Is Sunday The Sabbath?

Philip All right, welcome to All Are Yours. Even though some of us don’t like saying our name, my name is Philip.

Sean And I am still Sean. And this will be my voice through the rest of this recorded episode.

Philip Correct.

Sean I will be Sean when you hear this voice.

Philip That’s right. So if you are ever unsure who is speaking — that other voice is Sean.

Sean I am Sean.

Philip That’s right. And I am not Sean.

Sean You know what I just found out? You probably saw this or heard this. But there’s a kid that’s going to get named after me.

Philip Oh, congratulations. I did see this and hear this. Yes.

Sean So my wife already has a kid named after her. That’s in another family.

Philip Not related.

Sean Right. And she holds that over me all the time. No, she doesn’t. But that’s pretty cool.

So, my third grandson. My first grandson is actually named after the other grandpa, which is fine, great, because the Rothenbergers follow that naming system, which is great. I didn’t even think about — I mean, we were waiting to find out if it was going to be a boy or a girl. And, fun. I’m good either way. So are they. I mean, a girl after two grandsons, that would have been different.

Philip I mean, you need both types of people.

Sean Sure. In the world. That’s right.

Though our community has probably some more girls. We always need young men of marriageable material. You at least percentage-wise are helping out there, because you’ve got —

Philip Two.

Sean — two young men, right?

But anyway, I found out on Tuesday: Sean Titus is going to be their name. And I mean, they’ll call him by his middle name, like the Rothenberger men do.

Philip I don’t know. I’ve heard them call their other sons both names. So I’m not even sure which one is the middle name. Like, is it Peter Aurelius, or —

Sean It is Peter Aurelius, yeah. And we have been moving, all of us have been moving, more to calling him Relly.

Philip Okay.

Sean So they’ve been fine with either.

Philip Okay.

Sean But it’s moving more toward settling in.

Philip Okay.

Sean And Eddie — Edwin is his middle name — so he’s definitely moving into the middle name.

Philip That is something that the Russian community does not understand.

Sean The Russian community has like eighteen names for the same person.

Philip No, it has one name with eighteen suffixes to that name.

Sean To somebody else who’s listening, they can sound different.

Philip There you go. But it’s still one name. It makes sense to me.

But in Russian we don’t have a middle name. We have our dad’s name. It’s not even a name. It’s —

Sean Okay.

Philip It means — so, like, Philip Petrovich means that I belong to Peter, or I’m the son of Peter.

Sean Sure.

Philip So, Peter, Petya, Pyotr — and Petrovich is whatever belongs to Peter.

Sean I mean, English has some of those. Johnson.

Philip Sure.

Sean Is the son of John. So we have some of those. Henderson, or —

Philip But that’s what it is.

Sean Who’s Hender? That’s a good question. Whose name is Hender? And then there’s Henderson.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But yeah, so no middle name, technically. So it’s Philip, and then — it’s like, there’s a word for it, I don’t remember the word. But yeah, it’s your dad, who your dad is.

Sean Who’s your daddy?

Philip That’s right. And girls also are the same; it’s their dad that is there. So like my wife, Nela Nikolaevna — so, daughter of Nikolai.

Sean Okay.

Philip Right. So that’s how it works. But having a first name and the middle name, and then using the middle name, is fun.

Sean Well, I mean, so my youngest, her name is Sarah Keelah.

Philip Yeah, I’ve heard of this.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But I definitely forget it all the time.

Sean And we went that way for a multitude of reasons, including that at least until she gets married, she has my initials. So it’s SKH, me, and then SKH2 is her.

Philip There you go.

Sean But anyway, I am Sean.

Philip That’s right. And I am not Sean. I’m Philip.

Sean Yeah.

Philip That’s right. And so this is All Are Yours, so we could talk about naming conventions and the difference in our cultures of how that works. But today, episode 14, we are going to talk about Sabbath.

Sean Which — interesting, I just thought of it — 14 is a factor of seven.

Philip Mmm.

Sean It works out so well.

Philip There you go. Perfect. Perfect time.

Sean Seven is the number of perfection, they say, in numerology.

Philip Correct. And Sabbath is —

Sean Seventh?

Philip Yes, there you go.

Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath? Just to remind our listeners: we are dispensationalists, or at the very least dispensationalists in parentheses. And so us even having an episode about this might be kind of weird — meaning, isn’t this just an automatic no, let’s move on? Why do we even need to talk about this? There are fundamental principles in the dispensational camp that provide an answer. Is it worth even expanding on this question?

So, why would we even talk about this? Why spend this time? Yesterday your sermon was about this.

Sean Right.

Philip So why, in our dispensational camp, do we think this is worth considering or talking about?

Sean Yeah, I think we should consider it because we read and listen to a lot of people who do talk about Sabbath. People that we like.

I mean, on a — I guess it’s less personal and even more formal — I have definitely been, I think respectfully, confronted as being in sin. Like, that word. Not unwise, not missing an opportunity, but actually sinning, in my position as an elder, for not recognizing, observing, and teaching, and then expecting others to also hold to, a Sabbath proper, a capital-S sort of Sabbath.

So I take that seriously. That was worth engaging in, not just dismissing. And again, the kind of people that we are often encouraged by, they use that kind of language as well.

So I think a number of people in our own flock definitely have questions about what to do on Sundays, and, can we learn from Sabbath instructions what we can and can’t do on Sundays? Is that where we should go to get our principles and our do’s and do-nots?

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean So it’s definitely been a topic of conversation even in our sort of little dispy little hobbit hole.

