Questions and Answers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Aug 27, 1914

Questions and Answers

In this department there will be considered from time to time helpful and practical questions relating to the various phases of this message, church government, Christian doctrine, duty, experience, etc. The editors reserve the right to consider only those questions which in their judgment will prove of benefit to the readers of the REVIEW. All questions should be addressed to the editor.

20. The Details of Sabbath Observance

WE have received several questions relating to Sabbath observance. As these are closely related to one another, we present them together, and shall seek in our answer to cover the principle involved in all. The inquiries are as follows:—

Is it right to go to the post office for one's mail on the Sabbath?

Is it right to engage in the dairy business, retailing milk to customers on the Sabbath day or delivering it to a creamery, provided Sabbath work is minimized as much as possible?

Is it right to do housework on the Sabbath for those not of our faith, where one works by the week or month?

Is it right for one keeping bees to hire swarms on the Sabbath?

These questions come from conscientious brethren and sisters who are endeavoring, in the face of unfavorable conditions for gaining a livelihood, to observe the Sabbath of the Lord. We sympathize with them in their perplexities. We know how hard it is to find satisfactory solutions to all the problems which arise in one's experience. We should be very glad indeed if we possessed sufficient wisdom to give plain, unequivocal answers to these and many questions of a similar character which are oftentimes raised with reference to Sabbath observance.

The editor has convictions as to what he should do in the matter of Sabbath keeping under some of the circumstances suggested, but he questions whether it would be advisable to express those convictions in this department, for the reason that his words might be taken by some unwise but thoroughly conscientious brother and made a standard or rule by which to gauge the conduct of his associates. Then, too, what might be advisable for one to do might be unwise for another to do under the same circumstances.

It is left for every individual, in the fear of God, to seek for divine guidance with reference to the details of his Christian experience. We believe that this is true as applied to diet, dress, business dealings, Sabbath observance, and many similar questions. The Word of God enunciates principles. While in certain instances it illustrates the application of these principles, for the most part it leaves every individual, guided by the Holy Spirit, to apply these principles in his own experience.

Take for instance the Sabbath: The Scriptures of Truth give some very plain and definite instruction with reference to its observance. The Sabbath commandment as contained in Ex. 20: 8-11 requires not only that the householder himself shall refrain from labor on the seventh day, but that he shall not require labor of his son nor of his daughter, of his manservant nor of his maidservant, of his cattle, nor of the stranger that is within his gates. In giving instruction to Israel with reference to Sabbath work the Lord plainly commanded them to make all necessary preparation for the Sabbath on the sixth day of the week.

'And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake today, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.' Ex. 16: 23.

The sacredness of the Sabbath was safeguarded in the giving of the manna, as recorded in Exodus 16; and some who went out to gather manna on the seventh day, contrary to the Lord's instruction, merited his disapproval. Under the climatic conditions of their wilderness journeyings, shielded by the cloud of God's protection, Israel of old were required to make such arrangements for the Sabbath that it would be unnecessary to build fires on that day. And because ancient Jerusalem failed to obey the command of the Lord with respect to the transaction of business on the holy rest day, the city was destroyed and the people given into the hands of their oppressors. Compare Jer. 17: 24-27 with 2 Chron. 36: 17-21.

In contradistinction to these requirements of strict Sabbath observance the Lord taught during his earthly ministry that it was in harmony with the spirit of the Sabbath commandment to do well on the Sabbath day; that true Sabbath observance did not preclude acts of mercy and necessity; that the sick should be healed and ministered unto; that animals in distress should receive attention, etc.; Matt. 12: 1-12. Christ manifested little sympathy with the senseless traditions with which the Pharisees had hedged about the Sabbath, making it a burden in place of the joyful service which God designed it should be.

Our danger today is not the danger of the Jews in the time of Christ. We are confronted with the same temptations as menaced the people of God in the days of Jeremiah. The spirit of commercialism and money making, the cares of this life, the pleasures of the world, the love of ease and social enjoyment, constitute the chief avenues through which the enemy seeks to lead us to make no difference between the sacred and the profane. But the Lord says to us, as to Israel of old, 'Remember the Sabbath day,' not alone during its sacred hours, but throughout the entire week. We are to plan for it, to arrange our business and temporal affairs with reference to it.

Sabbath keeping means more than merely refraining from physical labor. It comprehends the rest of the spiritual as well as the physical nature. It is a memorial of God's great power in the creation of this world; it is a sign as well of the new creation which he desires to effect in every heart and life. Ex. 31: 12-17. We should welcome it as we should welcome the visit of a dear friend. We should seek to find in it the added blessing which comes with its observance.

'None of us liveth to himself.' Observers of the Sabbath of the Lord are made above all other professed Christians a spectacle to the world. Our fellows watch to see if Sabbath observance with us is a question of theory or of the heart and the life. They observe closely as to whether we operate our business on the Sabbath the same as on other days; whether we cut short its sacred hours to minister to our own temporal needs. They take note as to whether we visit stores and places of business on the Sabbath, if convenient, the same as we do at other times. They consider whether any higher standard actuates us in its observance than actuates the great majority of people who observe the first day of the week. By our lives, even more than by our words, we are giving to the world the witness that the Lord is in this movement of Sabbath reform.

We should be true to our highest convictions. If our minds are troubled over the manner in which we are observing the Sabbath,—whether it be the line of business in which we are engaged or the manner in which we carry on that business,—let us earnestly seek God in prayer for enlightenment. He is not willing to leave us to wander or to walk in darkness. By his Word, by the impressions of his Holy Spirit, by his opening providences, he will indicate the way in which we should walk. If one in traveling comes to a fork in the road and he knows that one way is safe and the other way uncertain, if he is a wise traveler he will choose the road which he knows is safe and which will at last bring him to the desired haven. Let us give God the benefit of the doubt in our mind with reference to our manner of observing his holy day.

But having determined what duty is for ourselves, let us not seek to judge others in their application of the Sabbath rule. Let us accord to them the right to study the question for themselves and to determine what God would have them do. There are peculiar circumstances existing in every home, in every community. A standard might be right for one home which should necessarily be modified for another. Methods might be applied in one community which would not meet the needs of another. We do not mean by this that the great principle of Sabbath keeping admits of variableness and turning; but every man, considering the circumstances under which he is placed and the consequences involved, must settle the details of Sabbath observance for himself.

Let us consider in this connection the divine commentary on the Sabbath commandment contained in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, verses 13, 14, which reads as follows:—

'If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.'

When the Sabbath becomes in our experience a delight; when we count it the holy of the Lord, honorable; when it becomes the full purpose of our heart to honor him in its observance, he will indeed give to us as individuals and as a people wisdom to know how we may cease from doing our own way, finding our own pleasure, and speaking our own words. In this experience we shall be able to delight ourselves in the Lord and to enter into the glorious heritage of reward which he is preparing for his covenant-keeping people. Says the Master, 'If ye love me, keep my commandments.'