Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:

… Six days you shall serve and you shall do all your work: And the seventh day is the Sabbath to LORD JEHOVAH your God; … Because for six days LORD JEHOVAH made Heaven and Earth … and he was refreshed in the seventh day; …

Exodus, Chapter 20, verses 9, and 11, Aramaic Bible in Plain English

VK: Hello! Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K. We’re happy to be with you for this episode of Anchored by Truth as we continue our series on the Ten Commandments. In this series we are focusing on several key ideas such as the fact that the commandments were given to help us understand God more deeply as well as live better lives. This remains as true today as it was for the ancient Israelites who first heard the commandments 3,500 years ago. Today RD Fierro is with us in the studio. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, what other big ideas are we focusing on in this series?

RD: Well, you’ve just mentioned two very big ideas. Many people view the 10 commandments as if they were a sort of set of speed limit signs. They see the commandments as saying “don’t do this or that” in the same way they view a speed limit sign as saying “don’t drive faster than 45 miles an hour.” And certainly, like speed limits, the commandments help us to keep away from foolish behavior. But the commandments are and do so much more. Properly understood the commandments help us understand the overall plan of redemption much more deeply.

VK: Why is that?

RD: Many commentators have divided the 10 commandments into 2 groups called “tables.”

VK: We mentioned that in the first episode of this series. Often the 1st four commandments are considered the first table of the law. Their purpose is to help us have a better relationship with God. The last six commandments are the 2nd table. Their purpose is to help us have better relationships with other people.

RD: Right. That’s a very common way of looking at the commandments. But I have a slightly different way of segregating the commandments.

VK: You would. How do you divide the commandments?

RD: I think the 10 commandments can serve to remind us of God’s overall plan of redemption. The 1st three commandments are all concerned with God’s nature and personhood. God is a personal being – an exalted, infinite personal being. The 1st three commandments remind us that God is self-existent, infinite and spiritual, and guard our perceptions of His nature carefully. The 4th and 5th commandments remind us of God’s creative activity. Number 4 reminds us that God created everything that exists in 6 regular 24-hour days. And number 5, which says to honor our fathers and mothers, reminds us that God man as the only creature in all creation that bears His image. God created the first father and mother. Those are the only two human beings God created directly.

VK: All other people have been born as natural descendants of Adam and Eve but God personally created our first parents. So, in a very real way all subsequent parents have a direct link back to God’s creative activity. And we’ll get more deeply into the 5th commandment in our next episode of Anchored by Truth.

RD: And the final five commandments all remind us of the effects of the fall and the need to restrain the behavior of fallen human beings. In a certain respect we see the need for the five commandments in what happened in the Garden of Eden and the immediate aftermath.

VK: Well, God had told Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but they did so after being tempted by Satan in the guise of the serpent. So, Adam and Eve took fruit that didn’t belong to them. That’s stealing. And we hear from Genesis, chapter 3, verse 5 that part of the temptation included covetousness. The New Living Translation puts it this way. Satan said, “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” Satan tempted Eve by telling her that she could be like God. And Eve succumbed. Verse 6 says, “And even The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it.” Adam and Eve coveted being like God and that led to the theft.

RD: Yes. An idol is anything that we prize more than God and idolatry in the Bible is often represented by adultery. Idolatry is spiritual adultery. So, when Adam and Eve prized “being like God” more than obedience to God they committed idolatry and spiritual adultery. And when God confronted them they hid and became evasive. Evasion is a form of deception or lying. And, of course, not too long after Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden we hear of the first murder when Cain killed his brother Abel in chapter 4 of Genesis. So, there in the 2 chapters that follow the description of creation you have examples of the need for all of the last 5 commandments.

VK: That’s interesting. God existed before He created anything. The first 3 commandments apply to Him personally. The next 2 apply to His creative activity. The 4th which we are going to talk about today is about the period of creation, 6 days of creative work followed by a day of rest. The 5th commandment is about the product of creation. Man was God’s highest part of the created order because man is the only created being who is described as being created in the image of God. The first five commandments would have been just as reasonable and applicable if the Fall had never occurred. But, the last five commandments are only necessary because of the Fall.

