| Home | Objections Answered | For Skeptics | Search | Links | Contact Me |
[Ex 20:8]
[Is 1:13/ Rom 14:5/ Col 2:16]
The Sabbath is a topic a lot of Christians disagree on.
Exo. 20:8 teaches that the Sabbath was instituted. But it was also practiced by God Himself even as early as day seven.
Isaiah 1:13 God says the wicked people are displeasing to God, and He no longer delights in anything they do, including keeping the Sabbath and making offerings to Him.
No surprise there.
Romans 14:5 and Col. 2:16 are New Testament verses.
Romans 14:5 neither supports the Sabbath nor repudiates it, though. It just says some keep and some don't and both are to be accepted as genuine believers. No problem there. (See verse 10).
Colossians 2:16 is the same story. "Let no one judge you with regards to the Sabbath" sounds like a far cry from "You are forbidden to keep the Sabbath" or "The Sabbath is bunk."
This matter would really do better dealt with on the larger scale of "Should New Testament believers be required to keep the entire Old Testament law?" Then one could bring in Eph. 2:15 and so on to show that on the one hand the moral aspects of the law are uplifted in the New Testament (Matt. 5-7), yet on the other hand the rituals are abolished (Sabbath, circumcision, feasts) and the offerings are replaced by Christ as the one unique Sacrifice. The middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles has been torn down by Christ on the cross and there is no longer any difference (among Christians). See discussion with James in Acts regarding this matter. -- MAW
The teaching in Isaiah does not repudiate the Sabbath. If we read further, the LORD says:
"Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!" [Is 1:15-17] Obviously, God is condemning the religious hypocrisy in this instance.
Nevertheless, even if we take the above claims as truth, namely, that God instituted the Sabbath in Exodus, and repealed it through Paul (and we need not debate if this is the true interpretation), as it stands, this is not contradictory. It is not contradictory to institute X and then repeal it much later.
[Ex 20:11]
[Deut 5:15]
In this case, I see no reason why both explanations cannot be true. As such, the Sabbath could have been rooted in the order of things and in the historical intervention of the Creator.
Why was the Sabbath instituted?
Exo. 22:11 tells us the Israelites should rest because God rested on the seventh day.
Deut. 5:15 tells the Israelites that God commanded them to keep the Sabbath because of their deliverance from Egypt.
The wording is different between the two statements. Deut. tells us the reason for the commandment to keep the Sabbath. Exo does not, but merely tells us a good reason why they should keep it. Anyway, it is not uncommon to do something for more than one reason. Especially good reasons.-- MAW
[Ex 31:15/ Num 15:32,36]
[John 5:16/ Matt 12:1-3,5]First of all, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, not subject of the Sabbath. As for his disciples, they were charged with breaking the Sabbath because they picked some heads of grain and ate them. Jesus corrected the Jewish leaders on their legalism (read the entire discussion in Mt 12). Jesus did not condone working on the Sabbath, he just pointed out the folly of taking this law to the extreme were people could not eat or help others on the Sabbath.
43 No work could be done on Sabbath but Jesus worked on Sabbath and justified His disciples in doing the same.
Yup. In the Old Testament no work could be done on the Sabbath, although it was ok to pull an ox out of the ditch.
The Lord Jesus in the New Testament is the Lord of the Sabbath and perfectly free to break it and even abolish it, since He is the one who set it up in the first place. Also, He is the reality of the shadows. The Old Testament Sabbath was a rest for God's people, but in the New Testament our real Sabbath is the One who said, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-ladened, and I will give you rest." Also, Hebrews tells us that there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. This is not talking about an outward ritual of sitting around all day once a week reading the Torah, but about resting in Christ as our real inward peace and rest and sanctuary in this age and in full in the age to come.
Like I said earlier, this can be a pretty controversial issue, but at least grant me that it's a possible explanation which removes the validity of 43 as a contradiction in the Bible. Others may explain it differently. --MAW
[Matt 28:19]Baptism not commanded
[1 Cor 1:14,17]This is not a contradiction. Paul simply responded to the favoritism which sprang up along the lines of who baptised whom. Furthermore, Paul notes that his particular calling was not as a baptist, but as a preacher.
[Gen 9:3/ 1 Cor 10:25/ Rom 14:14]
[Deut 14:7,8]The NT references stem from the New Covenant. The Genesis reference indicates that God sanctioned non-vegetarian diets. The Deut references are particular to the Jews and the Old Covenant that was made with them.
[Num 30:2/ Gen 21:23-24,31/ Gen 31:53/ Heb 6:13]
[Matt 5:34]Jesus is trying to get beyond human conventions and the frivolous oaths which were common and was calling for simple and pure honesty. Hebrews refers specifically to God and indicates His commitment/covenant.