Philip Because it’s easier, maybe, to throw stones at people outside of your own camp. Or maybe not throw stones — maybe disagree with, argue with, challenge people somewhere out there. And there are a lot of Christian platforms, even pastors behind a pulpit, who in their own congregation present maybe a message that everybody could just agree with, because nobody in the room actually disagrees with that. So there’s some sort of safety, it’s a safe space, to do that.

And so for a dispensationalist to be saying that Sunday is not the capital-S Sabbath might be an easy thing to say. But yeah, we do believe, like you’re saying, this is relevant to our people.

Sean Yeah. Because I didn’t feel — whatever that means —

Philip Right.

Sean I did not feel like it was, or still is. Because the jury’s out on emails I can still get this week, or other conversations that can be had, which is great.

Philip Right. Which you’re inviting.

Sean I’m inviting. It’s part of the reason why we’re talking about it right now in a recording.

Philip That’s right.

Sean My name is Sean. My voice is the one that’s talking right now.

Yeah, it’s part of the reason why we’re talking about it some more. And that is great, because we do want people to have their own convictions, while helping them know how to develop those convictions.

I did not feel like preaching a sermon on it was going to be a slam dunk, everybody already agrees — even if the majority of the TEC people maybe have not really even considered it. I definitely know that some of our people have. And again, because it’s not just you and me who are listening to Presbyterians, or Mosconians, or whoever it might be.

Philip Moscowites.

Sean Yeah. Those kinds of teachers and books and resources. So a lot of our people — we’re telling our people to get benefit from All Are Yours.

Philip Right.

Sean And so that does bring up other questions, like, okay, is talking about Sabbath what would clarify and fix what I need to be doing on the weekends, on Saturday or on Sunday?

Philip Yeah, I think there’s this aspect of, we are listening to, reading, learning from, and liking a lot of what we’re learning from, Sabbatarians. Right? Whatever — there’s a spectrum of even what that means — but people who identify themselves as Sabbatarians. So there’s that, where we —

Sean And they usually will tell you that they are.

Philip Oh yes, that’s right. After they tell you their postmil, they’ll tell you this: if you want to solve all your problems, you need to be a covenantal postmil Sabbatarian, and then everything will get better from there.

Sean Yeah.

Philip So there it is, right? We are maybe importing some of this information. But also I do think that there’s an aspect of our community, of our liturgy, that attracts some covenantalists, some Presbyterians.

Sean Yeah, that’s a good point.

Philip Right?

Sean It has. We have.

Philip Right. So people are peeking in and joining, and even are a part of our congregation. And so when we’re talking to our flock, our people, we are also talking to these people, right?

And so we want to love them and serve them, and walk with integrity before God, as we want to understand that we are accountable for these names in that way. So I think there’s — apart from just importing information — we also do have these kinds of people who we’re talking to and trying to figure out.

Sean Well, and even though compared to you I am an older man, according to the type of demographics, I try to be willing to rethink through questions that people have. So even though I am, again, older by comparison to some, I try to be willing to drag my thoughts and my theology through the verses again, to see if it’s still legit.

Now, you can’t burn everything down every week and start from scratch on every doctrinal principle. So I get that there’s a balance there.

And yet, when someone is really convicted or really concerned about a particular thing — usually it would happen, in my case, because I’ve said something already.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean And that doesn’t match.

Philip You brought it upon yourself.

Sean Sure. And they have questions about it. I do try, with the amount of time and energy that there is, to reasonably consider that, without it knocking me completely off of the path I was on, or whatever, before.

But this is one where, even over the last few years, due to a variety of conversations among our group, I have tried to read some more, or pay attention to the definitions in a different way than I have before, which is good. So, by God’s grace — again, from my own participation or perspective in this — by God’s grace, going through that again, I don’t necessarily feel hardened by it, but I do tend to appreciate some more clarity that comes.

And if that happens correctly, you can get more clarity and more grace at the same time. I can really appreciate how much I don’t agree, maybe, while maybe actually loving that person more.

Philip Right.

Sean So both of those things can happen at the same time. Maybe they don’t.

So even in this discussion, while working through some of the definitions and principles of what we should do on the Lord’s Day — or if we’re wrong for not recognizing the Sabbath day specifically — I have enjoyed, benefited, I’ve been edified by the additional conversations among the elders, or in some of the reading and preparation. Even today, you can tell me some other holes that are still there in what I’m saying, and we can try to get those plugged.

Philip There you go.

Sean Boom.

Philip There you go.

Well, kind of the starting point — I think you even had that, right? Starting point.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And then you had a preliminary starting point. You based it all on — maybe, I don’t have the exact quote in front of me, but something like: every New Testament Sabbatarian relies on a Sabbath principle, as opposed to obeying the Sabbath proper.

Sean Sure. Everybody who is worshiping the Lord on Sunday. Because there are some groups who profess to follow Christ who, because of what they understand about the seventh day and Sabbath, do meet for worship on Saturday rather than on Sunday. But I know very few of those people.

The people that we’re interacting with are much more — they are worshiping the Lord on Sunday and believing that to be the Sabbath application. But every person who is worshiping the Lord on Sunday has already agreed that things have changed. And then, well, why have they changed, and what all has changed? So we have already started with an agreeing point: that there is a Sabbath principle, rather than Sabbath exactly —

Philip Which —

Sean — moved to a new day.

Philip Those are fighting words.

Sean Yeah. I just —

Philip — by saying it that way.

Sean Well, I mean, that’s what I do, I guess.

Philip That’s right.

Sean I can’t help but bring some pointedness into our starting point.

