has just enough mentioning of Christ in the background, combined with Christian terminology. So you can justify yourself following the law and exempt yourself from having to follow all of it. The Sabbath added to and exhalted as it is the blowing of the trumpet, making long prayers, and any form of being seen by man.

Piling onto the Sabbath every virtue and glory you can imagine so that when keep it, in your made up and false religion. You can bestow upon yourself every bit of self righteousness and glory to your hearts content.

 

[Roger316]

if your logic holds only Jews can be saved. Please do not label me as a sanitarian.

Well, I wonder if you gave me enough time to develop my logic.

Let me put it this way. As I understand your perspective, you are hearing a straightforward question followed by a straightforward answer like the one I outlined below. Let me call this view the "Informational framework" Simply put, a man seeks information from Jesus.

Informational framework:
Question: What must I do to have eternal life?
Answer: Keep the Commandments.

You are correct and I agree with your observation that if that's all there is to it then only devout Jews can be saved. But that isn't right. Nothing is said about justification by faith, circumcision of the heart, or being born again. Even those who believe in the Saturday Sabbath understand salvation the way we do, but they say that keeping the 10 commandments is included. We are justified by faith and by keeping the 10 commandments.

I maintain that our interpretive framework is flawed. In order to understand what is going on, we need to adopt a different framework, which I will call the "Pedagogical View. The idea that Jesus is using the opportunity to teach the young man about "proper inwardness." Paul helped his Jewish friends in Rome understand this principle in his letter to the Romans, where he proposed two rival principles of Justification: by faith and by works of the law. Only one path leads to justification: believe in Jesus Christ. So what is Jesus trying to accomplish in his conversation with the young man?

Pedagogical framework:
Question: Good Teacher, what must I do to have eternal life?
Answer: Why do you call me good? Only one is good.
If You want to enter into eternal life then keep the commandments:
Question: I keep all those. What am I lacking?
Answer: Sell your possessions and follow me.

Bottom Line: It isn't what you do; it's who you follow.

We can't understand the passage apart from the cultural practice of the "traveling teacher."
In the ancient world, discipleship was not primarily classroom learning—it was **life‑apprenticeship**. Students often left home and traveled with their teachers, forming what scholars call *traveling schools*. A disciple learned by proximity: watching how the teacher lived, listening to how he interpreted Scripture, observing how he handled conflict, and imitating his way of life. This pattern was common among Jewish rabbis, Greek philosophers, and Roman moral teachers. To become someone’s disciple meant entering a committed relationship of learning, loyalty, and imitation. You didn’t merely study a set of ideas; you attached yourself to a person and adopted his way.

We tend to think that Jesus wanted the young man to make himself poor, but in reality, his advice to the young man was to acquire enough financial resources to become a disciple of Jesus and to travel with Jesus in his traveling school. In short, in order to find eternal life Jesus advises the young man to follow Jesus, to believe him and to trust him.

The young man had already figured out that keeping the commandments was not enough.

 

[spititlaws]

what's your recommendation on Saturday practice?

Hello Churchgoer: Thank you for your question. My recommendation is to keep the whole Sabbath the way God requires (Friday at sundown to Saturday sundown) and if your church does not observe 7th day Sabbath, still attend your church on Sunday. It is good to support the church. If you experiment with Saturday Sabbath the way the Bible explains (see previous post) for four weeks and keep a daily journal, then read the journal at the end and you should be able to see how God responded to you for following his law.

 

[Churchgoer]

Hello Churchgoer: Thank you for your question. My recommendation is to keep the whole Sabbath the way God requires (Friday at sundown to Saturday sundown) and if your church does not observe 7th day Sabbath, still attend your church on Sunday. It is good to support the church. If you experiment with Saturday Sabbath the way the Bible explains (see previous post) for four weeks and keep a daily journal, then read the journal at the end and you should be able to see how God responded to you for following his law.

Thank you.
Can we go have fun from fri evening to Saturday evening?
Jesus did walking fields.... on Saturday. I guess hiking will be good.

 

[2Christ]

Well, I wonder if you gave me enough time to develop my logic.

Let me put it this way. As I understand your perspective, you are hearing a straightforward question followed by a straightforward answer like the one I outlined below. Let me call this view the "Informational framework" Simply put, a man seeks information from Jesus.

Informational framework:
Question: What must I do to have eternal life?
Answer: Keep the Commandments.

You are correct and I agree with your observation that if that's all there is to it then only devout Jews can be saved. But that isn't right. Nothing is said about justification by faith, circumcision of the heart, or being born again. Even those who believe in the Saturday Sabbath understand salvation the way we do, but they say that keeping the 10 commandments is included. We are justified by faith and by keeping the 10 commandments.

I maintain that our interpretive framework is flawed. In order to understand what is going on, we need to adopt a different framework, which I will call the "Pedagogical View. The idea that Jesus is using the opportunity to teach the young man about "proper inwardness." Paul helped his Jewish friends in Rome understand this principle in his letter to the Romans, where he proposed two rival principles of Justification: by faith and by works of the law. Only one path leads to justification: believe in Jesus Christ. So what is Jesus trying to accomplish in his conversation with the young man?

Pedagogical framework:
Question: Good Teacher, what must I do to have eternal life?
Answer: Why do you call me good? Only one is good.
If You want to enter into eternal life then keep the commandments:
Question: I keep all those. What am I lacking?
Answer: Sell your possessions and follow me.

Bottom Line: It isn't what you do; it's who you follow.

We can't understand the passage apart from the cultural practice of the "traveling teacher."
In the ancient world, discipleship was not primarily classroom learning—it was **life‑apprenticeship**. Students often left home and traveled with their teachers, forming what scholars call *traveling schools*. A disciple learned by proximity: watching how the teacher lived, listening to how he interpreted Scripture, observing how he handled conflict, and imitating his way of life. This pattern was common among Jewish rabbis, Greek philosophers, and Roman moral teachers. To become someone’s disciple meant entering a committed relationship of learning, loyalty, and imitation. You didn’t merely study a set of ideas; you attached yourself to a person and adopted his way.

We tend to think that Jesus wanted the young man to make himself poor, but in reality, his advice to the young man was to acquire enough financial resources to become a disciple of Jesus and to travel with Jesus in his traveling school. In short, in order to find eternal life Jesus advises the young man to follow Jesus, to believe him and to trust him.

The young man had already figured out that keeping the commandments was not enough.

AI reply

 

[Roger316]

AI reply

Wrong. Try again.

 

[spititlaws]

Thank you.
Can we go have fun from fri evening to Saturday evening?
Jesus did walking fields.... on Saturday. I guess hiking will be good.

Hello Churchgoer. I think the idea is to keep God in mind and to eliminate distractions that take your mind off of God. The Sabbath is our time to meet with God, ask questions and receive His guidance for the ensuing week. God created us to communicate with us. If we indulge in too many distractions we find it difficult to quiet down and use our spirit to talk with God and to perceive His responses. Our joy in the Sabbath should be in meeting with God, letting God be the focus of the day and seeking His answers to our questions and His guidance for the coming week. Jesus lived his entire life focused on dialoging with God, even when he and the disciples had no food to eat on a Sabbath.

 

[spititlaws]

Hello Churchgoer. I think the idea is to keep God in mind and to eliminate distractions that take your mind off of God. The Sabbath is our time to meet with God, ask questions and receive His guidance for the ensuing week. God created us to communicate with us. If we indulge in too many distractions we find it difficult to quiet down and use our spirit to talk with God and to perceive His responses. Our joy in the Sabbath should be in meeting with God, letting God be the focus of the day and seeking His answers to our questions and His guidance for the coming week. Jesus lived his entire life focused on dialoging with God, even when he and the disciples had no food to eat on a Sabbath.

 

[Journey_man]

What you've written is a fairly standard Reformed reading of John 3:16, but I do not think John 3:16 itself says most of those things. The verse explicitly says that "God so loved the world" and that "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
The text identifies the object of God's love as the world and the condition as believing; it does not define "world" as the elect, nor does it mention total depravity, irresistible grace, effectual calling, or election in that verse.
Those ideas must be brought in from elsewhere in the system.
Whatever conclusions one reaches from other passages, John 3:16 itself reads as a universal gospel invitation grounded in God's love for the world, with the promise that every believer will have eternal life.
My concern is that when a theological framework begins redefining simple terms like "world" and "whosoever" to mean something other than their plain sense, the system may be exerting more control over the text than the text is exerting over the system.

In the Gospel of John, "the world" often describes the corrupt, rebellious human system in opposition to God.
God does not love every individual with an identical, saving affection, as that would mean God fails to save people whom He supposedly loves savingly.

In John 3:16 "the world" refers to God’s elect scattered throughout the entire world—the corporate body of believers whom God effectually saves out of the fallen world.
The Bible distinguishes between God’s general/providential benevolence toward all creation and His particular, effective, saving love directed specifically toward the elect.

The verse teaches an infallible connection: whoever (every single person who exercises true, God-given faith) will not perish. However, dead, fallen sinners do not generate that faith on their own; God must first regenerate the heart of the elect (irrespective of a universal saving decree for every single individual).

 

[OMC]

In the Gospel of John, "the world" often describes the corrupt, rebellious human system in opposition to God.
God does not love every individual with an identical, saving affection, as that would mean God fails to save people whom He supposedly loves savingly.

In John 3:16 "the world" refers to God’s elect scattered throughout the entire world—the corporate body of believers whom God effectually saves out of the fallen world.
The Bible distinguishes between God’s general/providential benevolence toward all creation and His particular, effective, saving love directed specifically toward the elect.

The verse teaches an infallible connection: whoever (every single person who exercises true, God-given faith) will not perish. However, dead, fallen sinners do not generate that faith on their own; God must first regenerate the heart of the elect (irrespective of a universal saving decree for every single individual).

What you've done is precisely what I was cautioning against.
You begin with a broader theological system, then read that system back into John 3:16.
The verse itself says, "God so loved the world" and "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
Nothing in the verse limits "world" to the elect, distinguishes between types of divine love, defines faith as something given only to a predetermined group, or introduces irresistible grace.
Those conclusions may be argued from other passages, but they are not stated in John 3:16.

You are correct that "world" (kosmos) can sometimes refer to the fallen world-system in John.
In fact, that is one reason I find your interpretation difficult.
If the world is frequently portrayed as the rebellious order opposed to God, then John 3:16 becomes even more striking: God loved the very world that stood in rebellion against Him.
That seems closer to John's point than saying "world" really means the elect scattered throughout the world.

Likewise, "whoever believes" identifies the recipients of eternal life, but it does not itself answer all the questions surrounding election, regeneration, or the origin of faith.
My concern is simply that the text's plain wording should be allowed to stand before it is filtered through a theological framework. John 3:16 presents God's love for the world and promises life to every believer.
Whether one later integrates that with a doctrine of election is a separate discussion, but the verse itself reads as a genuine gospel invitation, not as a coded reference to the elect alone.

 

[Roger316]

What you've done is precisely what I was cautioning against.
You begin with a broader theological system, then read that system back into John 3:16.
The verse itself says, "God so loved the world" and "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
Nothing in the verse limits "world" to the elect, distinguishes between types of divine love, defines faith as something given only to a predetermined group, or introduces irresistible grace.
Those conclusions may be argued from other passages, but they are not stated in John 3:16.

You are correct that "world" (kosmos) can sometimes refer to the fallen world-system in John.
In fact, that is one reason I find your interpretation difficult.
If the world is frequently portrayed as the rebellious order opposed to God, then John 3:16 becomes even more striking: God loved the very world that stood in rebellion against Him.
That seems closer to John's point than saying "world" really means the elect scattered throughout the world.

Likewise, "whoever believes" identifies the recipients of eternal life, but it does not itself answer all the questions surrounding election, regeneration, or the origin of faith.
My concern is simply that the text's plain wording should be allowed to stand before it is filtered through a theological framework. John 3:16 presents God's love for the world and promises life to every believer.
Whether one later integrates that with a doctrine of election is a separate discussion, but the verse itself reads as a genuine gospel invitation, not as a coded reference to the elect alone.

In John 3:16, the term "world" conveys that, while the gospel was first preached to Israel, it eventually spread to the entire world.

 

[OMC]

In John 3:16, the term "world" conveys that, while the gospel was first preached to Israel, it eventually spread to the entire world.

I think that's a much stronger reading than the Reformed interpretation that limits "world" to the elect, because it actually lets "world" retain its ordinary meaning while recognizing the historical context.