Return to Main Page Site Index - Select a FPCR / Blue Banner Link - Home Online Audio Library FPCR News Blue Banner Articles The Blue Banner in PDF format Feedback Page Links to Other Sites Religious News Headlines Offsite Articles of Interest Free Reformed Software Free Reformed Electronic Books (PDF) Catalog of items for sale and Online ordering Answering the Steelites Search Our Site Free CDs By Mail (U.S. Only) Bible Search Westminster Forum Support FPCR ministries Get on The Blue Banner Mail and Email List,  Free CD Trouble with drop box click here for help     Printing Instructions for Articles

Discussion of George Gillespie's Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty

Subject: Re: WF: a quote by Michael Eaton from his book No Condemnation
From: Richard Bacon 
Date: Fri, 09 May 1997 07:01:53 -0500

At 10:17 PM 5/8/97 -0400, Jonny Keen wrote:

>to read in an evangelical writer that one might keep the fourth comm-
>andment by gathering round a cosy fire on the Sabbath (i.e.Sunday) to
>read John Bunyan-when one knows that what the fourth commandment really
>stipulated for gathering around a fire on the Sabbath (i.e. Saturday)
>was the death penalty (Ex.31:15; 35:2f.)!.  . ." pg.9

This is the kind of misinformation about the law that plagues much
of evangelical Christianity, Jonny.

Ex 31:15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh [is] the sabbath of
rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth [any] work in the sabbath day, he
shall surely be put to death.

Nothing about *gathering* around a fire here. The issue is work.

Ex 35:2 Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be
to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work
therein shall be put to death.

Nothing about *gathering* around a fire here either. Again, the issue
is one of working.

My guess is that the passage that Mr. Eaton wanted to reference was
Exodus 35:3 (not v.2).  There the prohibition is against *kindling* a
fire on the Sabbath -- not against gathering around a fire.  There is
not and never has been a requirement to freeze on the Sabbath.

Thus the requirement for the Sabbath was that a due preparation be taken
beforehand -- which preparation would include the kindling of fires.

Now, let's return our attention to the purpose of the forum, which is a
study, not of Michael Eaton, but of George Gillespie's _Wholesome
Severity_.


Dick Bacon
Poster of the text and keeper of the order.