Are we to infer that God commands us not to work on the Sabbath in order that we might enjoy 21st century entertainment on the Lord’s Day? Are all non-work lawful pleasures that are suitable for Saturdays somehow appropriate for Sunday? Did God command rest for one day in seven so that 21st century moms and dads would be free on Sundays to take their children to their soccer games? It should be apparent, the Divines did not base their view of Sabbath recreation solely on Isaiah 58:13-14. 

R.C. Sproul cites three so-called “controversies” in church history surrounding the Christian Sabbath. Is the Sabbath obligatory for the New Testament Church? If it is, should the Sabbath continue to be the seventh day of the week, the first day of the week, or is the day of the week up for grabs. Thirdly, Sproul raises a difference of opinion within the church regarding Sabbath recreation and acts of mercy. So, Sproul cites two defeated views, then fastens his wagon to a third. I’ll address them one-by-one.
Obligatory nature of the Sabbath
“Augustine, for example, believed that nine of the Ten Commandments (the so-called “moral law” of the Old Testament) were still intact and imposed obligations upon the Christian church… Augustine was persuaded that the Old Testament Sabbath law had been abrogated. Others have argued that because the Sabbath was instituted originally not in the Mosaic economy but in creation, it maintains its status of moral law as long as the creation is intact.”
There’s no doubt, Augustine was the theological giant of his day. However, Augustine lived 1600 years ago and anyone holding to his theology today could not be ordained in a Reformed Presbyterian church. That speaks to how far God has brought his church.
Many giants have stood on Augustine’s shoulders. Yet today’s Reformed church, with its elevated line to truth on the horizon, repudiates several of Augustine’s theological positions such as paedocommunion, the classification of non-elect regenerate persons, the abrogation of the Sabbath principle and more.
Of course, there are always theological “controversies” in the church but controversy does not lend credence to a defeated view held by an otherwise notable theologian of his day. That Augustine reduced the Ten Commandants to nine merely corroborates the Reformed understanding of the progressive doctrinal illumination of the church. We should expect that doctrine has been refined from Augustine’s day, through the time of the Protestant Reformation, to this very day within the Reformed tradition. Accordingly, any reference to Augustine that gives credence to a non-confessional Sabbath view gives equal credence to paedocommunion and losing one’s salvation, which resurfaced without warm ecclesiastical welcome in the fleeting phase of Federal Vision.
Saturday, Sunday or any day?
“The second major controversy is the question about the day of the week on which the Sabbath is to be observed. Some insist that… since the Old Testament Israelites celebrated the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, which would be Saturday, we should follow that pattern.”
Sproul gives no details of who was embroiled in the controversy, so it’s hard to comment. As for today it’s safe to say that the Millerite movement that culminated in the Seventh-day Adventist sect and the teachings of its former prophetess, Ellen White, have no seat at the Reformed table. Nor do Saturday Sabbath cults like those that embrace Armstrongism and House of Yahwey heresies, or views held within the Hebrews Roots movement.
But back to basics. What is the relevance of citing the defeated side of a settled “controversy” by an appeal to a particular theologian? Would we lend credence to slavery because an otherwise notable statesman owned slaves? That a particular theologian (past or present) disagrees with the church might be interesting but it is neither surprising nor seemingly relevant.
Indeed, if it is one’s intention to lend credence to doctrines that lost the debate by citing notable theologians who were on the wrong side of the church, then how far might we take this approach? Should we revisit the credibility of the “transubstantiation of the mass” because Thomas Aquinas was sound on other doctrine? Where is Sproul hoping to lead us? Controversial debate might create doubt in the minds of the less theologically grounded, but can it lend credence to either side of an issue, especially to the losing side in a progressively illuminated church?
“John Calvin argued that it would be legitimate to have the Sabbath day on any day if all of the churches would agree, because the principle in view was the regular assembling of the saints for corporate worship and for the observation of rest.”
Well, Calvin didn’t have the benefit of the Westminster Divines as it relates to their mature thought on the Regulative Principle of Worship, Christian Liberty of Conscience and Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, which through theological synthesis overturns the view that the church may determine which day in seven can be constituted as the Lord’s Day. The Divines with good reason rejected Articles XX and XXXIV of the church of England. Again, what’s the point of the history lesson?
How does historical controversy lend credence to, or cast doubt upon, settled error and in this particular case on the church’s alleged right to dictate religious rites and holy days?
Recreation and Acts of Mercy
“Within the Reformed tradition, the most significant controversy that has appeared through the ages is the question of how the Sabbath is to be observed. There are two major positions within the Reformed tradition on this question. To make matters simple, we will refer to them as the Continental view of the Sabbath and the Puritan view of the Sabbath.”
Tagging with an impressive label a non-confessional view might give people a subjective sense of theological backing but it cannot provide objective confessional or ecclesiastical backing. Moreover, as church historian and professor R. Scott Clark has argued, this rejected view, commonly referred to as “the Continental view” of the Sabbath, is thought by some to entail spurious revisionism. Or as Dr. Clark would have it:

“There was no consciousness in the classical period of a distinctly “British” or ‘Continental’ view of anything. There was simply an international Reformed theology, piety, and practice.”

See also the Synod of Dort on sabbath observance:
“This same day is thus consecrated for divine worship, so that in it one might rest from all servile works (with these excepted, which are works of charity and pressing necessity) and from those recreations which impede the worship of God.”
Back to Sproul:
“The Puritan view argues against the acceptability of recreation on the Sabbath day. The text most often cited to support this view is Isaiah 58:13-14…The crux of the matter in this passage is the prophetic critique of people doing their own pleasure on the Sabbath day. The assumption that many make with respect to this text is that doing one’s own pleasure must refer to recreation. If this is the case, the prophet Isaiah was adding new dimensions to the Old Testament law with respect to Sabbath-keeping.”
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Just as the family-friendly, tradition-oriented culture championed by old country (think Alan Jackson’s “Small Town Southern Man”) has undergone a sharp decline over the past couple of decades, so has country music. Traditional country has been largely replaced on the Top 40 charts by what has been dubbed “bro-country” or “stadium country,” which Wikipedia helpfully describes as “a form of country pop originating in the 2010s…influenced by 21st-century hip hop, hard rock and electronica…with lyrics about attractive young girls, the consumption of alcohol, partying, and pickup trucks.”

And he bowedHis head to JesusAnd he stoodFor Uncle SamAnd he only lovedOne womanHe was always proudOf what he had
Alan Jackson, “Small Town Southern Man”

