Think Wink.

On Wednesday-nights, my pastor has been preaching through a series on Christian liberty. This past Wednesday the topic under Christian liberty was the Sabbath. Here is the sermon:

Here is my response to this sermon so listen to it before reading on.

First, Pastor Tim’s introductory remarks were quite comforting because he was willing to express his discomfort with men in the faith who are GIANTS. Spurgeon, Edwards, and many others he was willing to voice disagreement with and that speaks volumes. It tells us that not every Christian has it right, that we must continually check our position against the text of the Scripture. Pastor Tim’s growth and change in position says that he did that.

Second, Pastor Tim’s exegesis of Romans 14 and the other passages were, as always, spot on. Pastor Tim has an uncanny and can-only-be-explained-by-the-leading-of-the-Spirit (My inner comic nerd says, hehehehe) ability to get in and behind the text to its intent. He has the gift of διδάσκαλος, teacher (cf. Ephesians 4:11; 1 Timothy 2:7).

However before one can get into issues like Sabbath, one must understand the role of the Law of Moses and the Old Covenant in the life of the New Covenant believer. Before he went to Galatians 4, he needed to go to Galatians 3. Because the issue of are we obligated to the Old Covenant Law in someway must be understood and addressed first. And under a Covenant and Dispensational reading of the text, one gets two very different answers that are based upon faulty hermeneutics. I wish he would have taken the time to show us that the Old Covenant has passed away and been replaced by the New Covenant. It was only a temporary covenant and a pedagogue for Israel until the Messiah and faith came (cf. Galatians 3:23-25). Thus the Sabbath command is no longer in effect as prescribed by Yahweh through Moses.

My second critique is that he did not delineate between what is done by the Christian on Sundays and the Sabbath day. He did a good job of arguing against going to church because it is the Sabbath moved to Sundays. Because we don’t go to Sabbath, it isn’t necessarily a sin to go watch the Chiefs play (…wait as bad as they are it might be). But why should I go to church on Sunday mornings? Why would he look unfavorably at my forsaking to gather together with fellow believers to encourage and be encouraged to do good works of love in faith? Is it just because Hebrews 10:25 says so? Can that be done on any other day than Sunday? Couldn’t I just get together on Thursdays with some Christian friends, have fellowship and some time in the Word and we all exhort one another to love others? This is a looming question that I hope to be answered in the coming weeks.

Related posts:

A Key Term

The Gospel of the Glory of Christ pt 4

Puritan Wisdom and Sin