Keeping the Sabbath Holy

by Kelly McDonald

“In Exodus 20:8-11 God says, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 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. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” The Sabbath is a day of rest, but it is also a day that God commands us to keep holy. The word “holy” in the Bible means to set something apart for special use by God.

We tend to think of holy as an abstract term, but the term holy actually refers to specific, set-apart actions that honor God. One holy or set-apart action that God commands for us to do on the Sabbath is to abstain from work. However, isn’t refraining from work on the Sabbath enough to say that we are keeping the Sabbath holy?…”
(this article is an excerpt from the January-February 2010 edition of the Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 16, click this link: http://biblesabbath.org/media/tss_541.pdf