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A Sabbath Day's Journey

By: Rev. Paul Landgraf
What is a Sabbath day's journey? First of all, it is a Jewish expression. We measure distances in meters or yards. The Jews had a certain distance that they could walk on Saturday before it would be considered work. So their synagogues that they went to on Saturday could not be very far away. The word appears only in Acts 1:12 and indicates a distance of about three-quarters of a mile.

With that in mind, I think it is important to remember the origins of Christianity. Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'. Much of the Old Testament has a literary structure that we are not aware of because of our modern emphasis on chapter and verse divisions. Within many of these blogs, I try to get the reader to see a bigger picture, a larger perspective that often includes the Old Testament and the environment that was present when the New Testament was seeing the Light of the day.

Second, a Sabbath day's journey is intentionally short. These 'journeys' with a text, almost always one of the three readings for that Sunday, are deliberately brief discussions. This blog was never designed to be a comprehensive look at any text. Sometimes a specific word is studied in detail. But, as a whole, a blog entry, by itself, is meant to be quite brief.

Finally, since the term 'Sabbath day's journey' appears in Acts, it is meant to appeal to a wide variety of people. This blog is meant for those who cannot come on Sunday mornings. And it is also for those who do come on Sunday mornings but would also like a further study of the text. It is also for those who live somewhere else in the world (besides Drake and Freedom, Missouri, USA) and would simply like a further study of the text. It was meant to get these different groups of people to start thinking about the biblical texts. Part of the reason for this blog is that I am not able to have a bible class on Sunday mornings with either congregation, and so, to have a blog like this seemed like a good idea. I hope it is helpful for you, in whatever situation you may be.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. And thank you for taking the time to read this!

april 16, 2017

4/16/2017

1 Comment

 
​Perhaps you have heard of the book, The Bible Code. It's a book that came out in 1997 and predicted lots of weird things because of the way certain parts of the bible were arranged. I certainly don't recommend buying that book, but I bring it up because, when people start counting things in the bible, it can remind some people of that.

In many of the early manuscripts, there were no spaces between the words. This obviously made it hard to read. WhatifIdidthatfortheentiretime? I would think that you would quickly give up trying to read this. But if the topic was important, and if you already knew a little bit about the subject matter, you might be able to handle it. And, of course, having no spaces would save some extremely valuable paper. So I say this to make the point that counting words would be very helpful to make sure that a person has a good understanding of the text.

And I bring all of this up because, with it being Easter Sunday, the text is part of the last chapter of Matthew, the resurrection account of that gospel. All the accounts are significantly different when it comes to the resurrection, and that makes sense. As Jesus had somewhat different roles before his crucifixion--all of which would fit with his being Savior--he had slightly different roles after his resurrection which, again, would fit with his role as Savior.

So when Jesus tells the women to go and tell the disciples that they had seen him, the word used is one for giving a report. It's very similar to the word 'angel', an appointed messenger. Jesus, in a way, is instructing the women, and, when he will be meeting with the disciples, he will instruct them as well; and he will be telling them to instruct others. Jesus has been a 'Savior-Teacher' all through this account.

So, looking at the text in the original language, we have Jesus' words in basically the middle of the chapter and basically at the very end as well. That's an unusual structure that I would like to write more about some other time.

But I was looking at the number of words at both points, and it was interesting to see that, at the end of the chapter, the very middle word of Jesus' words to his disciples is the word 'Son'; it's in the middle of the baptismal formula. And the middle of the middle quotation (if you count the one word greeting as well) is after the word 'my' of 'my brothers' and before the word 'that', telling the disciples what to do. What I thought was interesting as well was that this was the middle point of the entire chapter. That, of course, may be a coincidence (and I may have counted wrong). But it also may be a very carefully crafted text.

I think I've mentioned before that the middle point of a text is an important part of the Hebrew writing style of that day and in the Old Testament as well. And we see that again in this text. I think that it's a very carefully written text.

It's one thing to look at the bible and say that it's going to predict an attack on America. It's a totally different thing to say that the bible centers on Jesus. And it's a slightly different thing from that to say that a certain part of the text of the bible REALLY centers on Jesus.

And I thought it was great that Jesus calls the disciples his brothers. Those were the ones who just left him when things started to get difficult. Jesus takes them back with his kind words. And he takes us back as well.
1 Comment
Gia Waters link
11/28/2023 05:31:07 am

Nicee blog post

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