Sabbath Quotes

“I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds among the hills of New Hampshire, because I was bending my steps to a mountain-top on the Sabbath, instead of a church, when I would have gone farther than he to hear a true word spoken on that or any day. He declared that I was 'breaking the Lord's fourth commandment,' and proceeded to enumerate, in a sepulchral tone, the disasters which had befallen him whenever he had done any ordinary work on the Sabbath. He really thought that a god was on the watch to trip up those men who followed any secular work on this day, and did not see that it was the evil conscience of the workers that did it. The country is full of this superstition, so that when one enters a village, the church, not only really but from association, is the ugliest looking building in it, because it is the one in which human nature stoops the lowest and is most disgraced. Certainly, such temples as these shall erelong cease to deform the landscape. There are few things more disheartening and disgusting than when you are walking the streets of a strange village on the Sabbath, to hear a preacher shouting like a boatswain in a gale of wind, and thus harshly profaning the quiet atmosphere of the day.”
― Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

“Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“Some Christian lawyers—some eminent and stupid judges—have said and still say, that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all law.

Nothing could be more absurd. Long before these commandments were given there were codes of laws in India and Egypt—laws against murder, perjury, larceny, adultery and fraud. Such laws are as old as human society; as old as the love of life; as old as industry; as the idea of prosperity; as old as human love.

All of the Ten Commandments that are good were old; all that were new are foolish. If Jehovah had been civilized he would have left out the commandment about keeping the Sabbath, and in its place would have said: 'Thou shalt not enslave thy fellow-men.' He would have omitted the one about swearing, and said: 'The man shall have but one wife, and the woman but one husband.' He would have left out the one about graven images, and in its stead would have said: 'Thou shalt not wage wars of extermination, and thou shalt not unsheathe the sword except in self-defence.'

If Jehovah had been civilized, how much grander the Ten Commandments would have been.

All that we call progress—the enfranchisement of man, of labor, the substitution of imprisonment for death, of fine for imprisonment, the destruction of polygamy, the establishing of free speech, of the rights of conscience; in short, all that has tended to the development and civilization of man; all the results of investigation, observation, experience and free thought; all that man has accomplished for the benefit of man since the close of the Dark Ages—has been done in spite of the Old Testament.”
― Robert G Ingersoll, About The Holy Bible

“Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.”
― Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God

“Two or three angels
Came near to the earth.
They saw a fat church.
Little black streams of people
Came and went in continually.
And the angels were puzzled
To know why the people went thus,
And why they stayed so long within.”
― Stephen Crane, The Complete Poems of Stephen Crane

“Some keep the Sabbath going to church, I keep it staying at home, with a bobolink for a chorister, and an orchard for a dome. ”
― Emily Dickinson

“To the Sabbath! To the Sabbath!' they cried. 'On to the Witches' Sabbath!"
Up and down that narrow hall they danced, the women on each side of him, to the wildest measure he had ever imagined, yet which he dimly, dreadfully remembered, till the lamp on the wall flickered and went out, and they were left in total darkness. And the devil woke in his heart with a thousand vile suggestions and made him afraid.”
― Algernon Blackwood, The Complete John Silence Stories

“God presents the Sabbath rest as a shelter we can enter. (Hebrews 4:1-11)”
― Swindoll Charles R.

“A life built upon Sabbath is contented because in rhythms of rest we discover our time is full of the holiness of God.”
― Shelly Miller, Rhythms of Rest: Finding the Spirit of Sabbath in a Busy World

“Every time we turn to Christ in faith it is like a moment of Sabbath, a little foretaste of eternal rest and glory. The gift of that moment lies not in what we do but what we receive. It is the holy time set aside to receive the greatest gift of God ever has to give, which is himself, in his own beloved Son.”
― Phillip Cary, Good News for Anxious Christians: Ten Practical Things You Don't Have to Do

“As we wait, God reveals his purpose in the preparations he is doing within us, and our hopeful outlook is the result.”
― Shelly Miller, Rhythms of Rest: Finding the Spirit of Sabbath in a Busy World

“At least one indication of unbelief is the tendency to measure life's challenges against our own adequacy instead of God's promises. To enter our Sabbath rest, we must put an end to self-reliance - trusting in our own abilities to overcome difficulties, rise above challenges, escape tragedies, or achieve personal greatness.”
― Swindoll Charles R.

“Sabbath is not a reward for hard work. Sabbath is a gift that precedes work and enables us to work. (…) As with God’s Grace, rest is never a reward; it’s a gift.”
― Rich Villodas, The Deeply Formed Life: Five Transformative Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus

“The Hebrew word Shabbat means ‘to stop.’ But it can also be translated ‘to delight.’ It has this dual idea of stopping and also of joying in God and our lives in his world. The Sabbath is an entire day set aside to follow God’s example, to stop and delight.”
― John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World

“In this book I will challenge you to reconsider several assumptions you may have regarding
biblical rest. I’ll ask you to expand your definitions to include things you may not have
previously considered. But be assured, my purposes are not to undermine God’s rest. I only wish
to bring clarity to the topic.”
― Gregory D. Hall, Rethinking Rest: Why Our Approach to Sabbath Isn’t Working

