Can I go shopping on the Sabbath? What about housework? Can I watch TV? Can I exercise? Is it OK to cook? What about football? And what if my job means I have to work on a Sunday?
If you have never really thought about keeping the Sabbath before, you might have a LOT of questions!
And perhaps that is why Christians quite often avoid the whole subject entirely. Because once you start asking what you can and can’t do on the Sabbath, it can feel like you’re opening the door to a massive rulebook.
But that is not at all what the Sabbath is supposed to be!
Jesus had some pretty strong things to say about the Pharisees and their approach to Sabbath. They had taken something God intended as a gift and turned it into a burden.
Jesus said:
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” – Mark 2:27 (NIV)
In other words, Sabbath is supposed to be a blessing to us – a gift from the Creator to his creation.
- A day of rest and refreshment.
- A day of worship and delight.
- A day to spend extra time with God and his people.
- A day to enjoy the good things God has given us.
- A day to stop striving and remember that we are not in charge of everything.
So we absolutely don’t want to fall into the Pharisees trap of creating a rigid list of rules and regulations.
But there is another trap we need to avoid too…
And that is simply ignoring the whole idea of Sabbath.
Because if we turn Sabbath into “I can do whatever I like because Jesus doesn’t want me to be legalistic”, we’ve missed the point just as much as the Pharisees did… just from the other direction!
The answer isn’t to create hundreds of rules. But neither is it to have no boundaries at all.
So, what can you actually do on the Sabbath?
Here are some guiding principles to help you make the most of this incredible gift.
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1. Remember what Sabbath is actually for
Before we get into the nitty-gritty questions, let’s take a step back.
Right back in Genesis, we see God’s pattern of six days of work, followed by a seventh day of rest.
Then, in the Ten Commandments, God commands his people to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
And in Isaiah we read:
“If you watch your step on the Sabbath and don’t use my holy day for personal advantage, If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, God’s holy day as a celebration, If you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’ making money, running here and there— Then you’ll be free to enjoy God! Oh, I’ll make you ride high and soar above it all. I’ll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob.” Yes! God says so!” – Isaiah 58:13-14 (MSG)
The Sabbath is supposed to be a day that is holy, set apart, different from the other six days.
The Sabbath is a day to stop, rest, worship and delight in our Creator and his creation.
And that means we shouldn’t simply think:
“What things am I technically allowed to do?”
A better question is:
“Does this help me receive the Sabbath as a day of rest, worship, delight and relationship with God and his people?”
That question gets us much closer to the heart of what Sabbath is about.
Because Sabbath isn’t supposed to be another day where we rush around trying to get everything done.
It’s not supposed to be Monday–Saturday life with a church service squeezed into the middle.
And it’s certainly not supposed to be a miserable day where we spend the whole time worrying that we’ve accidentally broken one of the rules!
Sabbath is a day to stop.
To rest.
To worship.
To enjoy.
To reconnect.
To delight in God and his creation.
To remember that the world keeps turning even when you stop working.
And that is where the following principles come in…
2. You can go to church
If you’re wondering what you can do on the Sabbath, this one should be pretty obvious.
Go to church!
Worship God.
Spend time with God’s people.
Jesus clearly modelled this for us in the Gospels.
Jesus’ normal practice was to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath.
For example, it says in Luke:
“[Jesus] went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.” – Luke 4:16 (NIV)
In the Bible, the Sabbath is specifically described as holy – a day set apart for God.
So church on Sunday shouldn’t be seen as an annoying interruption to your day off.
It is one of the best things to do on the Sabbath!
But don’t just GO to church…
Worship.
Pray.
Listen to God’s Word being read and taught.
Take communion.
Serve.
Encourage other Christians.
Have a chat over coffee afterwards.
Spend time with your church family.
Invite people back after church.
READ MORE >>> Is fellowship just going to church?
3. You can spend extra time with God
But don’t stop there…
Your Sabbath does not stop when the church service finishes!
In fact, Sabbath is a wonderful opportunity to spend MORE time with God than you normally would.
For example, you could:
- Spend time reading the Bible
- Journal
- Meditate on a passage of Scripture
- Go for a prayer walk
- Listen to worship music
- Read a Christian book
- Sit quietly and listen to God
- Spend time in extended prayer
- Talk to God while you’re out walking in creation
- Do a Bible study with friends or family
Maybe there’s a spiritual discipline you’ve been wanting to try but keep thinking:
“I just don’t have time.”
Well, Sabbath gives you time!
That is one of the beautiful things about the practice of Sabbath.
For six days, life can be full-on.
But then comes this glorious pause.
No work. No frantic rushing. No constant ticking off the to-do list.
Just time to sit and be with God.
4. You can rest!
This one sounds obvious.
But I think we sometimes forget in our frenetic, busy, 21st century lives that rest is actually something we are allowed to do.
You don’t have to be productive every minute of every day.
You don’t have to “make the most of your time” by squeezing as much as possible into your Sabbath.
You can have a nap.
You can sit in the garden.
You can read a book.
You can go for a walk.
