Exodus 35:2: For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a Sabbath of complete rest to Yahweh.
As Pastor Sumpter pointed out, the instructions for building the tabernacle end with a Sabbath command and the narrative about building begins with a Sabbath command, before it goes on to describe the labor of Israel on the house of God.
In between the covenant is broken and renewed. The passage shows that the old covenant moves toward rest, while the new begins from rest. Israel’s Sabbath was the seventh day, but the Lord’s day is the first.
In the new covenant, the Lord’s day sets the pattern for our week of labor. That is, it ought to. Does it?
Do you work from a foundation of confidence in God’s gifts, or do you work as if it all depends on you and you’ll never catch up?
Do you go from the rest of the Lord’s day to resume a frantic pace, always on call, checking your phone every five minutes, busy, busy, busy? Do you even wait for church to end before you check your phone? Do your labor-saving devices make you busier? Do you find yourself doing three, five, eight things at once, none of them attentively?
The world around us is chaos and cacophony, but we are called to better things. The Christian week is a melody. Rest is the tonic, Eucharistic joy the key signature. When your work sings songs of Sabbath, you become a witness to the gift of rest that is in Jesus.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
