How Committed Are We To God’s Law?

When I was in high school, I followed a year-long reading plan that covered the entire Bible. I got this plan from the ESV (English Standard Version) Study Bible which I had received as a gift. This was my first deep dive into the Bible, the first time I had read the entire thing, and it demanded a lot of time and focus. The ESV Study Bible comes with not only the text but also extensive notes and some articles introducing books and making cases for particular theological and ethical views. While I didn’t know this at the time, the ESV was developed by Crossway, an evangelical non-profit headquartered in Illinois. While the translation is faithful to the original texts, the notes and articles often show the evangelical bias of the publishing organization. By comparison, its mainline counterpart is the NRSV which was published by the National Council of Churches, an organization made up of several different denominations including Lutherans, Presbyterianss, Methodists, Baptists, and many others. The NRSV is the translation we use in church, and I now usually use the Harper-Collins Study Bible, which is an NRSV translation.

Again, reading the ESV Study Bible was an excellent experience for me, and I learned a lot through that year. However, looking back on it, with the seminary training I have now, I don’t think I could recommend the articles in the ESV. One article in particular delved into the conversation of whether or not gay marriage should be legal in the United States. To be clear, the ESV Study Bible was published in 2008, seven years before the Obergefell v. Hodges decision brought the full force of the fourteenth amendment into the defense of same-sex marriage. This ESV article made a clear case against same-sex marriage within Christianity, but then it ran into a problem. The only way to extend that conclusion to all of America, would be to argue that America is, in some way, a Christian nation and should obey a Christian interpretation of moral law. The article makes the case that allowing same-sex marriage would mean the government is endorsing worldviews that oppose the Bible. This is something that should not be done by a Christian nation, and could lead to God’s wrath. This article tied opposition to same-sex marriage to Christian values and patriotic duties.

I’m not sure I ever really like the argument made in this article, but I think I can say definitely that it is a bad argument today. The idea that America was founded as a Christian nation is really a myth. Many of the founders were deists or not particularly religious. God doesn’t feature in the Constitution. The First Amendment is pretty explicit that the government will not establish a particular religion. While many Americans are and have been Christian, America isn’t a Christian nation when it comes to the government. The federal government is not bound to uphold Biblical laws.

But if it were, I suspect that there would need to be some major reforms that would be far more important than a prohibition of same-sex marriage, which many theologians would argue wouldn’t need to happen anyway. The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 contain two paragraphs that are larger than all the others. One is a prohibition against idolatry. The other is a command to respect the Sabbath. This Sabbath law is very clear. Not only should you not work, but neither should anyone who works under you, nor any animals, nor anyone in your entire family. The stranger in your midst who isn’t an Israelite shouldn’t work. Everyone gets the day off. The entire world of commerce grinds to a halt one day per week to give people and land rest, while demonstrating faith in God’s provisions for us. Furthermore, the Sabbath gives us a glimpse of something better than the life of toil we experience now. God intended for work to be fulfilling and for people to enjoy their leisure. God put humans in the garden to work and keep it, not to produce endless quantities of useless junk by working ceaselessly.

If we were going to be serious about being a Christian nation or at least, avoiding God’s wrath by following God’s laws, we should start with the Ten Commandments. If we can’t even get those right, we can’t really claim to be following God. But could we imagine following the Biblical Sabbath laws? With just the Sabbath law present in the Ten Commandments, we would need to grind our entire economy to a halt one day every week. Obviously, we would make some sort of exceptions for those essential ongoing services like medical care and energy. However, grocery stores would be closed. Convenience stores would be closed. Sporting events wouldn’t happen, at least, they wouldn’t be televised. All we would do on one particular day of the week is enjoy what God has given us already, not frantically go about seeking more stuff. I suspect many large corporations would not appreciate what would happen to their profit margins if the entire country;s economy took one day off a week.

And that is only the Sabbath law present in Exodus 20. If we consider the extended Sabbatical laws, we need to include things like the Sabbath year, when farmers in ancient Israel were commanded to refrain from planting their fields. Imagine a full year of letting the land rest. Would we also extend that to machinery? Would production stop for a year while workers got an opportunity to spend time with their families and pursue hobbies and other interests? While there are industries, such as higher education, that allow workers to take a sabbatical year, the same cannot be said for most jobs. Factory workers and custodians don’t get a year off every once in a while to rest, recover, and explore. These society wide laws would require a great deal of trust in God, trust that our society and economy would not unravel when we allow for rest.

Ironically, many of the same people who argue against same-sex marriage out of fear of God’s wrath and respect for God’s Law, would probably strongly oppose the idea of grinding the economy to a halt to fulfill the Sabbath laws. They would argue that this is a ritual and cultural law specifically meant for the people of Israel and that all Sabbath means to us today is that we should go to church on Sunday, completely disregarding the principle of rest. They might even say that halting the economy for a day every week and a year every seven years would require a lot of government control and economic planning. It would drift too close to communism for their comfort. So much for dedication to following the entirety of God’s laws.

Obviously, it would be easier to deny marital rights to one group of people than it would be to revolutionize our entire economic system to intentionally provide rest. However, it wouldn’t be more just. I don’t agree with the ESV Study Bible that Christians should necessarily be opposed to same-sex marriage. But given that Evangelicals aren’t arguing for America to adopt Sabbath laws to match the Bible, the entire argument seems not only unsound but also hypocritical. And if the reason that they don’t worry about the Sabbath is out of fear of how hard it would be or how much backlash they would get for going against the endless tedium of the global market, then it is also a cowardly argument. If we are going to call for God’s law on earth, let’s not be afraid to call for the biggest changes, and Sabbath looks like just the challenge we need. The workers and the world itself could use the rest, and we could all use a reminder that God provides for us, even when WalMart is closed for the day.