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“Are we doing the Sabbath right?”

“Are we doing the Sabbath right?”

JULY 1, 2022

/ Programs / Key Life / “Are we doing the Sabbath right?”

Steve Brown:
Are we doing the Sabbath right? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s no guru, but he does have honest answers to honest questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase and worship. So, here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with street-smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing good. You’re doing some new stuff. You started a podcast.

Pete Alwinson:
We started a podcast.

Steve Brown:
That is so cool.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s cool. And I know you’re doing it.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Well, yeah. kind of, I mean it’s, I didn’t know what a podcast was, but it turns out, you know, we do a talk show and a couple of hundred stations and a video version, that a lot of people subscribe to. And I didn’t even know what a podcast was, but yeah, that’s what we’re doing. Tell me what you’re going to do.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, we’ve got the ForgeTruth podcast. Just go to our website ForgeTruth.com and it’s right there at the top. And it’s, you know, everything we do, all about men and grace and becoming the man that God wants us to be, by grace.

Steve Brown:
They just go to ForgeTruth.com.

Pete Alwinson:
They can find right there.

Steve Brown:
Just click it on and they can listen.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I appreciate that. Letting them know, but also they go to our Forge YouTube channel as well, and try to find it there.

Steve Brown:
Okay. And you guys ought to check that out. I keep telling you to check out ForgeTruth.com and this is even better. You’ll love the conversation between these guys and there’ll be a chance as you go along to participate. So, check it out. The Forge podcast. You got a fancy name or is it just that.

Pete Alwinson:
ForgeTruth

Steve Brown:
ForgeTruth podcast.

Pete Alwinson:
There it is.

Steve Brown:
Cool. That’s Pete Alwinson, by the way. And as you know, he comes in each Friday and we answer questions. And we love your questions. You can call, 24 7, 1-800-KEY-LIFE, record your question. We sometimes put your voice on the air. You can write to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

Or you can in Canada write to

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

And you can send your question, e-mail [email protected]. And you knew I was going to say it, cause I say it every time. If you’re going to help us financially, for every dollar you give, you get one free sin. That’s not going to work, is it?

Pete Alwinson:
No, not at all.

Steve Brown:
Listen, do help us, if you can. I promise we’ll be faithful with your gift as you are in giving it. And if you can’t and most people can’t, we understand. Say a prayer for Key Life. You can use your credit card, include it in your envelope. And we’ll rise up and called you blessed. Pete lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Sounds good. Let’s pray. Our Great God, what a joy to be able on this Friday to come into your presence, to stop and realize that you hear us. The God of the universe who created us takes care of us and redeemed us actually cares about what we have to say. We worship you and we praise you Lord Jesus for being the one who made all this possible. And Holy Spirit, thank you for taking the work of our Lord Jesus Christ and getting it into our heads and hearts in our lives to become your people. So, Lord we thank you for all that you’ve done. And we do pray for Key Life. We thank you for Steve and all those who do so much behind the scenes, to get the gospel of grace out to others. Thank you, that you are not mad at us and that you love us deeply. And, so now we commit this time of Q&A to you, thinking about our pastors and priests and leaders that this coming week-end that they would be able to bring to us the word of life. And so, we pray for them as we ask for your blessing now, in Jesus’ strong name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s first go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
My question is, should we still be keeping the Sabbath and the new covenant? Thank you.

Steve Brown:
You know, we get that question, pretty often. I think the Sabbath is important and sometimes a lot more important than we make it. The day is a different thing. Isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. So when is the Sabbath? Is it Saturday? Is that the right one?

Steve Brown:
No, it’s Wednesday. I’ve had a new revelation. Actually, because of the change in calendar. We’re not really sure, which is Friday and Saturday. The normal Sabbath started on Friday evening at sundown and went through Saturday. And a number of our brothers and sisters who are Seventh Day folks still worship during that. And are insistent that that’s the Sabbath. Why do we, why did we change that?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. The church did change it in the first 200 plus years, as the gospel spread out of Israel and particularly because it was seen that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath in one respect, as the Sabbath rest through faith in him, we rest from our labors. And so, that’s one sense of which that is true. And because of the resurrection then, the church began to really worship on the first day of the week, in light of that reality. So, those two things were pretty powerful to change that.

Steve Brown:
Are you going to die on that hill?

Pete Alwinson:
I’m not, no, I’m not actually.

Steve Brown:
I’m not either.