RD: Creation, fall, and redmeption. It’s a seemingly simple story but if we don’t understand it we really won’t understand the Bible. The Bible is a single book about a single story and that story is creation, fall, and redemption. And the 4th commandment is very straightforward about reminding us about that single fact.

VK: We heard one version of the 4th commandment in our opening scripture. That version came from the Aramaic Bible in Plain English. Here is how the 4th commandment reads in the Contemporary English Version. “Remember that the Sabbath Day belongs to me. You have six days when you can do your work, but the seventh day of each week belongs to me, your God. No one is to work on that day—not you, your children, your slaves, your animals, or the foreigners who live in your towns. In six days I made the sky, the earth, the oceans, and everything in them, but on the seventh day I rested. That's why I made the Sabbath a special day that belongs to me.” That’s Exodus, chapter 20, verses 9 through 11. So, in giving the 4th commandment, God Himself takes His audience straight back to His creative activity.

RD: Yes. And we learn several important things from that fact. First, we learn that God did, in fact, create the world in 6 ordinary 24 hour days. Dr. Jonathan Sarfati spoke extensively about this in our series that we called The Truth in Genesis.

VK: Dr. Sarfati is the lead scientist for Creation Ministries International. He has a Ph.D. in both physics and chemistry and he is such an accomplished chess champion that the plays up to 12 players simultaneously – while they can see and he is blindfolded. And the Truth in Genesis series is available from our website, crystalseabooks.com.

RD: Correct. Some people have tried to say that the 6 days of creation were actually just indeterminate periods, possibly quite long ones, but this view does not make much sense in light of what God tells us in the 4th commandment. In the Contemporary English Version that you just read God says “You have six days when you can do your work, but the seventh day of each week belongs to me, your God.” God certainly didn’t mean that we are to work for 6 indeterminately long periods followed by a 7th equally indeterminate period of rest. God is clearly referring to 6 24-hour periods when He is describing the period of the week in which we are to work. This is the only thing that makes sense for how human beings can actually work. Yet God directly links His creative activity to that same period.

VK: The point is that if we accept the creation period of God’s work as being 6 24-hour periods there is no tension with the 4th commandment. But the moment we start trying to bring a different interpretation to chapter 1 of Genesis we have to begin fashioning bizarre explanations for how that translates into the plain requirement of the 4th commandment.

RD: So, one important concept that comes through the 4th commandment is the ratification of the creation narrative contained in chapter 1 of Genesis. And when God gave the 4th commandment He knew all of the later craziness that would be attributed to Genesis, chapter 1, so in giving the 4th commandment God “killed two birds with one stone.” He both prescribed the requirement that one day of the week was to be devoted to His purposes as well as stating clearly that the first chapter of Genesis is to be accepted as literal history. But another fact that we learn from the 4th commandment is that God considers rest to be as important within His economy as work.

VK: That’s a lesson so many of us need to learn – or re-learn - today. In our day and age our lives tend to be filled with constant activity. It may not all be working for compensation but it seems like one requirement or another constantly grabbing our attention and demanding that we do something. In our culture and economy we treat the need for rest as a weakness, but it is not. God built a rest period into His design for creation right at the start. God rested on the 7th day and that made it special. Genesis, chapter 2, verse 3 says, “God blessed the seventh day and made it special, because on that day he rested from his work.” That’s also from the Contemporary English Version. You know it is interesting that day 7 was the only day that the Bible calls “blessed.”

RD: Right. So, let’s make a couple of points very clear. First, God did not need to rest because He got tired. God is omnipotent and infinite. He never gets tired and nothing that He has done, including creating the universe, was hard on Him. God “rested” to set the pattern for us to follow, not because He needed to take a break.

VK: And we know that God rested on the 7th day for our benefit because in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 2, verse 27 it says: “Jesus finished by saying, "People were not made for the good of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for the good of people.”

