00:00Hi, my name is Jay Carper, and I'm here to talk about the Sabbath.
00:08I grew up in church, in the Assemblies of God to be specific.
00:11As long as I can remember, my family went to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday
00:16night, sometimes another Bible study.
00:19My parents were involved in ministry, children's church, street ministry, youth ministry, prison
00:26ministry, always some kind of ministry.
00:29I went to a Christian school, Christian grade school, junior high, high school.
00:35I have been a lifelong disciple of Christ, and I consciously, officially gave my life
00:40to Christ as a teenager.
00:43But I have always been a troublemaker, not, you know, I don't get into a lot of trouble,
00:50I don't get into legal trouble, I've never been in jail, nothing like that.
00:54I just like to ask questions, and I'm not always content with the answers I get.
00:59One of the problems I've always had with regular church is that you're fed a lot of stuff from
01:06the pulpit.
01:08But without a lot of depth.
01:10Everything seems to be a Sunday school lesson.
01:12And if you ask too many questions, people tend to get a little upset with you.
01:18I ask questions like, the Bible says to do this, but we do that.
01:23Why?
01:24The Bible says not to do this, but our church says to do that.
01:29So why is that?
01:30The Bible says to keep the Sabbath on the seventh day.
01:34So why do we keep a Sabbath on Sunday, or not at all?
01:40I have been a Bible teacher, a writer, in some way teaching other people about the scriptures
01:48for a little over 20 years.
01:51Not necessarily because I've got a lot of qualifications, but because I can't help but
01:55ask these questions and to share the answers that I find with other people.
02:00So that's what I'm here to do for you.
02:02I'm also a husband and a father.
02:05I am an active part of our local community here.
02:09I really don't think it's possible to understand everything that scripture has to teach you
02:14if you're not part of a family, if you're not part of an active physical community, and
02:20putting the things that scripture says into use.
02:24I'm also a systems administrator by trade.
02:26I work with computers, and I'm pretty good at problem solving, at troubleshooting complex
02:35technical problems.
02:37One thing that this has added to my Bible study and to my teaching is that I'm good at finding
02:43patterns.
02:44I'm able to look at a complex question, break it down into smaller components, and then
02:50answer each of those components in turn.
02:53You know, if you have a big enough problem, it's impossible to really think about it, to
02:57wrap your mind around the whole thing.
03:00So as an IT professional, what I have learned to do is break those big problems down into
03:05little problems.
03:06If you solve all of the little problems, before you know it, you've solved the big problem
03:11too.
03:13I'm going to approach this topic of the Sabbath essentially like I'm building a house.
03:18I'm going to do the important stuff first, lay the foundation.
03:22I'm going to ask, what is the Sabbath?
03:25And answer that question.
03:27And I'm going to look at specific scripture verses that talk about these questions.
03:33And see what we can learn from them.
03:35I'm going to talk about each individual scripture because really the Sabbath is a big question.
03:41There's a lot of information about it in the Bible.
03:44So I'm going to take each one of these passages and address it one by one, just like it would
03:49a computer problem.
03:50It's going to be a lot like building a house, brick by brick.
03:54I'm going to look at one verse, and that's going to be a brick in the wall.
03:58Then I'm going to look at another.
03:59Pretty soon I've got a wall.
04:01Then I'm going to turn to the next wall.
04:02In this case, it's why does the Sabbath matter?
04:06Then the next wall, who is the Sabbath for?
04:11When is the Sabbath?
04:13And finally, I'm going to put a roof on it all by tackling the end of the matter.
04:18Wrap it all up.
04:20You know, every house needs a roof.
04:21If it doesn't, what's the point of even having the house, right?
04:23So stick with me over the next few or dozens of videos as I explore these four questions
04:31and try to answer these really important questions about what is the Sabbath?
04:36Why does it matter?
04:38Who is it for?
04:40And strangely enough, when is the Sabbath?
04:43With a few exceptions, all of the scripture verses I'm going to be reading will be quoted
04:47from the English Standard Version, the ESV.
04:50It's not a perfect translation.
04:52There are no perfect translations.
04:54But it's pretty good.
04:55I also like the New American Standard, the Holman Christian Standard Bible, the New King
05:00James, even the King James, if you're confident in the archaic English language that it uses.
05:06There are a couple of verses where I will quote from the King James or the Young's Literal
05:10Translation, just because of a way that something is phrased really brings out a particular point.
05:18I'm also going to repeat a lot of verses, because each verse addresses multiple points
05:24regarding the Sabbath.
05:25And multiple verses address the same point about the Sabbath.
05:29One thing you want to keep in mind as you're studying the scriptures,
05:32never base a major theology on a single verse.
05:37Always look for multiple witnesses, preferably for multiple authors.
05:42So I'm going to follow my own advice in this series,
05:45and bring at least two or three witnesses for every major point that I'm going to make.
05:51This is Jay Carper from American Torah.
05:54I hope you follow with me through this whole series, because the Sabbath really is important.
06:05Great.
06:06Good afternoon.
06:14Enjoy right now.
06:15After all, please turn in.
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