Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting

by Marva Dawn

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 1989

Overview

“But I don’t wanna go to church!” Marva Dawn has often heard that cry—and not only from children. “What a sad commentary it is on North American spirituality,” she writes, “that the delight of ‘keeping the Sabbath day’ has degenerated into the routine and drudgery—even the downright oppressiveness—of ‘going to church.’ ” According to Dawn, the phrase “going to church” both reveals and promotes bad theology. It suggests that the church is a static place when in fact the church is the people of God. The regular gathering together of God’s people for worship is important—it enables them to be church in the world—but the act of worship is only a small part of observing the Sabbath. Combining sound biblical theology and research into Jewish traditions with many practical suggestions, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly offers a healthy balance between head and heart: the book shows how theological insights can undergird daily life and practice, and it gives the reader both motivation and methods for enjoying a special holy day.

Contents

Top Highlights

“To celebrate God’s love on our Sabbaths also transforms us so that we can more deeply value others in the same way. When we are not under the compulsion to be productive, we are given the time to dwell with others, to be with them and thereby to discover who they are.” (Page 20)

“The great misfortune of the change, however, is that in the process Christianity lost its sense of the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy. Why is it that we pay great attention to the commandments not to murder and steal (and think those are terrible sins), but don’t recognize the significance of our failure to obey the commandment to observe the Sabbath day?” (Page 43)

“and tension that accompany our modern criterion of efficiency, from our efforts to be in control of our” (Page 3)

“will be faithful to that image by resting and ceasing on the seventh day, even as God did.” (Page 45)

“One of the main causes of modern stress is that we have too much to do” (Page 23)

Product Details

• Title: Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting
• Author: Marva Dawn
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 1989
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Sunday; Sabbath; Ten Commandments › Sabbath
• ISBNs: 9780802804570, 0802804578
• Resource ID: LLS:KPNGSBBTHWHLLY
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T01:03:32Z

About Marva Dawn

Marva J. Dawn serves as theologian and educator with Christians Equipped for Ministry of Vancouver, Washington. Five of her books have been honored with a place on the Academy of Parish Clergy annual list of their top ten books, most recently in 2007. She is known throughout the world for her best-selling devotional and theological books and for her popular lectures on worship, ministry, and church and family life.