All About Remembering

I. What Trust Looks Like in the Light

Having grown up in a rather conservative Christian denomination, I was singing hymns long before any greatest hits, and while it once made me sad that I didn’t quite have my finger on the pulse, I later came to appreciate it—because now I can do both. I enjoy singing a wide variety of songs, from artists such as Taylor Swift to Johnny Cash and Freddie Mercury, but also hymns. I find them most comforting during times of extreme sadness.

     One of my favorite hymns, is Trust and Obey. Now, the funny thing about this hymn is that, much like Scripture, it can be open to interpretation. “Trust and obey” could mean blind obedience to some, which was how I understood it for most of my life—or it can refer to trusting the process. Here, at The Sapphire Road, we aim to do away with doctrine and dogma for the simple reason that if one doesn’t, trust and obey becomes authoritarian blind obedience. And if that was what Scripture was all about, then why would God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit be described as light?

     In fact, in Matthew 5:14 we are told that we too are the light of the world. One of the reasons I enjoy languages so much is because when you try to understand words in another language, it gives you a new perspective on your own. For example, the word light. When I think of it, I think of brightness, the sun, and perhaps even fire.

     The Greek word used in this passage is φως (phōs). It is the etymological root for English words such as photo and photosynthesis, the latter being a compound of phōs and sýnthesis, meaning “to put together.” Thus, at its core, photosynthesis is putting together by means of light. Apologies for my digression. Back to phōs and why it’s so interesting. When we look at the Greek, we see a relationship between phōs and the verb φαίνω (phainō), which means “to make visible.”

     So while light can be bright—and can even blind—it is important to remember its function: to make visible. This so often stands in contrast to doctrine and dogma. That is why when I sing the words:

Trust and obey,

For there’s no other way

To be happy in Jesus,

But to trust and obey.

I’m not rejoicing in blind obedience, but rather encouraging myself during dark times—that the light will make things visible, and that for me to see clearly, I need to know the baby from the bathwater.

II. A Day Worth Remembering

Other than the gospels, one of my favorite passages is found in the old testament, the ten commandments. What we read here is a pretty solid foundation for what Aristotle referred to as “the good life.”

     I was thinking a lot about it the last couple of weeks, and something bothered me. The word “remember.” The fourth commandment seems to be the only one that uses that word. As if it is something that could be forgotten. The Hebrew word זָכוֹר (zāḵôr) is a command, not a suggestion. It is saying that we MUST remember.

     Now, that wasn’t what bugged me the most about this. It was the question, “if God does exist, and He blessed a specific day AND then commanded us not to forget it. How could we possibly know which day that is? Surely it’s been lost to time.”

     So, I started doing some digging, and what I found was a huge surprise to me. Let me start from beginning of what I found and hopefully you’re still with me by the end.

     In the Hebrew of Exodus 20, the language is concrete rather than symbolic. The command refers to a day (yom), identified as the Sabbath, and further defined as the seventh day. Later passages clarify its boundaries as evening to evening. Nothing in the phrasing gestures toward flexibility, substitution, or reinterpretation. The command assumes that the community already knows which day is being referenced.

     That assumption carries through the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. When the prophets address Sabbath observance—Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, among others—their concern is not calendrical confusion. They challenge hypocrisy, exploitation, and the dissonance between ritual observance and ethical life. The problem, for them, is not which day is being kept, but how it is being kept. The identity of the Sabbath itself remains unquestioned.

     The Gospel narratives follow the same pattern. Jesus is consistently portrayed as observing the Sabbath. His conflicts with religious authorities revolve around interpretation and application: what constitutes work, how human need should be weighed, and whether boundary-keeping has overtaken compassion. Even the oft-quoted statement that “the Sabbath was made for humanity” speaks to purpose, not to replacement or abolition. The day itself is never redefined.

     At the level of the biblical text alone, a consistent picture emerges. The Sabbath appears as a specific, recurring day—assumed rather than explained, named rather than defended. It functions as a given.