Does the Bible sanction or forbid oaths?
In the Old Testament they are not commanded, but permitted. Num. 30 explains when they can be annulled.
God Himself made an oath as recorded in Heb. 13:4. In Matt. 5:34 we New Testament believers are told not to swear by anything but to just say yes and no. The explanation given is that we are powerless to change our hair color. (Natural color.) But surely God is not similarly powerless, so if He wants to swear something, He is perfectly able to carry it out and nothing can come up to stop Him. No contradiction there.
So OT permits swearing (doesn't command it) and sets limits on it. The uplifted NT law abolishes it altogether on the grounds that we are powerless to guarantee the outcome. But God is not powerless, so He can swear as He likes. -- MAW
[Gen 2:18/ Gen 1:28/ Matt 19:5/ Heb 13:4]
[1 Cor 7:1/ 1 Cor 7:7,8]Paul is not disapproving marriage! He is simply saying that it is good to be unmarried. Saying it is good to not marry is not saying it is bad to marry. Being unmarried is good in the sense that particular blessings can stem from it (in fact, Paul even describes celibacy as a "gift"). However, another set of blessings can stem from being married.
Does God approve of marriage?
Let's just look at the verses cited as saying that God disapproves of marriage, since obviously He approves.
1 Cor. 7:1, 8, 26
Verse 26 tells us why Paul says this. It is
because of the present necessity. Well, these three
verses do not tell us that God disapproves of marriage,
but only that there is nothing wrong with staying
single. "Good for them." A man who is content to
refrain from touching any woman must really be
full of the enjoyment of God, as Paul was. This
is surely a good thing, although most people
are not like that. As verse 7 says, each has
his own gift from God, and for most people it is not
the gift of staying single forever, although Matt. 19:10-12
tells us (not cited) that there is a blessing for those
that are able to keep it. Other verses not quoted tell
us that the married person cares for how to please
his/her mate, whereas the single one is free to
concentrate on pleasing the Lord.
Anyway, none of these verses say that God disapproves of marriage. To teach others not to marry is to spread the doctrines of demons. (1 Tim. 4:1-5).
"What God has joined together."
If God disapproved of marriage, He would disapprove of almost all humans that ever were. He Himself intends to be married.
In 1 Tim. 5:14 Paul speaks of this matter again and makes it clear that his position is neither disapproval nor forbidding of marriage.
Genesis 2:18 It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a help suitable for him. -- MAW
[Deut 24:1/ Deut 21:10,11,14]
[Matt 5:32]Yes, Jesus issues a new commandment and even explains the permission 1500 years earlier. He now issues a higher calling.
[Ex 20:14/ Heb 13:4]
[Num 31:18/ Hos 1:2; 2:1-3]One has to read adultery INTO Num 31:18 - it is not obvious that this verse is talking about adultery. As for Hosea, OT scholar Walter Kaiser believes that when God told Hosea to marry Gomer, she was not yet a harlot. (Besides, the exception doesn't prove the rule).
No.
Numbers 31:18 doesn't say that the "yourselves" were already married. Obviously it doesn't refer to the females among the Israelites, and so it can just as easily also exclude all the married and under-age males.
Hosea 1:2 God commands Hosea to marry a prostitute. The very idea of using this as a justification of adultery is absurd. The point here is to expose the nation of Israel at that time for her unfaithful and treacherous treatment of her Husband, God. Israel was a prostitute in the eyes of God, because she was going after idols, yet He still would marry her and even take her back after she ran after idols again. This is an example of an incredible level of forgiveness, not of a condoning of the evil that she had done.
Hosea 2:1-3 God commands Hosea to go back and reclaim his unfaithful wife back from the man she was messing around with. (See above.) The point is that this is an extremely difficult thing for a man to do, to take back his wife even from the house of her lover and to have to pay a price to get her back. Yet this is what God did for the children of Israel and also did for us. What an incredible heart He has for us, even though we were spiritually harlots in His eyes; He still loved us enough to pay the price to redeem us. --MAW
[Deut 27:22/ Lev 20:17]
[Gen 20:11,12/ Gen 17:16]Gen 17:16 says nothing about Sarah being Abrams sister. Gen 20:11 ignores Gen 12:11-13. Abraham had people believing that Sarah was his sister out of fear - it was a lie.
Is it ok to marry or cohabit with one's sister?
Well, in the early generations man didn't have a choice.
Cain for example married someone, and the only gals
around were his siblings. Abraham also lived long before
Moses, who wrote Deuteronomy and Leviticus. After Moses,
nope, not a good idea to marry your sister. -- MAW