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How was your lesson about Sabbath observance?


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So today, units throughout the Church presumably had their first in a series of lessons on the topic of the Sabbath day as the fourth-Sunday curriculum for Relief Society and Melchizedek Priesthood lessons. I am curious to hear how it went in other wards.

In our high priests group, I learned something I hadn't known before. The instructor referred us to the Bible Dictionary entry on "Sabbath." In it, I noticed a link to another entry, "the Lord's Day."

From these two entries, I learned that in the early days of Christianity, after the resurrection of the Lord, the first day of the week was designated as "the Lord's day" and was thus observed, commemorating the resurrection of the Christ on that day and also the occasion when the Holy Ghost came upon the apostles. For a time, both the Lord's day (first day of the week) and the Sabbath (seventh day of the week) were observed. Then, by degrees, these two observances became combined, and today, the Sabbath and the Lord's day are both observed on Sunday, the first day of the week.

 

Edited by Scott Lloyd
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How was it? Too short! We ran out of time long before we ran out of contributions. My favourite was one brother's heartfelt retelling of how he obtained direct revelation on how to better observe the Lord's Day in his family and how well this has been working for all involved.

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As an aside, I will note that I looked around our high priests group this morning and noticed that each and every one of us was using an electronic version of the scriptures on a hand-held device. There wasn't a hard-copy version in the room.

It was the first time I have ever noticed this. To use Mr Dylan's words, the times, they are a-changin'.

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21 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

So today, units throughout the Church presumably had their first of a series of lessons on the topic of the Sabbath day as the fourth-Sunday curriculum for Relief Society and Melchizedek Priesthood lessons. I am curious to hear how it went in other wards.

In our high priests group, I learned something I hadn't known before. The instructor referred us to the Bible Dictionary entry on "Sabbath." In it, I noticed a link to another entry, "the Lord's Day."

From these two entries, I learned that in the early days of Christianity, after the resurrection of the Lord, the first day of the week was designated as "the Lord's day" and was thus observed, commemorating the resurrection of the Christ on that day and also the occasion when the Holy Ghost came upon the apostles. For a time, both the Lord's day (first day of the week) and the Sabbath (seventh day of the week) were observed. Then, by degrees, these two observances became combined, and today, the Sabbath and the Lord's day are both observed on Sunday, the first day of the week.

 

I wish ours had been that interesting!

Our teacher allowed a brother to get the group side tracked on an entire discussion regarding whether or not it was ok to watch TV on Sunday.  I saw many members start reading other material out of boredom.  I tried to get it back on track at some point....but we didn't have much time left.

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2 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I wish ours had been that interesting!

Our teacher allowed a brother to get the group side tracked on an entire discussion regarding whether or not it was ok to watch TV on Sunday.  I saw many members start reading other material out of boredom.  I tried to get it back on track at some point....but we didn't have much time left.

Nonetheless, I commend you for your effort.

Our guy was good about saying upfront that he wasn't there to tell us what we should or should not be doing on Sunday.

 

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We had an open discussion.  Each person in the room shared the various ways they have observed the sabbath.  Hopefully the sabbath is more than just a list of what you can or can’t do, but a day of rest and rejuvenation and reconnecting with family and loved ones.  

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I have a question for those of you who have young families.  How do you instill the holiness of the Sabbath day when toddlers and those a litte older are geared to play...is their a happy medium?

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1 minute ago, Jeanne said:

I have a question for those of you who have young families.  How do you instill the holiness of the Sabbath day when toddlers and those a litte older are geared to play...is their a happy medium?

I don’t think a little play is necessarily a bad thing on Sunday, as long as you are spending time with them.  To me, that is the most important thing.  

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3 minutes ago, Sky said:

I don’t think a little play is necessarily a bad thing on Sunday, as long as you are spending time with them.  To me, that is the most important thing.  

i love this.  I know some families that are the "sit still" types with tots still in white shirts and ties...family day is a good Sabbath Day.

Edited by Jeanne
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11 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I no longer have toddlers, but when we did, we'd play with them in our back yard or even take them to a nearby park....even occasionally to the beach, just to get them out and spend time together as a family.  We'd pack picnic lunches and just have a great time together.  We didn't allow them to have play dates with other kids (at our house or their's) and focused on just spending the day together (in church first and then something fun afterwards).  That worked great for us.

Sounds great!!  This way your children did not dread the Sundays...love it!!

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24 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I no longer have toddlers, but when we did, we'd play with them in our back yard or even take them to a nearby park....even occasionally to the beach, just to get them out and spend time together as a family.  We'd pack picnic lunches and just have a great time together.  We didn't allow them to have play dates with other kids (at our house or their's) and focused on just spending the day together (in church first and then something fun afterwards).  That worked great for us.

That's what my young family does right now.  Sunday is family day, so it means lots and lots of fun family time (at the park, dance parties at the house, playing games, etc).   