“In many ways, fear of the witch has always been a fear of women’s power. But it was also a fear of women congregating and doing things together. Women who went to see other women were obviously going to a witches’ sabbath to dance with the devil. What else would they be doing?”
― Katrine Marçal, Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men

“Ida Rhew was bending low, pulling a pan of rolls from the oven. God, sang a cracking Negro voice from the transistor radio. God don't never change. The gospel program. It was something that haunted Charlotte, though she'd never mentioned it to anyone. If Ida hadn't had that racket turned up so loud they might have heard what was going on in the yard, might have known something was wrong. But then (tossing in her bed at night, trying restlessly to trace events to a possible First Cause) it was she who had made pious Ida work on Sunday in the first place. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Jehovah in the Old Testament was always smiting down people for far less.”
― Donna Tartt, The Little Friend

“Ida Rhew was bending low, pulling a pan of rolls from the oven. God, sang a cracking Negro voice from the transistor radio. God don't never change. The gospel program. It was something that haunted Charlotte, though she'd never mentioned it to anyone. If Ida hadn't had that racket turned up so loud they might have heard what was going on in the yard, might have known something was wrong. But then (tossing in her bed at night, trying restlessly to trace events to a possible First Cause) it was she who had made pious Ida work on Sunday in the first place. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Jehovah in the Old Testament was always smiting people down for far less.”
― Donna Tartt, The Little Friend

“Israel was to the let the land rest every seven years. For 490 years, they disregarded this divine plan (Jeremiah 17:27). In 2 Chronicles 36:20-21, after God's people were taken away into exile, the land enjoyed its sabbath rest until seventy years were completed. God collects His debts.”
― T.F. Tenney, The Main Thing...Is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

“The significance of church bells ringing is to draw attention for the Sabbath holy service.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“In the eyes of the Church, all the witches power was ultimately derived from her sexuality. Here career began with sexual intercourse with the devil. Each witch was confirmed at a general meeting (the witches' Sabbath) at which the devil presided, often iin the form of a goat, and had intercourse with the neophytes. In return for her powers, the witch promised to serve him faithfully. (In the imagination of the Church even evil could only be thought of as ultimately male-directed!)”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers

“A friend said to me – we were talking about our stage in life, when we suddenly discover that we are the grown-ups, with children and parents, and even grandparents to tend to, not to mention our pupils, patients or clients or employers – that we spend so much time dealing with it all, there is scarcely time to feel. I walked up the silent road, wondering if I couldn’t reconcile myself again to the idea of the Sabbath, to the day of dreary silence and mutton broth I’d known as a child, if we couldn’t close the shops and still the traffic and institute a modern, churchless day of contemplation and rest; and if it would help at all.”
― Kathleen Jamie, Findings

“Sabbath is not a break from work; it is a redefinition of how we work, why we work, and how we create freedom through our work.”
― Dan B. Allender

“Ultimately, rest is an act of resistance against the siren calls of our idols to work for them. By stopping, we take up arms against the great Western gods of achievement, money, and self-determination.”
― Adam Mabry, The Art of Rest: Faith to Hit Pause in a World that Never Stops

“But such deep fellowship with God and others can't be microwaved. It takes time. And when we carve out the time, we're rewarded with the relational fellowship for which we were made. We find ourselves loving to carve out the time to focus on our relationship, rather than having to do so. Duty gives way to delight.”
― Adam Mabry, The Art of Rest: Faith to Hit Pause in a World that Never Stops

“We don't have to wait until the work is done to rest with God. Our personal sense of accomplishment isn't what we bring to God; it's what we're meant to get from him.”
― Adam Mabry, The Art of Rest: Faith to Hit Pause in a World that Never Stops

“Whatever it is that you're thinking about right now that gets you off the hook of taking Jesus' call to rest seriously, it is probably the thing you actually love and worship more than Jesus. We refuse to rest because, at some deep level, we're convinced that if we stop, the thing for which we're really living won't be fed, pleased, or procured. If you're happier at work than in Christ, rest will never feel good. If you're more of a mother to your children than you are a daughter of the King, stopping may feel like sin.”
― Adam Mabry, The Art of Rest: Faith to Hit Pause in a World that Never Stops

“Our bodies get tired, so we sleep. If I refuse sleep on the basis that I need to train for a marathon, I will fail to run a marathon, because my body needs rest in order to train. So why would we think it should be all that different with our souls? When our souls are tired, why wouldn't we rest? Jesus seems to have made a habit of this. Are we a bit more spiritually fit than the Lord?”
― Adam Mabry, The Art of Rest: Faith to Hit Pause in a World that Never Stops

“Our sense of being enough isn't something we achieved, it's something we received. It's not something that we create, it's something that's conferred upon us by another.”
― Ken Shigematsu, Survival Guide for the Soul Video Study: How to Flourish Spiritually in a World that Pressures Us to Achieve

“As Tim Keller once put it: The purpose of Sabbath is not simply to rejuvenate yourself in order to do more production, nor is it the pursuit of pleasure. The purpose of Sabbath is to enjoy your God, life in general, what you have accomplished in the world through his help, and the freedom you have in the gospel—the freedom from slavery to any material object or human expectation. The Sabbath is a sign of the hope that we have in the world to come.”
― Daniel Montgomery, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey