Does not matter really, truth does not depend on you having an easy or a hard time accpeting it. Lacking scripture speaking either for or against, maybe a soft approach is preferable. After all, we are not using the principle "whatever is not expressedly allowed is forbidden" in any other daily situations we encounter.

How can your 'rest' if you continue with your normal weekly routine, this is the essence of the "Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath", without it, we would work ourselves into spiritual and physical numbness and destruction to get ahead. If you doubt that I can let you talk to some of my bosses at a national firm I used to work at, my wife would come at 2 am by my office if I didnt come home. Then back at 9:00 am to work another 14 hour day to get the software ready to be shipped on time. My supervisor found all his belongings on the front lawn because his girlfriend never spent any time together and their relationship crumbled. Yet he didnt skip a beat and we toiled on till we had burnt ourselves out and destroyed many relationships, but the software shipped on time.........

and then we started on the next software title........

Sabbath for many people is less about rest than it is about "the show must go on" at church. True, some people go there to have others provide them with worship, and some people go there and work themselves more than they would do any ordinary weekday. Sunday is the day of rest of lots of good adventists.

They are wrong in this and you must share the truth of the Sabbath with those who do this to help your brethren. That is what you want, correct, to share truth with great love for your brothers and sisters...

Thomas, do you really wonder if Nehemiah would forbid buying and selling goods and foods but allow buying and selling meals in restaurants on the Sabbath? Again, I find it difficult to believe, principally speaking, that he would forbid the one but allow the other. What would Jesus do? I cannot imagine Him choosing to buy meals at a restaurant (unless, of course, an emergency required it). Can you?

I suspect He wouldn't want to make people think it is okay to work and sell meals on the Sabbath. Instead, I see Him going out of His way to teach people, by precept and example, that keeping the Sabbath is far more important than working and selling meals in a restaurant. Keeping the Sabbath, in accordance with Jesus' example, is far too rewarding to swap for working and selling meals in a restaurant.

It is possible that Nehemiah would forbid Israelites to work by selling meals on the Sabbath, but I think it is equally possible that he would happily allow Midianties or Syrians or other heathen people to sell them. After all, this would mean that the Israelites could get a warm meal without having to work by turning on the stowe on Sabbaths. You do know that turning on the gas or electricity on your home stowe is considered work by strict jews today? And that some Jews throughout history have employed us heathen to do it for them on Sabbaths?

I read a story where Jesus allowed his diciples to crop a grain, to thresh it and to grind it to feed themselves on a Sabbath day. I read about the guardians of piety reacting simmilarily to what you are doing here. I remember Jesus reacting, well, by not reacting at all towards his diciples farming buisness.

The reward in Sabbathkeeping may dissolve quickly into thinn air if everyone around is crancky due to being hungry. Cranckyness which if turning into a fight surely would do greater harm to any Sabbath rewards than buying a meal would.

You are looking for excuses my brother, and that is always easy to find.......search for Christ and why His gift of the Sabbath brings you joy, happiness, and blessings that no other day can...

This is your opinion, and you are of course entitled to it. May I disagree with you?Am I allowed to suggest that joy, happiness and blessings do not require hedging the day in by do's and don'ts but just as you suggest follows when Christ is made central in the day. When Christ is central, who cooks your meal fades considerably in importance, don't you think?

Thomas, the fact Jews perverted Sabbath keeping by employing heathens to do work they wouldn't do does not justify buying and selling meals in a restaurant on the Sabbath. Would you agree?

Also, grabbing grain and eating it as you pass by a field is not justification for buying and selling meals in a restaurant on the Sabbath. Would you agree?

Mike,

If you were to reread my posts in this thread, how do you think I would answer your latest questions? Are you sure I have not already answered them?