This is how dj and Bible Truth are told to keep the Sabbath:
The law forbids secular labor on the rest day of the Lord; the toil that gains a livelihood must cease; no labor for worldly pleasure or profit is lawful upon that day; but as God ceased His labor of creating, and rested upon the Sabbath and blessed it, so man is to leave the occupations of his daily life, and devote those sacred hours to healthful rest, to worship, and to holy deeds."–The Desire of Ages, p 207
And surprise, surprise guess who wrote that? Yep. Ellen G. White. And it’s on the conference website as a guideline to keeping the Sabbath. Ellen’s own version of keeping the Sabbath right there.
Tell me, where in the Commandments, any of them does it say anything about secular labor? The site I referred dj to and the one she says “has some interesting reading” on it says this:
Most Americans see the word “work” and think of it in the English sense of the word: physical labor and effort, or employment. Under this definition, turning on a light would be permitted, because it does not require effort, but a
rabbi would not be permitted to lead Shabbat services, because leading services is his employment. Jewish law prohibits the former and permits the latter. Many Americans therefore conclude that Jewish law doesn’t make any sense.
The problem lies not in Jewish law, but in the definition that Americans are using. The Torah does not prohibit “work” in the 20th century English sense of the word. The Torah prohibits “melachah” (
Mem-Lamed-Alef-Kaf-Hei), which is usually translated as “work,” but does not mean precisely the same thing as the English word. Before you can begin to understand the Shabbat restrictions, you must understand the word “melachah.”
Melachah generally refers to the kind of work that is creative, or that exercises control or dominion over your environment. The word may be related to “melekh” (king;
Mem-Lamed-Kaf). The quintessential example of melachah is the work of creating the universe, which G-d ceased from on the seventh day. Note that G-d’s work did not require a great physical effort: he spoke, and it was done. The word melachah is rarely used in scripture outside of the context of Shabbat and holiday restrictions. The only other repeated use of the word is in the discussion of the building of the sanctuary and its vessels in the wilderness. Exodus Ch. 31, 35-38. Notably, the Shabbat restrictions are reiterated during this discussion (Ex. 31:13), thus we can infer that the work of creating the sanctuary had to be stopped for Shabbat. From this, the
rabbis concluded that the work prohibited on Shabbat is the same as the work of creating the sanctuary. They found 39 categories of forbidden acts, all of which are types of work that were needed to build the sanctuary:
And it goes on to list a number of tasks. So dj YOU ARE WRONG. You are NOT keeping the Sabbath as God told us to, you are keeping the Sabbath as Ellen White told you to.
You are so busted right now.
