The Law of Life - 1 : The Fourth Commandment

Ellet J. Waggoner

The Present Truth : April 18, 1901

The Fourth Commandment

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20.8-11

The Origin of “Difficulties in Scripture Interpretation”

This commandment, like every other, is exceeding broad, and we can never exhaust it. Yet, with all its breadth and depth, it is exceedingly simple and easy to be understood. Nevertheless, it is very much misunderstood, and many professed Christians seem to find great difficulty in it. Because of the general perversion of this commandment, it is necessary to clear the ground of some misapprehensions, before we come to the consideration of the real teaching of it. The difficulties connected with this commandment, like those with any part of the Bible, are wholly in the minds of men, and not in the commandment itself. Perverted minds pervert the word. Whoever comes to the study of the Bible, wholly free from prejudice or selfish motives, with a sincere desire that he may learn the will of God in order to do it, will never find any difficulty in it; for “if any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching.” John 7.17

All the difficulties of “interpretation” lie in this: People come to the Bible with more or less fixed opinions of what is right. They take it for granted that the ideas and practices that they have received by tradition from their fathers, and which are common among men, must be right. But they find things in the Bible that do not sanction their course, and since their minds are not open to change, they feel it necessary to make the Bible harmonize with their practice. Bible study is very difficult under such conditions.