Friday, October 15, 2010

Schreiner: "Believers are not obligated to observe the Sabbath"?

Justin Taylor ran an excerpt yesterday from SBTS NT Professor Tom Schreiner's upcoming book, 40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law that got a lot of feedback.  The excerpt was from question #37 "Is the Sabbath Still Required for Christians?"  Schreiner's conclusion:  "Believers are not obligated to observe the Sabbath."  The discussion seems to hit at the heart of the distinction between those, like Schreiner, who are neo-evangelical Calvinists (soteriological Calvinists) and those who are Reformed.  Perhaps it is the influence of dispensationalism that leads neo-evangelicals to disregard the abiding relevance of the fourth commandment (see John MacArthur's comments on the the fourth commandment in his Study Bible notes on Exodus 20).  The discussion also brings to mind D. G. Hart's disavowal of the label "evangelical" in his book Deconstructing Evangelicalism.

JTR

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