clear rules, but when they ask why, it’s important to explain the ethical principles behind the rules. By the time of Jesus, the Jewish leaders and people had lost


sight of the reason for the Sabbath and looked only to a rule- based observance of it. Tis is why Jesus challenged their understanding, performing miracles on the Sabbath and asking them to consider why God had given it to them. “Te Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27, NLT; see also Mark 3:4; Matt. 12:12).


Legal Understanding of the Sabbath Adventists have also emphasized the rule requirement reason for the Sabbath. A long discussion on Reddit regarding a “Full list of what the SDA church prohibits/frowns upon” may prompt memories of Sabbath-keeping in the minds of some Adventists. Questions of “correct” Sabbath observance feature oſten in Adventist publications. For example, one article concludes that farmers sending milk collected on Sabbath to a factory would violate the Sabbath commandment. Another argues against any Adventist operating on the Sabbath in a fire department or as an undertaker. One writer identifies “the automobile and the radio, with all their associated attractions,” as creating challenges for Sabbath observance. No weddings or funerals are to be permitted in Adventist churches on the Sabbath. Even soliciting funds from the public for missions (a.k.a. Ingathering) was discouraged on the Sabbath. Most of the reasoning for such positions goes back to a legal understanding of the Sabbath commandment. Some early Adventists, to their credit, did want to move


establish the Sabbath as primarily a rule to be observed. Yet, even in the text we can find a value-based perspective. Exodus 20:11 gives a clear reason for Sabbath observance: “For


in six days the lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Terefore the lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (NIV). Tis “Creation value” is why we observe the Sabbath. However, the Deuteronomy 5 version of this commandment


gives a different reason: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Terefore the lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day” (Deut. 5:15, NIV). Here, the “Redemption value” is why the Sabbath is to be observed, which is important from an ethical perspective. It’s like how children—and it’s no accident that the Israelites are oſten referred to as the “children of Israel”—need to be given


10 AD VENTIS T T OD A Y


beyond rule enforcement and ask for a deeper ethical meaning. One prime example is W.W. Prescott, a well-respected Adventist leader who looked beyond the Sabbath as a rule that was required and considered a value-based understanding of its meaning. In


his book Christ and the Sabbath, published in 1893, he wrote: n “When it is properly understood, the Sabbath is suggesting


Christ and his work for us. At every point it is Christ and his power” (p. 22). n “What, then, is Sabbath-keeping?–It is the sign to the


Christian that his hope, his confidence, are entirely in Jesus Christ, who is the Creator and Redeemer” (p. 26). n “Te Sabbath is the sign, not merely of the power of God


manifested through Jesus Christ in the creation of the heaven and the earth, but it is also the sign of that power which saves—the sign of that power which redeems” (p. 13). n “Te purpose, therefore, of all created things to which our


attention is thus called by the Sabbath, is that we may understand the power and the divinity of Jesus Christ” (p. 12).


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