Philip Which — yeah, I mean, there’s one part where you’re trying to build a bridge. You’re trying to find like-mindedness, a starting point, like you’re saying.

Sean Right.

Philip But why would people disagree with calling it a Sabbath principle? Like, if those are fighting words, why would they say, no, I don’t like that term?

Sean Yeah, maybe because it’s already too loose.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean We’re already abandoning the moral force behind it. It is potentially then allowing people to say they can disobey the fourth commandment. And we know that the Ten Commandments are moral law and therefore perpetually obligating. And if you then start limiting, or if you start compromising, by calling it a principle rather than the law, the Sabbath law, then you are maybe messing with their system.

Philip That’s right. Where are the brakes?

Sean Yeah.

Philip Slippery slope.

Sean Could be.

Philip Right. But yeah, so I think the big — I don’t know if it’s a silver bullet; we would like to think so — but yeah: you’re worshiping on the first day and not the seventh day, right, is what you’re saying.

Sean Yeah, that already means you have decided something is different.

Philip Correct.

Sean And so let’s ask: how do you know —

Philip Right.

Sean — that that gets to be different?

Philip Right. Is that in the Bible, that it has changed to the first day? So, did God say, okay, fourth commandment now refers to the Lord’s Day, the first day, and all of the Sabbath law applies there?

Sean If Jesus had said, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, comma, and now I’m telling you guys, do it on the first day” — if he’d have said that pre-resurrection, if he’d have said that post-resurrection, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Philip Right.

Sean If an apostle had said — even in 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul’s talking about how he had received from the Lord instructions. And of course Paul had not been traveling around with Jesus, so he had to get that instruction later on, after the conversion. Great. So Jesus gave Paul particular instructions, and Paul only mentions the Sabbath once — unless you think that Hebrews was written by Paul. Even so, let’s say Paul would have only mentioned the Sabbath twice, and neither time are obviously about how then the Sabbath is Sunday.

In fact, in Colossians 2, when Paul brings up Sabbath, he’s saying, don’t let people judge you based off of new moons and Sabbaths. The Hebrews passage is not obviously about anybody’s schedule, or about how the days of the week work. That sort of Sabbath rest sure appears to be salvific and spiritual more than calendar related.

Those are the only two times that the epistles mention capital-S Sabbath, and they say nothing at all about transferring Sabbath expectations that Israel had for Saturday, the seventh day, to then the church on the first day. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t good reasons to worship as the church on the first day. But saying that that is because the Sabbath was moved begs for — in our Bible-reading minds, it begs for — okay, well, where?

Philip Right.

Sean So, demonstrate, or keep reading for demonstrations of the arguments to get there, rather than just stating it like it’s obvious. Okay, well, actually, if we’re going to go with what’s obvious, it’s that we should still be meeting on Saturday.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean That, if there’s anything that’s clear, that actually seems more clear, if we don’t actually then call it a Sabbath principle. So, trying to start with Sabbath principle, and then, what do we need to do from there — that seems, I mean, that’s at least been my thinking the last couple weeks.

Philip Mm-hmm. Well, I’ve read a few things about the Sabbath, and whether or not it’s still in effect and how that plays.

So, the book Call the Sabbath a Delight, by Walter Chantry — the C-H, you pronounce it as “ch” in this one.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Okay. Well, my Russian phonetic background.

Sean You’d just make it a K?

Philip No, no, I’d want to say “ch,” but you never know with you guys.

So, he does have a question about which day of the week is the Sabbath.

Sean Also, Walter is his middle name. I’m just kidding.

Philip Okay. Like, no way. There you go.

Sean No, keep going.

Philip Yeah. And so he does provide an answer to this question — or he does at least ask the question, and specifically saying, where in the New Testament do we have the day changing from the seventh to the first? So he presents that question.

He does, I mean, like a good covenantalist, he does talk about needing the wisdom to be able to see that it’s there. So you could —

Sean Yeah, sometimes “you need the wisdom to see what is there” means you need to bring some other ideas with you into your reading. As opposed to reading out of what’s there, you have to read into what’s there. Sometimes.

Philip Correct. But also I could appreciate it to the extent of giving the benefit of the doubt and showing some grace, in that, yes, I do understand that sometimes there are logical conclusions that we ought to draw from Scripture. So Scripture gives us the premise, therefore, and then we apply that. So that makes sense.

Sean Sure.

Philip So in his argument he brings in Hebrews 4, when it talks about the Sabbath rest — that he has entered the Sabbath rest, he has finished it — and he applies the word he to Christ.

Sean And I can read the verses, then you can read the section if you want to.

Philip There you go.

Sean So, Hebrews 4:9–10. “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”

Philip Right. And so he is saying that “he who entered his rest” there —

Sean Yeah, there’s Chantry arguing that.

Philip That’s right. He’s arguing that it’s referring to Christ, not a believer, not a person who is doing that.

And so this is Chantry’s — I’m just going to read this paragraph here. He sets it up for a few pages on, you know, we need to be able to see it there, and then he’s showing us what’s there.

“It is Christ” — this is Chantry — “it is Christ who has once for all entered his rest when he rose victorious from the grave. It is Christ who once for all has ceased from his own works of redemption, as God did from his of creation. Christ’s ceasing from his works occurred on the first day of the week, just as God’s ceasing from his was on the seventh day. Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, has become Lord of the Sabbath. Sabbath keeping is under his reign and is a definite part of the activity of those who are in his kingdom. His finished work enables men to enter God’s creation rest. Hence, Sabbath keeping in the new covenant is on the first day of the week, and not on the seventh.”

