The Sabbath has a bad reputation, and one it doesn’t deserve. Most Christians tend to think of this day in terms of what they’re prohibited from doing, dreading for what should be a day of peace and fellowship with God.
Genesis 2:2-3 tells us that, “...on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.” Later, in Leviticus, God established the day as a “day of Sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly.”
Over the years, the Israelites took the Sabbath from being a time of rest and worship to being a set of needlessly complicated, legalistic rules. But when Christ came onto the scene, He changed things. He and His disciples picked grain on the Sabbath in Matthew 12, despite the protestations of the religious leaders of the time. Christ was more focused on doing good during the Sabbath than obeying a set of rules, saying that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” This is a day meant to make life better, not more difficult.
But confusion over the Sabbath persists—while the edicts God laid down still apply, they're widely misunderstood. To help clear up the nature of this holy day, let’s look at what you shouldn’t do on the Sabbath, as well as a few surprising things you can.