Most people have learned that it takes about a month for the moon to go through a cycle from full to full. This is a result of the reality that the moon orbits the earth. Likewise, it is clear that the calendar year is based on the time it takes for the earth to circle the sun once. Day and night are determined by the rotation of the earth on its axis in relation to the sun. These facts are a few of the things where secularists and Bible believers normally agree regarding reality.
In God’s Word we read, And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars (Genesis 1:14-16).
The Sun, the Earth and the Moon.
This agreement between secularists and Bible believers disappears, however, when it comes to how most nations and cultures have settled on a seven-day week. Secularists are at a loss to explain this because they reject the Bible’s history lesson regarding the week. Of course, that rejection means they get lots of other aspects of history wrong as well.
The Scripture is clear that the seven-day week is a construct directly from God (Genesis 2:2). Also, For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Exodus 20:11). The importance of the idea of working six days and resting on the seventh is repeated in Exodus 31:12-17. Jesus emphasized that the God-given purpose for the day of rest was that it was to be a day for man’s spiritual, mental, and physical restoration (Mark 2:27). So, we see that there were two primary reasons for God’s setting of the seven-day week: firstly, to remind man of God’s seven-day creation period and secondly, to direct man to hold to a practical work week.
Photo of Calendar Display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.
Historically, revolutionaries and despots have periodically attempted to abolish the seven day week, always with disastrous results. These were always foolhardy attempts to reject God and make man the god in charge.
Secular historians will attribute the seven day week to the Babylonians or some other ancient culture. They do this because their historical presuppositions are wrong. They presuppose an evolutionary history over millions of years where their beginning for man consists of life coming from pond scum or out of a rock. Since they use these presuppositions instead of “His Story” in the Bible, nothing but incorrect historical conclusions can result.
God could have created everything over a shorter or a longer period of time, but he didn’t. He could have designed man to work 9 or 29 days and rest for one. But, he created everything in the beginning in six days and rested on the seventh and that matches the physical and mental limits of work for us humans as He created us.
I can tell you from personal experience that nothing good comes from regularly ignoring God’s plan and attempting to work a longer week or failing to honor the Sabbath directive.
J.D. Mitchell
