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 Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'.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

January 07th, 2017

1/7/2017

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The Baptism of Jesus is a good example of the variety within the four gospel accounts. In John the event is hardly mentioned, and in Matthew a conversation--admittedly quite short--is recorded.

And what about this difference? In Matthew, the voice from heaven says, “This is my beloved Son.” (The same sentence appears in Luke.) In Mark the voice says, “You are my beloved Son.” So which one was it?

If you came to this website to find out what happened on the day Jesus was baptized, you came to the wrong place. You even came to the wrong accounts.
​

The four accounts are gospel accounts. Their ancient title is ‘The Gospel According to ______,’ and the word ‘gospel’ means good news, not any news
.

Perhaps you may differ, but I do not believe that the main purpose of the four accounts was to tell what happened. Simply put, that’s not as important as something else.

Even more important is a message of salvation. Even more important is a message that Jesus took care of what was necessary for us to be saved.

Certainly you may find this strange, but there is the possibility that God, the Father, changed the words so that Jesus heard the words “You are” and the other people heard “This is my.” It may have been a miracle.

Even more of a miracle is that Jesus was there—on earth. He is the One who is both true God and true man. That, in itself, is the miracle of miracles.

But then, that he wanted to get baptized with a baptism for sinners, you could consider that another miracle as well. The Son of God should be highly exalted. He should be washed in the finest perfume—or whatever you would do for the person who should be the most highly exalted in the world.

But that was not for him. John the Baptist told him basically the same thing; and Jesus still wanted to go through with a sinners’ baptism.

This baptism starts him on a very particular road, a road of sin and suffering.

And the four accounts give slightly different perspectives of that road. In Mark, Jesus is basically on that road by himself, and so the saying from heaven fits that (“You are….”). In Matthew and Luke, Jesus is on that road with others—teaching in Matthew and leading in Luke, and so the saying fits that as well. All four accounts work together.

Whatever perspective we have, Jesus is still doing his act of salvation for others.
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