Yes, work is something one gets paid for.
So you would mow the lawn or clean out the garage or work on the bathroom plumbing and consider yourself "keeping sabbath"??????
You asked about "work." You didn't ask about doing unnecessary personal business. I helped someone move once because that was the only time they could move. I viewed it as pulling a sheep out of a ditch.
We can spend time wondering why G-d prohibited kindling a fire. For me, it has to do with it being the ultimate creative act, and on sabbath we remember that we are creation and He is creator. However, in the end, we do not obey G-d because we understand his laws. We obey G-d simply because he is G-d and he has asked this of us. He does not change, and his laws do not change.
Well, I happen to disagree. We should obey God because we love Him and love what He did for us, not out of obligation or "because He said so."
I eat a warm meal on the Sabbath because I prepare it in advance, light the fire before sabbath starts, and keep the meal warm during sabbath.
Good for you. For some the sabbath is more about ritual than about God.
This can be done by using a good old fashioned shabbat stove / blech or by using a crockpot. There is also nothing wrong with a sandwich. I do not break G-d's law for my own convenience.
Good for you. For some the sabbath is more about ritual than about God.
(1) I do not personally think that non-Jews have to keep the Sabbath, but I am not here to argue that point. I'm here to try to understand how it is that keeping Sabbath can be such an important issue to you all while at the same time you establish no order to it. You do not appear (at least to me) to have any rhyme or reason to determine consistantly what is work and what is not work. One of you says one thing. Another of you says another thing. It is chaotic.
The day isn't about ritual, it's about a relationship. If we keep it as a ritual, as something that has to be done to appease God then we have completely missed the point of the sabbath. It's an attitude that can hang the Son of God on the cross one minute and be home in time for passover supper at sundown.
Isa 58:13 ¶ If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, [from] doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and
call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking [thine own] words:
(2) It just seems to me that if you are going to keep Sabbath, that you should keep it all the way, and I do NOT see that happening. WHY? I see a kind of half hearted "I'll keep sabbath so long as its reasonably easy for me" kind of thing. It seems like you just want a day off to do as you wish, rather than a day of holiness. I guess what I'm saying is that if you are going to be somewhat wishy washy, why not just say, "this is my day off," instead of making the pretense that it is the sabbath day for you.
Well, that would certainly be a "legalistic" way of looking at sabbath observance. If we don't keep it like you do then we must be doing something wrong. Your "holiness" is probably quite a bit different than mine. I minister in two prisons on the sabbath, one on Friday night, the other on Saturday.
Of course, you're quite out of line to call what someone else does on the sabbath names such as "wishy washy" just because their observance may be quite different than yours. There is no pretense here. The sabbath is a day for doing good works that honor God and spread His word, not useless, vain, and legalistic rituals. Sounds to me like you leep the sabbath for all the wrong reasons.
Mat 23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have
omitted the weightier [matters] of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