Musical genres don’t have ideologies, but it is true that different genres were created to convey different values. Rock ‘n roll, for example, was a slang phrase for sex—and the entire genre served as the soundtrack for the Sexual Revolution and a coda to cultural rebellion. Country music, on the other hand—which evolved as a fusion of blues, spirituals, and Celtic music—was the music of the rural American (or those who shared their values). As Psychology Today put it: “If all I told you about someone is that she has an abiding love for country and western, how much money would you bet that she’s also a Republican?” Quite a bit, I’d wager.
That is precisely why music has become such a focal point in the culture wars. One of the most interesting essays I’ve come across on country music was written by Will Wilkinson in 2012, when our culture wars were less all-encompassing. Despite country music’s steep decline (more on that later), Wilkinson noted that country has a built-in appeal for a specific sort of American:
Country has an ideology. Not to say country has a position on abortion, exactly. But country music, taken as a whole, has a position on life, taken as a whole. Small towns. Dirt roads. Love at first sight. Hot-blooded kids havin’ a good ol’ time. Gettin’ hitched. America! Raisin’ up ruddy-cheeked scamps who you will surely one day worry are having too good a hot-blooded time. Showing up for Church. Venturing confused into the big wide world only to come back to Alabama forever since there ain’t a…single thing out there in the Orient or Paris, France what compares to that spot by the river under the trembling willows where first you kissed the girl you’ve known in your heart since second grade is the only girl you would ever truly love. Fishin’! How grandpa, who fought in two wars, worked three jobs, raised four kids, and never once complained…
And on it goes. That description now primarily applies to older, traditional country music—most of the newer artists, with a few notable exceptions, are pumping out a pop-lite party product focused on booze and hookups, with the songs and the artists becoming largely interchangeable. But Wilkinson notes that the key reason traditional country music sounds instinctively conservative is because conservatives are, psychologically speaking, less open to new experiences and more oriented towards rootedness and tradition:
More generally, country music comes again and again to the marvel of advancing through life’s stations, and finds delight in experiencing traditional familial and social relationships from both sides. Once I was a girl with a mother, now I’m a mother with a girl. My parents took care of me, and now I take care of them. I was once a teenage boy threatened by a girl’s gun-loving father, now I’m a gun-loving father threatening my girl’s teenage boy. Etc. And country is full of assurances that the pleasures of simple, rooted, small-town, lives of faith are deeper and more abiding than the alternatives…
Country music is a bulwark against cultural change, a reminder that “what you see is what you get,” a means of keeping the charge of enchantment in “the little things” that make up the texture of the every day, and a way of literally broadcasting the emotional and cultural centrality of the conventional big-ticket experiences that make a life a life. A lot of country music these days is culture war, but it’s more bomb shelter than bomb.
Country music was once about embracing a certain type of culture—one that, it bears pointing out, is rapidly dying in many of the very places where country music first originated. And just as the family-friendly, tradition-oriented culture championed by old country (think Alan Jackson’s “Small Town Southern Man”) has undergone a sharp decline over the past couple of decades, so has country music. Traditional country has been largely replaced on the Top 40 charts by what has been dubbed “bro-country” or “stadium country,” which Wikipedia helpfully describes as “a form of country pop originating in the 2010s…influenced by 21st-century hip hop, hard rock and electronica…with lyrics about attractive young girls, the consumption of alcohol, partying, and pickup trucks.”
The advent of bro-country—championed by artists such as Luke Bryan, Chase Rice, and Florida Georgia Line, among others—created what critics, and musicians referred to as a “civil war” within the genre. One bro-country artist stated that he didn’t care about the “old farts” who didn’t like his songs because the kids “don’t want to buy the music you were selling.” Which is probably true, as far as it goes. Once the values promoted by a genre begin to lose their relevance to a new generation, bro-country is a welcome replacement for those who like the sound but prefer less preaching.
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If you are in Christ, I am your brother. One day we will meet in glory and we will both be right and wrong about various firmly held beliefs. Keep your open-hand items and give grace in abundance to those who don’t currently hold your conclusions. Their tertiary beliefs will adjust over time, and so will yours. The Christian life is one of transformation that doesn’t stop until our breathing does. If you are not transforming in any way, you are drifting. And nobody ever drifted their way to holiness.

That sounds a bit presumptuous, doesn’t it? In Christian debate, it is not uncommon to hear someone give reasons why their view is the biblical view, inferring that the opponent is unbiblical. This book opens with a chapter that says that the first step to accepting the supernatural realm as defined by the Bible is to be faithful to what God’s word says. That is true in all things, and allow me to begin by saying that everything the Bible reveals is perceived in its own time. I have read through the Bible several times and each time I come away with insights that I hadn’t considered before.
Accepting the supernatural view is the sort of thing that will challenge some of our notions, and it may need to be accepted gradually. And even as grace can be shown to someone accepting it in smaller bites, grace by those who are more knowledgable than me can be shown to those who are considering it with a healthy amount of skepticism.
In my church tradition, there are “open hand” and “closed hand” beliefs. Closed hand beliefs are those that one must believe if they are to be a Christian. Open hand beliefs are ones that you can hold to, but these are not ones that Christians should use to invalidate the Christianity of others. A closed hand issue would include a belief in the trinity or that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. An open hand issue would include most eschatological views or what mode of baptism is proper. You can believe you are right and your brother in sister is wrong. You can discuss it and debate it together. But it is inappropriate for either of you to declare the other reprobate just because they think that many of the predictions Jesus gave in the Olivet Discourse were fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
I say all this to confirm to you that your acceptance of the concepts put forward is not salvific. You may disagree, you may agree but to a different extent. That’s OK. If you are in Christ, I am your brother. One day we will meet in glory and we will both be right and wrong about various firmly held beliefs. Keep your open-hand items and give grace in abundance to those who don’t currently hold your conclusions. Their tertiary beliefs will adjust over time, and so will yours. The Christian life is one of transformation that doesn’t stop until our breathing does. If you are not transforming in any way, you are drifting.
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