RD: That’s from the Contemporary English Version also. Other versions say, “the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.” The 7th day is blessed in part because it is the day we are to rest. And let’s think back to the people who first heard the message that they were to rest one day out of seven. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for a long time – likely decades. I doubt that the Egyptians had been overly concerned about ensuring that their Hebrew slaves got an appropriate amount of rest.

VK: Taking one day off out of seven would have been a revolutionary thought to the Hebrews who had just left an extended period of slavery. The first chapter of Exodus tells us that the Hebrews were “oppressed” and that they were being forced to build storage or treasure cities for the Pharaoh. It’s likely that they were expected to work just about every day during which it was physically possible to perform hard physical labor. When Moses told the Hebrews that God wanted them to rest one day a week, that news must have been as revolutionary as it was welcome.

RD: And a second point that we need to notice is the timing of God giving the Hebrews this command. Exodus, chapter 19 tells us that God first gave the commandments to the Hebrews in the 3rd month after they had left Egypt. This ratifies the authenticity of the historical setting. During the first two months of the Hebrews journey out of Egypt they were steadily moving away from their former captors. If God had told them to sit down and rest when they were still close to Egypt the people would have been nervous and anxious that the Egyptians would have tried to recapture them.

VK: Which Pharaoh and the Egyptian army had already tried to do once before the Israelites were miraculously delivered by the parting of the Red Sea. The Hebrews knew that they were not safe if they were too close to Egypt. So, God led them quite a distance away before He delivered the law. By that time they probably needed a rest and the news that they were going to get one every week was probably very welcome.

RD: Right. And a third point that we need to note is that God called his creative activity on 5 of the first 6 days, “good.” But He called the 7th day “blessed.” Now, one of the reasons it is blessed is because it is a rest day for us. But another reason, probably the biggest reason, it is blessed is because the Sabbath is the day we are to turn our attentions away from the demands of the world and turn them to the ultimate source of all Blessing, God.

VK: And that is something else that we forget about in these excessively busy days – our need to refresh ourselves by focusing on God. Jesus’ half-brother, James, reminded us in the book named after him in James, chapter 1, verse 17 that “Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father who created all the lights in the heavens.” We forget that we need to consciously turn to God to get the help that we need to handle what life and this world throw at us. The Bible is filled with encouragement for us to turn to the Lord and allow Him to carry our burdens. One of the best known verses for that is 1 Peter 5:7 which tells us “to cast all our cares on Him because He cares for us.” So, a second reason the 7th day is blessed is because it among all the days is the one that is supposed to be specifically dedicated to the Blesser.

RD: Yes. So, let’s look at all of this in the context of the 4th commandment. God had just delivered His people from slavery in Egypt. Beyond the initial delivery God had miraculously protected them from the Egyptians’ attempt to recapture them and in the process of doing so God had destroyed the bulk of the Egyptian fighting force. This would have relieved the Hebrews, at least somewhat, of the worry that the Egyptians might make another attempt to bring them back into slavery. So, by the 3rd month they are starting to feel more certain that they really are headed for a new future – one that would have been impossible to envision just a few months earlier. And now God is giving them His instructions for what that new future will look like. It must have been a bit of a relief to know that God did not expect them to enter a new period of slavery when they arrived in the Promised Land. In fact, God expected them to rest one day a week and be refreshed by remembering Him.

VK: And for the Hebrews who had just experienced the physical delivery focusing on Him would have been a different experience than it is for us. They had seen God’s power “up close and personal.” They knew, or should have known, that God had a special concern for their welfare and well-being. And they had had many experiences with physical manifestations of God’s presence and attention to them – the miracles in Egypt, the pillar of fire, and the column of cloud. For us, sometimes our awareness of God may seem a bit abstract. We know God exists but our primary knowledge of God comes from the testimony of the creation and the Bible. But for the Israelites who had just come out of Egypt their awareness of God had been fortified by God’s direct intercession in their lives and in physical manifestations.