So maybe I don’t have enough of that wisdom to see it there. But it does seem like Chantry — and rereading the whole book is kind of like this — he assumes his conclusion.

Sean Right.

Philip And then he builds his argument on an assumed conclusion. And he kind of does the same thing there, where he starts with what he thinks is in there, as opposed to drawing it from Scripture.

And so that was kind of the strongest, maybe, argument in this book about why it’s the first day and not the seventh: because Christ finished his work on the first day, he is Lord of the Sabbath, and now we are under his reign, so we should submit to the fourth commandment. That’s the line he’s trying to draw.

Sean Yeah. I did not watch, but I got a summary of, a YouTube debate that was asking the question — the debate was on whether or not Sunday is the Christian Sabbath.

And the gentleman, pastor, who argued on behalf of Sunday being the Christian Sabbath argued based off of the creation ordinance. And I guess I’ll give a couple comments to each of his points.

Creation ordinance, where God blesses the seventh day and makes it holy; he says, therefore we always have to have a blessed day. Though there isn’t a command in Genesis 2. That’s still before the fall. But the only command given to man before the fall was to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, take dominion and subdue it, and then not to eat from the wrong tree.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean There wasn’t actually an imperative.

Then the second argument the guy makes is that it’s a moral law, that the Ten Commandments are moral law. And are they moral law? I mean, usually then people try to distinguish between moral, civil, and ceremonial law in the Old Testament. And there’s definitely ways to observe some distinctions between kinds of laws that are there. But nowhere in the law does it say, it’s okay if you’re less strict on the civil parts, just make sure you keep the moral parts. Nowhere does it say the ceremonial parts are done but the moral parts remain. So that’s not how the law itself refers to itself. So saying that the moral law is summarized in the Ten Commandments is interesting, but again, is that the proof?

That then, thirdly: Christ rose from the dead on Sunday. And that is absolutely historically true. But how does that change a moral law? How does that change which day of the week it should be? The seventh day that’s holy, that’s blessed — it’s more specific than just the morality of it.

And then his last point was that there are practical implications from it, of how then you observe the Sabbath on the new day. But these are, I would say, actually still principle arguments. They’re not actually obvious that the fourth commandment now must be obeyed, but on a brand new day.

Philip Right. So, going to the moral, civil, ceremonial — because that keeps getting brought up for a lot of different things. Even in the whole Christian nationalist discussion, that is also brought up there, and everywhere.

So the idea there is that with Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, the ceremonial law is done away with, is no more. The civil law — and again there’s a spectrum here; I think the ceremonial law being done away with, everybody agrees with. The civil law, maybe there’s a spectrum of, it applied to Israel and it directly applies to a Christian nation, so a nation that identifies as Christian, because they’re in the covenant of grace, to take on that law for itself. Or —

Sean Yeah, or at least the group that says general equity.

Philip Or maybe on the lower-spectrum side of that: there are principles of the civil law that we ought to apply and make relevant, right? So again, there’s a spectrum there, where in the ceremonial there isn’t necessarily a spectrum.

Sean Yeah, those would be more of the — they’d be dismissed as the shadows —

Philip But —

Sean — then Christ is the fulfillment of those shadows, or types.

Philip Right. And then the moral law, they would say, directly applies to us today, right? So we are still under that.

So those categories — moral, civil, ceremonial — are nowhere in the Bible, right? So we bring those categories into it, as Christians. To be able to put laws in those categories, we have to do that work ourselves.

Sean Sure.

Philip Which maybe is okay, in the sense of, we are allowed to and we should do categorical, organizational work for the sake of study, or even application, or whatnot.

Sean Definitely.

Philip But then, to say which parts of God’s law are done away with or fulfilled and which one is still relevant — we don’t actually see that in Scripture anywhere. We don’t see that sort of distinction, to say that of the 613 commandments, this list still applies, this list sort of applies, this list was typology and is fulfilled.

Sean Yeah, like if we printed out the 613, and we highlighted the ones that remain, and we put a Sharpie through the ceremonial ones. And what do we want to do with the civil ones? We can circle which ones we like, and which ones — actually, we don’t need those anymore, kind of thing. Like, we’re going to decide —

Philip Right.

Sean — which ones to keep and which ones to not.

Philip Well, even when they’re presented, when Moses writes them out, sometimes they are more naturally grouped — they’re like civil related, or moral related, or whatnot. But sometimes what I’ve seen listed in different categories, Moses has kind of all jumbled up together.

Sean Yeah.

Philip So in the same verse, in the same context, he would write what you ought to do, what you ought not to do, and people would put certain things in each of those three categories all right there. So that seems like it requires a lot of extra wisdom to know what to do with all of that.

Sean Selective wisdom.

Philip Correct. Yes.

So then, when we read even in Hebrews, when it talks about Christ bringing in the new covenant and him fulfilling the Mosaic law — the old covenant becoming null, becoming obsolete, right? How do we as Christians then, maybe on a bigger principle or on a bigger question, live? How do we read any of the law? And is there any application for us when we’re looking at the Mosaic law as believers today? Is it all irrelevant? Is it all just, oh, that was nice for them, has no application for me, now I can go steal and murder and do all these other things?

Why do we still use some of those laws, maybe, or we quote some of that in convicting either ourselves or one another of sin, where other ones we could maybe have that conversation while we’re eating bacon? How do we live, if all of that is actually done away with and obsolete?

Sean Yeah. I mean, and you can give answer to that as well. There’s a few different places in the New Testament that seem to answer that question.

