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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 Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'.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!

December 11th, 2021

12/11/2021

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This Sunday is the Third Sunday in Advent, and this Sunday’s epistle text is again from Philippians, but this time the text is near the very end of the epistle [4:4-7]. And we will continue to see how Christianity was ‘spoken against’ in the book of Acts [see 28:22], in the European city of Philippi.
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Last week Christianity was spoken against in that city in a very subtle way, by a woman who was possessed by a demon [Acts 16:16ff]. The demon had a somewhat positive statement to make, and it seems that since this statement was not followed by a clearer and more significant one, it was eventually dealt with by St. Paul. This week we will look at an act of speaking against Christianity that followed the exorcism.

After the woman in Philippi was healed, the ‘masters’ of that woman realized that they just lost their source of income from the woman’s ‘fortunetelling’ by the demon, and they dragged Paul and Silas into the marketplace before the magistrates. What follows is the accusation (in a somewhat-literal translation), what they said when they spoke against Christianity—although they seem to be speaking against the Jews [Acts 16:20b-21]:

These men are greatly disturbing OUR city, being really Jews, and announce customs which it is not lawful for us to receive, nor to do, being Romans.

There are a couple of things with this translation that might be helpful if noted. Within the Greek language, often the placement of a word within the sentence is not necessary to give its meaning. Because of the endings that are at the end of almost every word, one can emphasize a certain word by its special placement within the sentence.

In the Greek text, the word ‘our’ in the sentence appears sooner than it needs to be and sooner than it usually appears. And so, in the above translation, the word was capitalized, to show the emphasis that comes across in the word order in the original language. And the words that are connected to two words, ‘Jews’ and ‘Romans’, are both from one word in the Greek, and they both have the idea of existence, but they are not the same word, and the first word was translated as ‘being really’ to show a difference between the words. Now both of these points point out that, in this accusation, there is a stark contrast between the Jews and the Romans. [For more details on this second point, see A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Christian Literature, revised and edited by Frederick William Danker; Third Edition, Chicago, Illinois, USA: University of Chicago, 2000; page 1029f.]

Christianity is spoken against in the above situation, and, within this scenario, it is closely related to the Jews. Although the Jewish religion was allowed in the Roman Empire, that does not seem to matter to those who are making this accusation.

This seems to be an accusation with a strong political/cultural focus, and sometimes that happens even today. The problem is essentially that often people are too focused on the ‘here and the now’—in whatever century they are living in.

Sometimes people forget that God has ultimately ruled all the kingdoms of this earth, although not so obviously. Things will become obvious on the Last Day. And that is why Advent is so helpful. 
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