RD: Right. For us the 4th commandment is certainly important but for the Hebrews who first received it, it would have generated a set of emotions and reactions that it is hard for us to relate to. But certainly one benefit to us of the fact that God had so powerfully intervened on their behalf was their preservation of the testimony of what had occurred to them. They created an enduring record in part because God had made His presence unmistakable. And in making His presence unmistakable He ensured that we would be as aware of His commandments as the first recipients were. And there’s one final point that we should note about the 4th commandment before we close for today.

VK: What’s that?

RD: Let’s consider for a moment why we use a 7-day week. We know why we mark our lives off by days. That’s the length of time it takes the earth to revolve around its axis once and we see the beginning and ending of days in cycles of light and dark. And we know why we use a 365 day year. That’s the length of time it takes the earth to make a complete revolution around the sun and the sense of using the solar cycle for our year is validated by how it affects food production, the varying need for shelter and protection, and the behavior of animals. And the same thing is true for a month that is approximately 30 days. That’s based on the period of the moon’s rotation around the earth and that generates visible manifestations as in the variance in tides. But why do we use a 7 day week?

VK: I see what you’re getting at. There are no astronomical or celestial manifestations that are tied to the week. It’s not the period of the rotation of the sun, moon, earth, or even of any lesser stellar bodies like planets or stars. Nor, do the plants or animals exhibit any particular behaviors based on whether it’s the first or last day of a week. Bears may take the winter off but they don’t take weekends off. So, the reason we use a 7 day week is based entirely on the Bible’s description of God’s creative activity. And it is interesting that the 7-day week has been accepted so widely around the world, even in many different cultures that don’t particularly make the Bible the centerpiece of their cultural or religious beliefs.

RD: At different points of human history other subdivisions of the month have been used. The ancient Romans had a 10-day “week” for a while and gradually moved to the use of an 8-day week. The ancient Egyptians divided the months into three weeks – the workweek was nine days long, followed by one day of rest. Interestingly enough, even the ancient Greeks and Persians used a 7-day week which many scholars believe they adopted from the Jews after the Babylonian captivity.

VK: Which is peculiar in and of itself because the Jews were a conquered and captive people. It’s pretty rare that the conquerors begin to use the customs of the conquered. But that seems to have happened in the case of defining a week.

RD: Right. But, of course, there was a good reason for them to do it. God established the 7-day week because of the period He used for creation but of course God designed man such that a one day or rest in 7 was necessary for healthy, fulfilling, and productive living. As you noted earlier people today tend to think they can ignore this basic fact but we do so at our own peril. God knew we needed rest to live joyful lives. He designed humans and the calendar system to give us that rest. He set the example, and, of course, he ratified that basic wisdom in the 4th commandment.

VK: And frankly, we need a relationship with God even more than we need rest. Nehemiah 8:10 tells us that “the joy of the Lord is [our] strength.” Was Nehemiah just being poetic or was he telling his audience a basic truth. Human beings have both a body and a soul and spirit. The body won’t be healthy with an unhealthy spirit and God is the only source of spiritual health. And many people have discovered God will let our physical health break down to remind them of the need to maintain a connection with Him.

RD: As we have said in every episode in this series, God gave us the 10 commandments for our benefit. And we cannot ignore God’s transcendent truth and expect to prosper. That includes the truth that we need to give our bodies appropriate physical rest and we need to give our spirits the spiritual rest that comes from casting our cares on the One who cares for us. We all have burdens. We are either going to carry those burdens or we are going to place those burdens on the only other Person who has offered to share our yoke: Jesus. The choice is our but to live joyful, peaceful, and productive lives we must honor God by honoring the Sabbath He created for our benefit.

VK: We can and should turn to God because He always knows what’s best for us. And as a truly loving God He wants what’s best for us even if we don’t always know what that is. The 4th commandment protects us because it tells us that our God is a God who is concerned enough about us to want us to properly care for our bodies and spirits. So, this sounds like a great time to go to God in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for Christian missionaries - those who carry the good news about God’s care for us to all the world.

---- PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES

VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”

(Opening Bible Quote from the Aramaic Bible in Plain English)

Exodus, Chapter 20, verses 9, and 11, Aramaic Bible in Plain English