Like, it’s for the lawless people. So it’s actually intended to be used. It might not be the only thing necessary, like the only tool that can be used, but it is a tool that is used to point out what is wrong, and even then to point to Jesus as the answer. So, to point out that men are guilty. The law is good to show our guilt of disobedience before God.

And that is at least broadly true, even though in the passages where it talks about it, it doesn’t say that because you don’t have tassels on your garment, therefore you’re disobedient.

Philip So —

Sean The places where Paul — I think 1 Timothy chapter 1, or even Galatians, where it says it was a tutor, the law was a tutor, to bring us to Christ. Now, that to the Galatians was in particular to Jewish readers, because they were tempted to go back to Mosaic law fulfillment as a way to earn justification. And Paul was pointing out that the law was not meant to provide justification; it was meant to point them to their need for a savior.

Again, even in 1 Timothy — Timothy was a Jew, so he would have been —

Philip Part Jew, right? His mom was Jewish.

Sean Yeah, dad was Greek, mom was Jewish. So as a disciple he would have been learning the law and teaching it. Paul said in 1 Timothy chapter 1 that it’s good for the immoral, the unrighteous. So again, that they can see that they are guilty.

Romans chapter 3, obviously — the law, at least for Jews, condemns them, and potentially then for everybody who has the law, it condemns them. So, some distinction between those who sin without the law and those who sin under the law. Well, they’re both guilty, because those who don’t even have the law have a conscience, and the law is written on their heart to some extent.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean Again, probably not tassels. Probably not whether kings can have a lot of stables and horses, or marry other wives.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean But there’s some sort of guilt that the law on their conscience brings about. So: pointing us to God’s standards of righteousness, and that we need — for the sake of our justification, we need a substitute who can pay for our sins for disobeying God.

And then we do learn some standards of righteousness. Which then we also get a lot of explicit instruction in the New Testament about, whether it’s repeating the Old Testament or giving implications of some of the ways that the law described that they could live. Then we do actually learn some of what we should be looking for as fruit of the Spirit producing in us — it would be lawful kind of behavior, even though we’re not trying to obey the law for the sake of our relationship with God, to earn his favor, or definitely not to earn our salvation.

So, I mean, what would you say?

Philip Yeah. All of that, ditto.

And I think there’s a certain sense of reading the law even to understand God’s character, God’s holiness — so, as set apart, as distinct — so understanding how God thinks and operates and looks at things. So as we get to know our Maker more, we see that this is the standard that he has for human interaction, for how we live, and so we want to be more like him. We want to imitate that. We want to do what he does. We want to think like he thinks.

And so I think that comes into play even in the sense of Sabbath principle, right? So Moses does point to God’s action of work: the six-to-one ratio, work to rest. And not only is that the way God does his work, but he instilled that into the creational practice, into the creational order.

Some of our calendar questions are maybe up for discussion and debate — how long should a month be, Gregorian versus Julian or whatnot? But a seven-day week is instilled by our Maker. We don’t really have any debate there.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so I think seeing God’s character in his word, in the law, is one of the things that we ought to be doing when we’re reading it. Like, we’re getting to know God more.

And then again, as this applies to this question of Sabbath: okay, if the Sabbath law, Sabbath proper, is not the Lord’s Day, is not Sunday, how then do we live with the Sabbath principle on the Lord’s Day? And so I think that is more of an applicable question to what we’re trying to do and build up here.

Sean Yeah. What principles? What was the principle for the Sabbath that then got explicitly made a law in the Mosaic covenant? What are the good parts about it? When Jesus said that man wasn’t made for the Sabbath, but Sabbath for man — that has some principle in there, not just law part.

Philip Right.

Sean So what does that mean, that man was not made to fit into that, but it was made as a blessing for man? So even in the creation account, God blessed it and made it holy. So he added his favor to it in a unique way. Unique as holy, unique as set apart; blessed as a gift, part of generosity, a good thing that he is sharing.

So what then does that look like in a Christian manner, not trying to follow that as a capital-L Law?

Philip Right. Yeah, I do think there’s this sort of maybe backwards dualism, when we say that all is equal, there is no distinction. So we’re fighting dualism, saying that spiritual things are more important or more prominent than physical, material things — we don’t like that. But then we also wouldn’t say that there is no distinction between anything, and everything is the same. So we’re not egalitarians.

And so again, even on maybe a more theological level, between Israel and the church, or between man and woman, right? Even though salvation is through faith in Christ, there is still distinction there.

And same thing goes for even things like our attention, our time, what we spend doing. Not everything is the same. Yes, we should be worshiping God whatever we’re doing. But does it look different in different circumstances, in a different context? Is there an explicit way to do one thing that we’re not doing any other time?

And so, in that Sabbath principle way, as the Lord’s Day, right, we gather and assemble as a congregation to worship God together. And so that is different than us worshiping him in our work. Whether we eat or drink, we glorify him — those are all different, distinct things. And so that’s one of the things that ends up happening on the Lord’s Day: that we assemble, congregate together, to behold God as an assembly, as a body.

Sean Yeah. So which is better worship, the assembled worship or the individual worship? So, me as a living sacrifice fulfilling my vocation, or me as a member of the body, joined with the body and singing a song? Like, well, which is better?

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean Well, it depends on what better we need for that time.

Philip Depends on what day of the week.

Sean Right.

And even though — I think we talked about some of your interaction online with Joe Rigney before, and typology, and that as a way to read the Bible. So there are things that we have to not follow slavishly. But his categories — at least he’s the first one that I ever read the categories from, which I thought were super helpful — were the categories of comparative and integrated.