Pete Alwinson:
I do think that the one in seven principle, is a really good principle. And I think it’s bigger, you know, Jesus said, that the Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath, which is a really important reality that bears fruit today, in that God knows our tendency to trust ourselves and to keep working our brains out because we don’t want to trust him. And we’ll work our bodies into the grave. And so, he says, no, you’re going to take some, I’m commanding you to take some time to worship me and trust me. And I think that’s a lot of what it is.

Steve Brown:
You know, we don’t take that very seriously much anymore, and we really need to. Now, you know, I’m not going to lay out a bunch of rules. You can’t do this and you can do that, because all of a sudden you’re moving into the law in a way that it’s not appropriate. However, Sunday or Friday and Saturday, whatever, whenever you observe it, ought to be different in some ways. It ought to be a place where you really do rest and you don’t go to work.

Pete Alwinson:
I agree. And I think, you know, some of our church standards say, you know, for deeds of mercy and necessity, we stay in the game and pastors frankly, are working harder on Sunday than on any other day.

Steve Brown:
So, we celebrate those Sabbath, if we’re smart on Monday.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Sometime we’ve got to get that margin. We’ve gotta listen, we’ve got to rest and worship.

Steve Brown:
And you and I have similar personalities. We don’t like that. We don’t do vacations. Well you do vacations better than I do, but I just, you know, I try to not mess it up for everybody else. But, we need to, for ourselves, to say that one in seven is God, it’s important. It’s important. We do it.

Pete Alwinson:
Yep. You’re right.

Steve Brown:
All right. This is an e-mail question. What’s the difference between reformed theology and Calvinist theology? Is it possible to be reformed without being a Calvinist? Is it possible to be a Calvinist without being reformed.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow. Interesting question. What do you think?

Steve Brown:
Well, you wouldn’t describe Luther as a Calvinist, but you certainly would describe him as a reformed. So, that would be yes, you could be, I guess, reformed without being a Calvinist. I don’t think you could be a Calvinist without being reformed though.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. I’d agree with that. I think you’re right. So, if you line up everything Luther taught with everything Calvin taught, a lot would line up. They’re both reformed, but, and in generally speaking in the big picture, they would agree.

Steve Brown:
Oh yeah, they really would. And I’ll tell you, both Calvin and Luther probably aren’t happy with naming a denomination or a particular theology after them, they would say, don’t say that, they’re just Biblical.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And to their credit, I really believe both of them would be that way.

Steve Brown:
How can we understand the Trinity?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, we understand it from a Biblical perspective, but we have to understand it by faith. I mean, it’s really something that’s clearly taught in Scripture.

Steve Brown:
Oh. And it’s a wonderful gift.

Pete Alwinson:
It is.

Steve Brown:
You know, we have in the past kind of downplayed that, because our Muslim neighbors, say we’re worshiping three gods. Are we?

Pete Alwinson:
No we’re not. One God in three persons. That’s why intellectually it’s very difficult for us to grasp this completely. One God in three persons. The more you interact with Scripture, you see clearly

Steve Brown:
Everywhere

Pete Alwinson:
everywhere from Genesis to Revelation, there is one God, but there are three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that they’re all involved in creation, in providence and redemption.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. Do you see that Genesis reference, let us create man in our, do you see that as a Trinitarian statement or a royal one.

Pete Alwinson:
I see it as both. How about you?

Steve Brown:
Me too.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
I think it’s

Pete Alwinson:
We agree on something, Steve.

Steve Brown:
We’re like Luther and Calvin, it’s like 95 percent.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But yeah, it is. And it’s, you know one of the things really important about Trinity is the relational reality that goes on within the Godhead. You know, if you, for instance are Islamic, you have one god, who is difficult to manifest his love because there’s no living example of that. And yet when you read Jesus and his relationship with the Father, for instance in John 17 or a number of other places, you begin to see these guys love each other. And that love is what they bring us into. And it’s a reality that is affirmed by the Trinity.

Pete Alwinson:
Yes. Yeah. That is, that took me a long time. It took a long time for that to sink in, and I’m still trying to mine it, but I think all of us need to really take what you said to heart and understand that. And that we have been brought into that kind of love because a lot of us know that God loves us, but we don’t feel it.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
We haven’t existentially experienced it. And that’s really what the gospel intends to do.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And as you said, the Scripture teaches that everywhere. I love to get into debate with those who knock on my door to lead me in a different way. And I eat those people for lunch. So rejoice in the Trinity. Sometime when you’re praying, just stop and say, you know, I praise you Father, Son and Holy Spirit and you’ll feel good when you do it cause you’re Biblical.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Hey, we’ve got to go.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. See you next time.

Steve Brown:
And I look forward to it. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.

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