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we had a discussion about how the teacher was an AP and he was serving a mission in Mexico and one sunday he was travelling with a General Authority and his Mission President. The Seventy asked if anyone had invited them out to lunch and they said no so he said we're going to the Wendy's coming up! So, they ate at Wendy's on Sunday. Well, this stickler high priest dude said that that wasn't right and a bad example and others chimed in about how life isn't so black and white and we can't always predict the future really and things happen that while you wouldn't normally do but it sometimes happens that you have to buy or do something on the Sabbath. I told the story about maybe 12 years ago a group of guys, including me when I was interested in basketball were playing on saturday night at the church. Well, one big guy got hit somehow and fell to the floor and got knocked out. This turned out to be his 12th concussion in his life. We took him to the hospital, gave him a blessing. So, we waited while he was being attended to by the Medical people. It was after midnight. One of the guys in out group said, that he's been given a blessing so why are we even at the hospital past midnight now on a sabbath? A few of us we're like, because he was knocked out? that's not good! you give a blessing AND take him to the hospital to get unknocked out, God expects you to take care of him with the best medical assistance available but this one guy wasn't having it. We were breaking the sabbath, according to him but to us we were honoring it by helping our friend by attending to his needs. That rigid guy isn't active today.

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2 hours ago, Jeanne said:

I have a question for those of you who have young families.  How do you instill the holiness of the Sabbath day when toddlers and those a litte older are geared to play...is their a happy medium?

My 3 year old and 4 year old play just like they do on any other day.  The differences between regular days and the Sabbath day for them are the food we eat, the type of t.v. we watch, going to church, and family home evening

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1 hour ago, Duncan said:

we had a discussion about how the teacher was an AP and he was serving a mission in Mexico and one sunday he was travelling with a General Authority and his Mission President. The Seventy asked if anyone had invited them out to lunch and they said no so he said we're going to the Wendy's coming up! So, they ate at Wendy's on Sunday. Well, this stickler high priest dude said that that wasn't right and a bad example and others chimed in about how life isn't so black and white and we can't always predict the future really and things happen that while you wouldn't normally do but it sometimes happens that you have to buy or do something on the Sabbath. I told the story about maybe 12 years ago a group of guys, including me when I was interested in basketball were playing on saturday night at the church. Well, one big guy got hit somehow and fell to the floor and got knocked out. This turned out to be his 12th concussion in his life. We took him to the hospital, gave him a blessing. So, we waited while he was being attended to by the Medical people. It was after midnight. One of the guys in out group said, that he's been given a blessing so why are we even at the hospital past midnight now on a sabbath? A few of us we're like, because he was knocked out? that's not good! you give a blessing AND take him to the hospital to get unknocked out, God expects you to take care of him with the best medical assistance available but this one guy wasn't having it. We were breaking the sabbath, according to him but to us we were honoring it by helping our friend by attending to his needs. That rigid guy isn't active today.

He thought that going to the hospital on a Sunday was breaking the Sabbath??

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1 hour ago, cinepro said:

We had Stake Conference today.

But here's something fun I always like to do during lessons on the Sabbath in EQ.  I ask those who are married to raise their hands if they found that they and their wives had very different ideas about what was okay and not okay to do on the Sabbath that were only discovered after they got married.  Usually just about all the married guys raise their hands.  I use it as an example that while we assume everyone else has the same general understanding about what is okay and not okay (watching TV seems to be the big one), there's actually quite a bit of variation among different families.

I remember my first Sunday at the MTC a whole bunch of the girls were scandalized that I bought something from the snack vending machines in our dorm on Sunday because "spending on money on the Sabbath is breaking it."  I thought that was the craziest thing that I had ever heard, having been taught that it wasn't the money aspect of not shopping that was to be avoided but instead the aspect of having people work on Sundays.  

It is interesting how people can take the same thing and interpret it in totally different ways.

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1 hour ago, cinepro said:

We had Stake Conference today.

But here's something fun I always like to do during lessons on the Sabbath in EQ.  I ask those who are married to raise their hands if they found that they and their wives had very different ideas about what was okay and not okay to do on the Sabbath that were only discovered after they got married.  Usually just about all the married guys raise their hands.  I use it as an example that while we assume everyone else has the same general understanding about what is okay and not okay (watching TV seems to be the big one), there's actually quite a bit of variation among different families.

We had stake conference too. It was a North America Northwest Stake Conference Broadcast with Elder D. Todd Christofferson speaking.

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1 hour ago, cinepro said:

I use it as an example that while we assume everyone else has the same general understanding about what is okay and not okay (watching TV seems to be the big one), there's actually quite a bit of variation among different families.

And there should be, because it's an largely individual thing-- how do you and your family best show your love to each other and the Lord.  

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3 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

As an aside, I will note that I looked around our high priests group this morning and noticed that each and every one of us was using an electronic version of the scriptures on a hand-held device. There wasn't a hard-copy version in the room.

This would not have happened in our ward.  

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