Where, you know, how do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then it also says love your neighbor as yourself? Like, how could there be any left over? Well, comparatively, there should be nothing on earth we desire besides God. And then, integrated, we should love all the things that God has given us on earth, not act like those are dumb gifts that he gave us.

Philip So —

Sean So even the Sunday and the rest of the week is an opportunity to have some testing being done. So, comparatively: do I want to work for my blessing, or do I want to serve God and have him bless me? Well, comparatively, I don’t want to try to do anything. Comparatively, I don’t want the result of what just my energy can accomplish and works at all.

Now, integrated, I should definitely be serving God in my work. But comparatively, I shouldn’t trust my work at all. Comparatively, I shouldn’t love my life apart from God at all. Like, nothing I should desire more than God.

And having an entire day — and especially then the opportunity on that day to gather together with other people and do some of the things that we find in the New Testament that the church was doing when they assembled.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean Hearing the word, praying, even giving, more than singing. I am assuming that they did some singing; that’s not as explicit, though we love our psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. The fellowship. Those are crucial things that they did together that were different than the rest of the week.

So, the reminder of who is turning the world. It’s not me. Even though he sends me out into the world to take dominion, I only do that from a position of his blessing.

Philip Right.

Sean And in the Sabbath, they were working, working, working, and then had the rest before continuing again. And they’re obviously following God’s example of that. We, in a unique way, are starting with the remembrance of what we have in the Lord who conquered death, rose again from the grave. We also are raised to walk in newness of life. Head out into the week and go do it.

So for lots of reasons, I’m glad that we have the Lord’s Day as the first day of the week, to spend the rest of the days out of.

Philip Yeah, for sure. I think that is a distinction that I’ve heard a lot before that I do really appreciate.

Sean Yeah.

Philip In that kind of paradigm: that we no longer work toward our rest, we work out of it.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so that is something —

Sean That’s like really good news.

Philip Yes, absolutely. And so, just that model — that’s why in all of my productivity setup I vehemently refuse to make Monday the first day of the week. Because I want my week structured going out of Sunday, going out of the Lord’s Day: rest, receiving grace, receiving his blessing.

Sean Yeah, even some of the Getting Things Done to-do apps, or calendar apps, that ask you if you want to start Sunday.

Philip Or they automatically have that set up for Monday to be the first day. Absolutely not.

Sean Yeah, wrong.

Philip That’s right.

Sean That is not All Are Yours.

Philip Correct.

And so yeah, I do think that is an awesome reminder of just the gospel built into the seven-day week. That we work out of grace. God abounds his grace to us, and then we abound in every good work.

Sean And that principle is so good it doesn’t even require wisdom.

Philip There you go. That’s right. Even the simplest among us.

Sean Yeah.

Philip That’s right. We’ll see that.

And so, again, that kind of distinction — I connect it to purpose. Like, what is the purpose of this thing? What is this thing for?

So I can’t say what is more valuable to me, a hammer or a screwdriver. Well, it depends on what I need in the moment. What context is this for? If I have a nail, the hammer is more valuable. If I have a screw, the screwdriver is more valuable, right? And so that’s even a wrong question.

And so when I am thinking about the Lord’s Day: what is the purpose that that day conveys, that the day is for? And I think part of that distinction there — and we should again have this for everything — but the purpose is a tone setter for the whole week. As our life spins Sunday to Sunday, week to week, and we count that time, the purpose of that first day is then to set the tone for the remainder of the week.

And so what kind of tone is fitting for a believer? What kind of tone is appropriate for someone who is living under the lordship of Christ, for someone who has received his grace and believes in the living God? And so the tone that we believe, and we want more and more of all of us, all of our people, to live out, is a tone of delight, is a tone of pleasure: that we have God’s pleasure, we have God’s acceptance, we have his grace. And so the tone for the entire day then should be set up in that way.

Sean Yeah, that’s one of the things that you have mentioned recently as a thing that you think should get emphasized: that we’re talking about the day, more than we’re just talking about the service, more than just a gathering for a couple hours. It is to be a tone for the day.

What would you say helps that for all of the day? You’re not saying don’t gather for corporate worship, but that’s kind of like the baseline.

Philip Right.

Sean That’s the obvious one. What else?

So, if we’re talking commander’s intent for Lord’s Day tone setting, most of that then is probably going to be related to dads leading their household, even more than the worship service, because most of the day is not the worship service.

So obviously churches can have multiple things on the same day — evening services that churches used to have all the time, or some kind of potluck; churches often have those on Sunday afternoons as well. And it is true that a good worship service can help families set the tone when they’re not at the worship service later on in the day.

But as somebody who cares a lot about how the whole day’s tone goes, what would you say are some things that dads, husbands, should be considering, or doing — principles for families to set that tone themselves?

Philip Right.

Sean Not just when we’re gathered for the corporate worship part.

Philip Right. Yeah, I think that’s an important part of it: that this isn’t just for pastors to consider, how they’re structuring the worship service. But yeah — heads of households, husbands, fathers: how are they structuring the entire day to then kick off the week, reminding their household of God’s grace, God’s pleasure, in that way?

Yeah, I think “delight,” I like that word. “Pleasure,” I think, is a good word as well, in that sense of God’s pleasure. “Joy.” So the tone for the day ought to be set in that aroma, that atmosphere. What makes this day a delight? What makes this day pleasing? What makes our family look forward to this day and want it to be happening again?

And so I think a lot of that comes to, like you’re saying, the dad being willing not just to cast the vision, but also do the work that is needed for the day to be a delight. And I think that will look different depending on your context. Do you have kids? What age are your kids? Are they little? Are they bigger?

