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NASB | Exodus 20:8 ¶ "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Exodus 20:8 ¶ "Remember the Sabbath (seventh) day to keep it holy (set apart, dedicated to God). |
Subject: Sunday Sabbath or not? |
Bible Note: elder4yhwh, Part 2 of my reply 2. Second, I think I point about hermeneutics would be in order considering your appeals to Acts 13, 17:2, and 18:4. Whenever we read scripture there is something of a priority order. We give cheif weight to a very clear and explicit teaching in scripture. Below that we have an example of something in scripture. And finally below that we have an inferrence as the weakest. I will attempt to explain. Whenever we are trying to understand what scripture would have us to believe and do, we as flawed people and dull of hearing sometimes see contradictions. They are not really contradictions but having missunderstood something, they appear so in our mind. How do we resolve that? Well first we study to see if we missunderstood a passage. But having come to the same conclusion after that we must consider what has the most weight. Let me use an example. Who is allowed to take the Lord's supper? I grew up in a group who believed that it was only to be the members of a specific local body. How did they get this teaching? They claimed that Jesus practiced his first Lord's supper with ONLY his immediate local church. They therefore "inferred" this to be meant for a model which all Christians should follow. Is this valid? Well, my objection is that in Acts 20 we see Paul actually practice communion with members of multiple different churches. We see that Paul clearly did not agree with this inference? A clear example is to be given more weight. Why? Simply because an inference never explicitly stated has more room for human error than a simple observation. Now suppose they had a clear text that said, "Only practice this with the local Church." That would trump my example. Why? Because we would have to assume I am somehow missinterpreting what I am seeing in Acts 20. The more room for human error, the less weight in apparent contradictions. We are fallible, the Bible is inerrant. These are our convictions. Now in the Acts references you are working with inferences. The passages you share state that on the Sabbath, on these occassions, Paul went to the synagogues in an attempt to pursuade the Jews. Everything beyond that you are inferring. You are inferring, "Therefore Paul considered that it was still a moral duty for us to observe the Sabbath." But it is entirely possible that Paul simply went there because he knew that was the best time to find a gathering of Jews, no? So you are working from the lowest of the lines of reasoning. So if we see any clear teaching in scripture contrary to it. We listen to the clear teaching over this inferrence. If we see any clear example of an authoritative figure disregarding the Sabbath, we take that over the inferrence. So Paul's teaching is greater or more weighty than why YOU think he happened to show up to those synagogues on those particular sabbaths. We do not ignore Acts 17:2, Acts 18:4, and Acts 13. We simply listen to what Paul told us rather than guess at his motives there. I hope this helps. In Christ, Beja |