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 Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'.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

July 01st, 2017

7/1/2017

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I do not think we should think that the word 'think' is a simple word
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There are different words for thinking, and there should be. Just as--from what I have heard--the ekimos have different words for snow.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus uses a word for thinking that is closely related to the word for 'law', and that is also not very surprising. There are thoughts that people repeat so often that they start to think that they are completely true. Thoughts are powerful things (and if you search for that on google, you will see what I mean).

The first verse in the gospel text for this Sunday is Matthew 10:34. And there is an extremely similar verse in Luke 12:51. I will leave them in the ESV to show their similarities.

Matthew: Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Luke: Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 

This word 'think' in the Gospel according to Luke is connected to testing and examination. This, too, is a type of thinking, but it involves more things that are outside of ourselves.

To give you an example on how these two words compare, this is the same dictionary for the two different types of thinking. (This is also a good example of how it is difficult to translate one word into simply one other word.) Here is the definition of 'think' (according to BDAG) in Matthew: 'to form an idea about something, but with some suggestion of tentativeness or refraining from a definitive statement (think, believe, hold, consider). The same dictionary gives this much shorter definition of the different word in Luke: 'to consider as probable (think, believe, suppose, consider).'

Our thinking involves varying degrees of the things around us, but all of that is a bad starting place. All of that can be frustrating and literally self-defeating. The Bible is a much better foundation.

When you think of the cute baby Jesus in a manger, and when you hear the angels sing 'Peace on earth', that may start you down the wrong road--unless you hear the rest of the story.

The manger is really a feeding trough for animals. And when the people were praising Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday--in Luke--they were saying, 'Peace in HEAVEN....'

You might say that they were thinking 'outside of the box'. Now that is good. That is the peace that really matters.
​
There is no such a thing as a cute cross.
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