    What Scripture does not do is explain how the continuity of that day is guaranteed across centuries of exile, calendar changes, imperial reforms, and historical disruption. The text presumes continuity but does not justify it. This is not an oversight so much as a reflection of how ancient law codes functioned: they address lived practice within a community, not hypothetical uncertainty.

III. Unbroken by Time

Scripture never contains a command transferring Sabbath observance to another day. There is no passage that declares the seventh day obsolete, fulfilled, or replaced. Any discussion of a different day necessarily begins outside the biblical text itself.

     When we move into early Christian history, the shift becomes visible. The earliest non-biblical Christian writings contain references to gatherings on what comes to be called “the Lord’s Day.” These passages describe what some communities were doing; they do not offer exegetical arguments for why they were doing it. The language is descriptive rather than theological.

     By the mid-second century, some Christian writers begin to argue that the Sabbath commandment applied only to Jews. These arguments are shaped by questions of identity, separation, and continuity in a post-Jewish context. They are polemical rather than textual, responding to social and theological pressures rather than re-reading the commandment itself.

     In later centuries, church councils formalize these distinctions, and imperial legislation reinforces them. At that point, practice is no longer merely customary; it is regulated. Authority has shifted from text to institution. Notably, none of these developments claim that the biblical text itself has changed. Instead, they assume the authority to determine how—or whether—the commandment applies.

     At the same time, it is worth noticing that Scripture itself does not treat all commands in the same way. Some laws are clearly bound to the life of a particular people at a particular moment, shaping identity, boundaries, and communal survival. Others appear to speak less to historical circumstance and more to enduring patterns of human life.

     The Ten Commandments occupy this latter space for many readers—not because they are enforced with greater severity, but because they articulate forms of care that remain intelligible across belief systems. They restrain harm, protect relationship, and make room for human dignity. The Sabbath command is distinctive even among them, introduced not with threat but with memory: “remember.” It assumes how easily rest can be displaced, how readily life becomes consumed by production and survival. To keep the Sabbath, then, is less an act of compliance than of attention—a deliberate pause that makes space for God, for oneself, for family and community. Whatever one believes about divine command, the impulse itself is recognizably humane.

     What emerges from all of this is not a demand, but a clarity. Scripture speaks plainly about what the Sabbath is and when it occurs. It does not hedge its language, offer alternatives, or gesture toward later substitutions. Whatever else one may believe about authority, tradition, or covenant, the text itself is remarkably consistent on this point. The seventh day is named, assumed, and remembered.

     Now, to finally address my initial concern, about the original Sabbath day and whether or not it has somehow been lost to time. Given the scale of history—exiles, empires, calendar reforms—this seems more than likely. And yet, historically and statistically, it is highly unlikely. Jewish communities have observed the Sabbath continuously, week after week, across millennia, across continents, and across calendar systems. There has never been a documented break, reset, or confusion substantial enough to shift the weekly cycle. The Saturday Sabbath observed today aligns with that unbroken continuity. Forgetting may be human, but this particular memory has been carefully carried.

     None of this forces obedience. Scripture doesn’t compel; it invites. What it does do is remove ambiguity. If one wishes to live according to Scripture, then the Sabbath is not a vague principle or a symbolic ideal. It is a specific practice rooted in time, rhythm, and restraint. How much weight a person gives that is a matter of conscience. Whether the text itself is clear is not.

     Perhaps that is why the command begins where it does: “remember.” Not because the day is fragile, but because attention is. Rest is easily displaced. Life drifts toward production, urgency, and survival without ever asking permission. The Sabbath interrupts that drift. It makes space—for God, for oneself, for family, for community. Even stripped of theology, the impulse remains recognizably humane.

     In that sense, keeping the Sabbath is not primarily about rule-keeping, but about love. Love that resists being consumed by the endless demand to do more. Love that acknowledges limits. Love that trusts that the world will keep turning even when we stop.

     What one does with that clarity is a personal decision. But clarity itself is a gift. And Scripture, at least here, does not seem interested in hiding it.