And so even — when Proverbs talks about how a dinner of herbs where love is, is better than a fattened ox and hatred with it. Okay, so it’s not necessarily about how much good food you’re able to provide and offer, but the attitudes around the table.

And so, making that day a delight: what does it take? What does it take to make sure that you, as the dad, as the husband, are setting up and helping in making your wife enjoy the day, your kids enjoy the day?

So, I know you guys do this, we do this as well, there are other families in our church who do this: we like to kick it off Saturday night, Saturday evening, with a Sabbath dinner — and you emphasize that it’s a lowercase-s Sabbath dinner.

Sean Do you call yours Lord’s Day dinner? You said what you call it, but I can’t remember.

Philip We used to call it Sabbath dinner.

Sean Okay.

Philip And that’s when it was kind of getting confusing to me. So I started calling it Lord’s Day dinner.

Sean It is Lord’s Day dinner.

Philip Yes.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But I do think that Sabbath dinner is more sticky of a name. Just because — I don’t know. So my kids are having a hard time switching over to Lord’s Day dinner. Naomi still keeps calling it Sabbath dinner. That’s what she looks forward to.

But yeah, Lord’s Day dinner, kicking off the Lord’s Day, starting with Saturday evening, making that a delight. So we also do it more special, with the overall setting up of the table, the food — we want it to be a little more intentional, prepared. I usually try to help with that dinner much more than maybe a different kind of dinner. A different one, I’d come home from work and everything was already done. This one, I’ll end Saturdays a little bit early. And in our context, again, we have some younger kids, so there’s more hands-on work that is required for that.

So we have a little liturgy that we do, where it’s like a votum. Is that what the term is?

Sean Like the call.

Philip Right. So, like, I’ll say something, and then the kids and the rest of the family would say something, and then we’d go back and forth a few times, that —

Sean Yeah, it’s also — if there’s a bunch of questions and answers, that could be like a little catechism. Votum is also call and response.

Philip Yeah, it’s a call and response. So it’s mostly Bible verses. So, “This is the day that the Lord has made,” and everybody says, “let us rejoice and be glad in it.” “Go, eat your bread with joy, drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.”

So we quote those verses. I quote the first half, the rest of the family the rest. We sing, we pray, we toast, clink our glasses with some wine with the kids — to the extent that if we ever have wine with a different dinner, our youngest thinks that it’s Sabbath dinner.

Sean Right.

Philip So they make that association there.

And so even the wine, right, just as a little practical example: I used to have it more, okay, no, it’s got to be wine that is dry and bitter and real wine, right? One of our three kids likes that. The other ones, for them it is a struggle. And so to make it more of a delight, for them I serve like a dessert wine.

Sean Yeah, Prosecco kind of wine.

Philip Some kind of like rosé type of thing. So it’s still red, but it’s a sweet dessert wine, to make it more of a delight. And so, again, I want the association not to be “burden, I have to do this,” but “hey, this is great, I like this.”

And so they get to pick out a little treat as well, so that they could eat right after dinner, with dessert. So that kind of kicks off the Lord’s Day. I’m just giving you some practical things.

Sean Yeah, I mean, because I mentioned our household trying to have a Sabbath-y sort of dinner on a regular basis, even in my sermon. And one of the things that I might have, could have, should have said is that also, there’s no law about having Sabbath dinner. You don’t have to do that.

I have gotten some grief, when that’s been a discussion before, about how, well, that works for you. We can’t do that.

Philip Right.

Sean And I’m like, fine. Absolutely. No worries.

Philip Right.

Sean You figure out what it looks like for you.

And even yesterday I had a conversation about — in every situation, it might actually not be the thing to do. If your family is already doing a bunch of other things throughout the rest of the week, and then you’ve got super high expectations, and it’s just wearing people out to get this big kind of celebratory dinner going on Saturday night, so that then we’re too tired for enjoying Sunday — well then, that also is missing it. So there’s got to be some thoughtfulness, some balance, on what your capacities are. And like you said, the considerations of how old your kids are, or what all you’re trying to do, who’s got the capacity to pull it off.

Philip Right.

Sean So, way better to have everybody with the dino chicken nuggets from Costco and some cheap wine —

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean — and happy singing.

Philip Right.

Sean Because we’re not all exhausted just trying to get there.

Philip Right.

Sean Or dad’s not mad. If dad is mad because it didn’t meet his expectations, well then we’ve already blown it.

Philip Right.

Sean Same on Sunday. So, should people take naps? Should dad take a nap? Well, I actually don’t have any problem with taking a nap. I sometimes take a nap. And also, if dad is taking a nap and treats everybody else like they are the hurdles to his rest —

Philip Right.

Sean — well, we get who the day is about: the day is about dad making everybody else be quiet so that he can have his rest.

So again, is it good? If he’s going to take a nap and everybody agrees and that’s good, and the kids can be more quiet for that time — no problem. But if he’s angry about it and demanding about what he’s going to get, well then we’re already missing the fact that the day is given to us by the Lord as a gift.

Philip Right, exactly right. So —

Sean That’s what we’re remembering in communion all the time: he gave himself for our life. So that’s what we’re supposed to learn. We behold his glory, and we then are changed into that glory, which is a giving kind of glory.

So even the rest part that’s supposed to come — you were saying it earlier — well, there’s actually a certain amount of work that goes into making it be restful.

Philip Right, exactly.

Sean Making it be delightful.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And it could be a thousand things. I think there are other families that don’t do a Sabbath dinner, but dad helps, or dad and mom make some special breakfast on Sunday. They have cinnamon rolls every Sunday morning.

