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From: strick@gatech.UUCP (henry strickland)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Sabbath, infallible, legalism, and other concepts
Message-ID: <11433@gatech.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Dec-84 16:15:05 EST
Article-I.D.: gatech.11433
Posted: Sat Dec 22 16:15:05 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Dec-84 02:35:58 EST
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> > After having gone through many passages of the Bible that things
> > like "Blessed are those who keep my Sabbath" what justification
> > do we give for worshiping on Sunday's rather than on the Sabbath?

> 	Many Christian denominations view Sunday as the Sabbath, especially
> among Presbyterian and Reformed churches.  Since God's Law, expressed in the
> Ten Commandments, is just as applicable to us today, we are still obligated
> to keep God's Sabbath holy just as we are obligated not to commit adultery
> or make graven images.  The Sabbath was a creation ordinance (1 day of rest 
> in 7) and has never been undone.  It was meerly reissued at the time of 
> the Mosaic law.

     If you really believe that "God's Law, expressed in the Ten Commandments,
is JUST AS APPLICABLE to us today" [as it was to Moses and his gang],
then I don't see where you have any alternative except to observe
the Sabbath on Saturday.  (Yahweh never said "Pick any day out of the seven",
and I'm sure Moses would've thrown a fit if someone had suggested Sunday
or Wednesday night.)

     This is where I have a hard time with Christians who don't say what
they mean.   They use words like "inerrant" and "infallible", but if you
start to ask them about specifics, it becomes clear that they really mean
"sort of inerrant" or "kind of infallible" (although they will never admit
it).  They like the idea of inerrancy, because someone told them that
you can't be a Christian if you don't accept it, but they don't really
believe it.  It's more a status symbol.

     I get annoyed with these people mostly because they make others
believe that Christianity is not logically consistant.  Now I don't mean
to say that Christianity is rigorously provable .... I just mean that you
don't have to accept that apples equals oranges if you know Christ as Lord.
Christianity isn't Zen....   Many non-Christians don't really understand
that.  I used to assume that most people didn't lump all Christians
with Fundamentalists, but listening to many friends' "arguments disproving
Christianity," they really do.  Maybe this is a result of living in Georgia.

     I posed a question a week ago concerning divorce, and I recieved only
one response.  He didn't claim or deny being a fundamentalist,
but his response sounds more like literary criticism and reasoning
than a proof of inerrancy.  I thought basic to fundamentalism is that
things that are in the bible are inerrant, with no contradictions,
and there could be no doubt as to what they mean.  Yet Larry says
that fundamentalist churches disagree on such things.

     For the benefit of anyone interested, here's the response I just
mentioned.  It has references you might like to explore.  Also
I'm enclosing a correction I recieved on IXThYS, the fish.

===== from:  Larry Bickford, {amd,sun,decwrl,idi,ittvax,cbosgd}!qubix!lab

Strick,
	From different fundamentalist churches, you can different views.
	From Mark, Luke, *and Matthew*, plus Romans 7 and Malachi 2:16,
I find no grounds for a Christian to get a divorce. The "escape clause"
in Matthew (the gospel to the *Jews*) refers to the kind of incident
described (not accidentally) only in Matthew - chapter 1, where Joseph
would have divorced Mary "before they had come together," i.e., infidelity
during the betrothal.
	See also Psalm 15 "He who swears to his own hurt *and changes
not*" and Ecclesiastes (better not to vow than to break a vow).

===== from: Roger L. Hale 

IXThYS (iota chi theta Upsilon sigma)
Ihsous Xristos Theou `Yios Swthr
[except for the Th in Theou, single letters map to single letter above.
 h = eta, w = omega.  ` = aspiration (initial h).]

translation: as you gave it.

[ I had said: Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior     -strick ]

=====

   Now for my own ideas on the Sabbath and the relevency of
the Old Testament Law:  In Acts 15 there was enough
contraversy over this that a meeting was held in Jerusalem.
It resulted in sending an apostolic letter to "brothers of pagan birth"
[15:23] saying "It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves
not to saddle you with any burden beyond these essentials: you are
to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of
strangled animals, and from fornication." [15:29, The Jerusalem Bible.
There are interesting footnotes in this chapter, which I won't type in
here, but they give good pointers to other related scripture.  Two I will
include are Galatians 2 and Acts 21.  What's my favorite study bible?]
These all relate to pagan religious practices in cities where the letter
was sent.

   I am very anti-legalistic.  I think this is what Jesus spent most
of his time on earth talking about, but it doesn't seem to get through
to some Christians.  

   I heard some very interesting interviews with several renouned Jewish
theologians on All Things Considered (National Pubic Radio) in August
when the Jewish lady was in space.  They asked the Jews how one was
supposed to observe the Sabbath in space.  I was amazed at the (from a
Christian sheep's point of view) crudeness of the Jewish theology.
One common response was that one is not required to keep any Sabbath in
space.  The idea of what is required, rather than what the person feels
inspired to do and wants to do for love of God, was the only
consideration.  And I realized that if Judiasm is so different from
Christian theology, imagine how difficult it may be to speak of love
to members of some other major religions in the world (Islam comes to mind).

   I think the spirit of the Sabbath is the important thing.  That I
give a day back to the Lord.  But because I want to -- not because
any law is applicable.  If I do it because of a law, I'm surely condemned,
for I've never worried about any Sabboth-related prohibitions.
The law can only condemn us -- the gospel redeems us.


       Messianic holidays ....  strick!


-- 
 --  henry strickland  
  --  the clouds project            { akgua allegra hplabs inhp4 }
   --   school of ics / ga tech                         !gatech!strick
    --    atlanta ga 30332