You can enjoy a slow breakfast.
You can enjoy a leisurely lunch.
You can go to bed early.
You can simply… stop.
5. You can spend time with family and friends
Sabbath isn’t supposed to be a day of isolation.
It’s a wonderful opportunity to spend quality time with the people you love:
- Invite someone round after church
- Have lunch with family and friends
- Go for a family walk
- Play board games
- Talk
- Laugh
- Have a long conversation
- Visit family
- Spend quality time with your children
- Have people over for dinner
- Practise hospitality
And perhaps most importantly, don’t rush.
One of the lovely things about Sabbath is that you can have long conversations and really give people time without constantly thinking:
“Right, I’d better get on with the next thing.”
There is nowhere else you need to be.
Nothing else you urgently need to accomplish.
You can just be together.
6. You can enjoy God’s creation
Sabbath is also a wonderful opportunity to get outside and enjoy the world God has made:
- Go for a walk in the countryside
- Go to the beach
- Take the dog for a walk
- Sit in the garden
- Take your children to the park
- Have a picnic
- Enjoy nature
- Watch the birds
- Sit outside with a cup of coffee and actually notice the world around you for five minutes!
We live in a world where so much of our attention is sucked into screens, notifications and to-do lists.
Sabbath gives us an opportunity to slow down and enjoy the view.
Creation is God’s gift.
And enjoying it is an act of worship.
7. You can do things that genuinely refresh you
Here’s where things get a little more interesting.
Because not everybody finds the same things restful.
What feels wonderfully relaxing to one person might feel like hard work to someone else.
For example…
You might find gardening relaxing.
I find gardening hard work and an annoying chore!
I love going for long walks.
You might think walking for miles on a Sunday sounds like a punishment!
I love reading.
You might find reading incredibly boring!
So there isn’t necessarily one universal list of “approved Sabbath activities”.
It’s more a mindset.
Perhaps you enjoy:
- Reading
- Gardening
- Painting
- Drawing
- Baking
- Playing an instrument
- Photography
- Walking
- Sport
- Board games
- Spending time with friends
- Cooking a lovely meal
- Listening to music
- Watching a film with your family
Don’t ask “Can I do this on the Sabbath?”
Ask instead “Is this helping me to rest, worship, reconnect with the humans in my life and enjoy God and his gifts?”
8. You can “unplug”
Our devices are one of the biggest Sabbath-killers.
We like to think they are “restful” but study after study shows that they are anything but.
For example, a study by the American Psychological Association found that people who constantly check their devices experienced significantly higher stress levels compared to those who do not. And people checking work email on days off experienced even higher stress.
One of the most helpful things you can do on your Sabbath is “unplug”.
You don’t necessarily have to become completely technology-free.
But I’d strongly encourage you to consider putting some boundaries around your devices.
For example:
- No work emails / messages / social media
- Ideally no social media at all
- No checking analytics / stats / KPIs
- No life admin
- Perhaps even no phone for all or part of the day
Personally, I have found stepping away from all social media on Sabbath incredibly freeing.
And then there’s TV, Netflix and gaming…
This is where we need a little wisdom.
Watching a film with your family can absolutely be part of a restful, enjoyable Sabbath.
Playing a game together might be a lovely way to spend time with your children.
But spending five hours mindlessly scrolling through Netflix while simultaneously manically doomscrolling like your life depends on it?
Probably not what Isaiah had in mind when he talked about calling the Sabbath a delight!
If you spend the whole of your Sabbath glued to a screen, isolated from God and other people, feeling more frazzled than when you started…
…that’s not rest.
So again, where screens are concerned, ask yourself “Is this helping me to rest, worship, reconnect with the humans in my life and enjoy God and his gifts?”
Final thoughts
So, what can you do on the Sabbath?
Well…
A lot!
- You can go to church
- You can worship.
- You can rest.
- You can nap.
- You can go for a walk.
- You can eat.
- You can laugh.
- You can pray.
- You can read.
- You can spend time with family and friends.
- You can “unplug”
- You can enjoy creation.
- You can delight in God and his good gifts.
- And you can stop working.
But perhaps the most important thing is not to turn all of this into another giant list of rules.
Because the moment we start obsessing over whether we’ve technically broken rule number 47…
…we’ve missed the point.
Jesus said:
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” – Mark 2:27 (NIV)
Sabbath was made for us.
It is a gift from the Creator who knows exactly how we are made.
The question isn’t:
“What am I allowed to do on the Sabbath?”
The better question is:
“How can I receive this beautiful gift from God and make the most of it?”
And when we start asking that question, Sabbath stops looking like a burden…
…and starts looking like what it was always intended to be.
A gift.
Recommended books on Sabbath
- The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – John Mark Comer
- Subversive Sabbath – A.J. Swoboda
- Keeping the Sabbath Wholly – Marva J. Dawn
- The Rest of God – Mark Buchanan
- Sabbath as Resistance – Walter Brueggemann
- The Sabbath Practice – John Mark Comer
READ MORE >>> Recommended books on Sabbath
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