Philip Right.

Sean Homemade. Well, awesome. Think about a way that makes it tasty. Tasty is a word that we like to use. So, delightful, tasty. Again, doesn’t have to be the richest foods or the most expensive wine.

Philip Right.

Sean But in terms of, yeah, something we look forward to.

The elders try to make our service, in a spiritual way, more like that as well, so that it’s not as much a drag. I mean, as one who is usually doing a lot of the thinking and even leading of how that goes, I’m regularly not pleased with how delightful I did or didn’t make it on any given Sunday. But it’s definitely a principle and priority in my thinking that I’m trying to do a part to bring about.

Philip And so again, being in a position of responsibility, so some sort of ruling position — whether it’s the elders, the pastors, preparing the liturgical feast, or a father, a dad, a husband leading his family — the idea there, I think, is to give that delight, to give that joy, to give that pleasure, as opposed to expect to take it. And so that is a position of work. That’s a position of service.

So, is Sunday morning the worst morning of the week because it’s so hectic and stressful? Well, maybe dad needs to wake up a little bit earlier and help prepare, help get the kids ready, help prepare breakfast, serve breakfast to your family. Make that breakfast a delightful one that’s different than the rest of the week, because there’s joy there, right?

So, do the kids, in their age and their season, really not like when dad takes a nap because he can’t play with them? Well then maybe you don’t need to take a nap, because your position is to give rest, to give delight, to give pleasure — help them to love that day even more, because this is the day when dad gets to play with us even more, right?

And so again, having that sort of mindset of, it’s a day of delight and it’s my job to make sure that the whole day is set up that way. And again, all of this is not law. This is working under that umbrella of principle and trying to be consistent with the whole day.

But like, as a business owner, I also want that sort of thing for my employees, the people who I’m responsible for at work: to give them rest and make that day uniquely pleasing or delightful — apart from just not having them work on Sundays, to give them an opportunity to come to church. But also, okay, it’s not an overtime day, because the whole day is to be in that tone of rest. Again, that’s not law. I’m saying, just for the sake of consistency of principle, this is what I try to do for the things that I’m responsible for.

Sean Well, even how the elders plan events on Sundays on a regular basis. One of the reasons that we don’t have Sunday school is because, well — if we did it at the same time as we had the corporate worship service, then we miss out on the intergenerational opportunities of even mom and dad being the example and worshiping as a family. So if we did it where Sunday school competed with the assembly’s worship, we don’t like that. And then the alternative is to have it at a separate time, and so then we lengthen the amount of time, and we increase the number of people who have those kinds of responsibilities.

So even when we’ve considered evening service or not, or how often, or what we do, those kinds of things — it has been with this kind of principle in mind. Like, okay, what is really good, and what is worth doing, and what is an opportunity that could be good but that also would be more taxing on other people? And so how to decide what is a good balance is a church’s job, a business owner’s job. I mean, yours is more simple in that, okay, nobody’s working on Sunday.

Philip That’s right.

Sean But even then, for dads to be thinking about it and talking to their wives. We could have men and women listening to this podcast; it’s not gender exclusive.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Could be that the wife gets super excited about Sabbath dinner and the husband is not as excited about it. Could be that the wife has a lot of ideas for what the husband could be doing on Sunday. “Ooh, it’d be great if you got up and made breakfast on Sunday morning for us.”

So again, not trying to create conflict either, but definitely trying to — actually, wives, obviously you can talk to your husband about it, and maybe you do have ideas that would be helpful. But it’s not going to be more helpful if you’re disrespectful about it, or if you then become grabby for what you’re going to make your husband do.

So we are actually encouraging the heads of households to take that initiative, and think about it, and use their resources — which could include asking their wives who have more skill at the pancakes, or, help me learn how to make pancakes, or whatever it is. But there ought to be joy in the husband-wife plan of attack for how to do it as well, which is not going to happen if the wife is nagging. It’s obviously not going to happen if the husband is neglecting it either.

So it’s all right to start small, like, try something. It’s all right to try different things. It’s all right to say, well, we’re going to try this for a while and then we’ll review it and see what we need to change. Because it’s not law, there isn’t actually only one way.

And even in our case, because of the ages of our kids, which are older, it means that they sometimes have jobs that they’re getting home late from on Saturday, or they have sports things on Saturday — which we’d much prefer to have a swim meet on a Saturday compared to on a Sunday. Different things like that. But that then does mess with everybody being there as equally on a Saturday night. So sometimes, even when we’re having our Sabbath dinner, it looks different depending on how many people were able to get there.

Philip Right.

Sean Sometimes it’s a pretty small group, and therefore our singing is not quite as strong as when everybody’s there — and now grandkids and son-in-law and expanding family, which is super fun. But that means we have to continue to be flexible and considerate of what is giving, rather than — because you could make Sabbath dinner a taking thing.

Philip Right.

Sean And you demand that all of your grown kids who have their own kids, you demand them to come over. Well, you’re not actually — again, it’s missing the idea. “But we have Sabbath dinner.”

Philip Right.

Sean Well, and nobody is excited about it.

Philip Right.

Sean Because you’re having a bad attitude, or whatever it is.

So, lots of ways to mess it up. But also lots of ways to then honor the Lord.

Philip Right.

Sean Yeah.

Philip The Lord of the day.

Sean Right.

Philip Right. So there you go. All right, well, that is us.

Sean I’m still Sean. Here at the end. This is still my voice.

Philip Still his voice. And I have not changed my name either. All right. Sean and Philip, both are out.