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 Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'.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

May 28th, 2022

5/28/2022

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This is the last Sunday of the Easter season, the Seventh Sunday of Easter. And the First Reading is a significant one when it comes to the name of this blog. The First Reading is Acts 1:12-26, and the first verse of this text is the only place in the Bible where the phrase ‘a Sabbath Day’s journey’ exists.

There are a couple of reasons that this phrase was chosen for the title of this blog. The phrase designates a short distance that was walked, and the attempt is for these blogs to be short as well. The full name of this blog could be ‘A Sabbath Day’s Journey with a Text.’ And this blog may take the place of a Bible Study, especially since I currently serve two churches and have a busy schedule on Sundays. It may be used for a Bible Study on basically any day.

This phrase is also helpful in that it gives an idea of what will happen later within the book of Acts. There is some momentum within the New Testament to continue some of the laws that were in the Old Testament and also continued in the intertestamental period. This comes to a great climax at the Jerusalem Council in the middle of the book of Acts (which I do not see as a coincidence) regarding the commandment to circumcise. It is certainly a nice thing that, in the end, the Gospel wins. The epistles make that quite clear.

The writer of Acts did not have to state the short distance in a Jewish way. But he wanted to make a connection to the Jewish past. And there are some positive things that could be said about the Jewish emphasis that exists in the New Testament, and these positive things about the Jewishness may make Christianity even more of a positive thing.

If we were currently in the first year of the three-year series of texts, I would certainly bring up the example of the Jewish emphasis on the structure of the five sermons within the Gospel according to Matthew. There is a Jewish emphasis in the Gospel according to Luke as well, but one that is not so obvious. In fact, the beginning of the Gospel according to Luke seems to be more Greek than Jewish. This is a special combination of phrases and clauses, in a very elegant vocabulary, that would certainly impress those who could read Greek.
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The emphasis on the Jewishness of the New Testament ultimately makes the whole of the Bible a significant work by the One true God who alone made heaven and earth. And that is not a bad place to start … or to end.
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