It depends on whether or not you are paid for the servicing.
-
Biblical Families is not a dating website. It is a forum to discuss issues relating to marriage and the Bible, and to offer guidance and support, not to find a wife. Click here for more information.
Roots?
- Thread starter steve
- Start date
No; I'm just a slut.
[Warning: I am a guest here; I am therefore not a Torah keeper. Also, I'll be making technical distinctions about words.]
Reading all the posts in this and in some other threads lately, I've come to a conclusion that may be inaccurate, so please disabuse me if I'm incorrect, but it seems fairly clear to me that how one keeps Torah is not an exact science and is in many respects up to the conscience of the individual Torah keeper. By saying that I'm not asserting that everything is up for discussion or that it's all arbitrary. I'm in fact assuming that some things are not at all up for discussion. However, in matters such as we're discussing, isn't some personal discretion in order about the interpretation concerning what is and isn't work? And, if so, while it would also therefore be the case that brothers exercising their individual discretions would differ somewhat in their interpretation of what is and isn't work on the Sabbath, does an authority structure exist within the Hebrew Roots community that places some people on a higher level of interpretation that would thus give them the recognized status to elevate what would normally qualify only as a difference of opinion to the level of either righteous objection or labeling a brother's interpretation as arbitrary? Furthermore, other than that which is directly and specifically addressed in Torah, isn't everything else to one degree or another at least a little bit arbitrary?
I think what is and isn't work is going to depend on the individual and their circumstances.
For example - working in a daycare with young children would be considered work.
Caring for your own children isn't work. You're doing the same job, same amount of physical effort. Still feeding them, still changing nappies, still changing clothes, still cleaning up their messes etc.
For example - working in a daycare with young children would be considered work.
Caring for your own children isn't work. You're doing the same job, same amount of physical effort. Still feeding them, still changing nappies, still changing clothes, still cleaning up their messes etc.
All things are indeed arbitrary, it’s just that some are more arbitrary than others.
ok, not all things.
Just an attempt at humor.
That example reminds me of a funny story. When my atheist fake-Buddhist first wife and I were first discussing getting her pregnant, she very sincerely asserted that, given that I was a Christian and she wasn't, I was going to have to change all the diapers and do all the feedings after breastfeeding was over every Sunday, because my beliefs compelled me to consider that her day of rest. I just remembered this, but I told her that wasn't logical; given that Christianity was my religion and not hers, Sunday should be the day that I didn't change any diapers. Out of that discussion arose an agreement we adhered to right up until the first time she left me: we took turns taking entire weekends off from child care (I think we were also unconsciously but very purposefully setting up structures to take those weekends off from each other; btw, anyone who feels compelled to inform me that none of this was biblical will not be teaching me anything I didn't know, even at the time).
Well thank you for the compliment. I am striving for legalism although I tend toward lawlessness. It’s nice to have the effort recognized.
i again would point out though that spilling the milk out would be my last resort. I would much rather give it away or not milk it at all.
Much of Scripture can be described as a bit arbitrary... consider Yeshua's citation of two Torah comnands: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself.'
Who is my neighbor? How do I love with soul? What is love? Etc, etc... so, as with all of Christendom, and 'religion' in general, we as questions and follow conviction that we seek to have grounded in Scripture.
The key is that when we approach the Torah we don't say, 'Oh, that no longer applies' or, 'that applies to a different place and time,' rather we say, 'hmmmm, this is God's revealed righteousness that applies to me, but how?'
LOL!!!
Ha! Fair enough!
Ah, but what about working in a church daycare, taking care of other people's young children while they are in the service? Or even taking Sunday school? Is that worship or work?!
(let's not start a side debate about whether kids should be in the service or booted to the sideroom and entertained with macaroni and glue...)
I volunteered for working in church daycare when I was a freshman in high school, and by the next year I was in charge of the nursery. For me, it was far less work than the endurance test it was for me to sit through an entire church service without going all Tourette's on everyone.
Sunday School was a close second, but it was more like weekly porridge made of a combination of oatmeal, Elmer's glue and sawdust.
My vote is: Church itself is Work and Works.
Too late you started it. Children should be taught the Bible by their father. No reason to separate them.
Amen
It is one of the primary ways that I failed my children. I was an agnostic when the boys were born. I had put some effort into tricking myself into becoming a Christian again, but it didn't work. Still, though, no matter how impossible it seemed for me to believe again, I saw it as a real loss that I had lost my faith, so I gave Kristin permission to take them to church, get baptized, etc. The problem is that she took them to uppity corporate church (mostly Episcopalian -- American Anglican, better known as Catholic Lite). I had regained my faith by the time Naomi was born (thus her middle name), but all I did was flop from one church to another trying to find something that would stick. By the time I realized I should have been teaching my children myself all along, the die had been cast. Still, though, when I finally said enough is enough and offered them the choice between going to Sunday School and church once a week and having daily interactive Bible studies, they all chose the latter, and it would have continued forever, but their mother sabotaged it (long story some here know, but I'm not going to repeat it, because the point is not for me to whine about that; the point is that [1] religious teaching belongs in the home, and [2] it is likely that most of our confusion about how to properly apply what is to be gleaned from Scripture comes from the organized religion of Christianity.
I think most of us would agree, hence why there is no need to debate it (and even if we don't agree it's beside the point). I was simply probing the details to define what is "work" - or more likely show that this is not a black and white issue.
We do the other way around. Saturday is our Sabbath. Sunday morning we either go to the local church or get back to work. It works for us as an individual family, however honestly is a problem when it comes to interacting with extended family who keep a Sunday sabbath. If someone needs assistance (e.g. are moving house on a weekend), someone's got to be flexible with their sabbath-keeping in order to function as a tribe.