to them: These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do: Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy sabbath of solemn rest to the Lord; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in all your dwellings on the sabbath day. ... When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day. Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation. They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.” The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Moses and with the implications of its fulfillment in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Among the Jews of Jesus’ day, esteem for the Law was so great that some even refused to accept anything but the five books of Moses as scripture. The Samaritans also rejected the idea of any scripture beyond the Law. The Law of Moses was no longer perceived in Jesus’ day as an expression of God’s will; rather, for Jews the Law of Moses had gradually become identified as the divine will itself—perfect, absolute, forever unchanging and unchangeable. Therefore, any deviation at all from the letter of the Law of Moses was also deviation from God. There was no room for flexibility. Jesus made it clear that the teaching of the Law of Moses was not eternal but was only a temporary concession made necessary by the hard-heartedness of Israel.
icon in their worship. If you visit the places where they meet, known as Kingdom Halls, you will find neither icons of “saints” nor statues of Jesus or Mary. Why not? Note what the Bible says on this subject.
as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” Then Jesus said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
were humble and sincere. But He rose up in righteous anger against hypocrites like the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees—those who tried to appear righteous in order to win the praise, influence, and wealth of the world, all the while oppressing the people they should have been blessing. The Savior compared them to “whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” Why does this happen? Why do we sometimes try to appear active, prosperous, and dedicated outwardly when on the inside—as the Revelator said of the Ephesians—we have “left [our] first love”? In some cases, we may simply have lost our focus on the essence of the gospel, mistaking the “form of godliness” for the “power thereof.”
more than I fear cigarettes, cards, and other devices the adversary may use to nullify faith and kill religion. Fanaticism and bigotry have been the deadly enemies of true religion in the long past. They have made it forbidding, shut it up in cold grey walls of monastery and nunnery, out of the sunlight and fragrance of the growing world. They have garbed religion in black and then in white, when in truth it is neither black nor white, anymore than life is black or white, for religion is life abundant, glowing life, with all its shades, colors and hues, as the children of men reflect in the patterns of their lives the radiance of the Holy Spirit in varying degrees.
they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the laws.”
rest ✤ Make it a special day for family and God ✤ Clean up downstairs Saturday night ✤ Avoid “everyday” occupations ✤ Grocery shopping ✤ Homework ✤ Electronic entertainment before 4 PM
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