One thing I think we can agree upon is that the moral injunction against fornication, in ALL its forms, is forbidden. Right? I mean, can we agree with that?
Likewise, esteeming one day, whether it be the sabbath, or a family tradition for having a family get-together on a specific day each week, it's neither here nor there under the New Covenant. I'm not under the Law, and I doubt you consider yourself to be under the Law. If you do, then that's to your personal detriment. I will not judge you on that basis, but I can pity you and all others who intentionally place themselves under any aspect, jot or tittle of it.
So, you are correct to observe that the "sabbath" wasn't mentioned specifically in the much broader net of the concept for "esteeming one day above another." My question is, why would anyone disallow the standard for God's using literary looseness that we all have no problem licensing ourselves to utilize? Do you see what I'm saying? You're basically declaring that because God didn't specifically list all the possibilities that might define what falls within the scope of one day esteemed over another, that you can come along and subjectively limit that scope of what any man may esteem for one day over another.
May I ask, by what authority do you set yourself up with that measure of oversight? I've already said that you are free to esteem the seventh day of each week any way you so choose, but you're coming across as if I'm wrong for not doing as you do. What if I were a Search and Rescue worker who had to be on call and work the seventh day of each week when there was an emergency, or an ER doctor, or a soup kitchen worker who serves the homeless the meals they would otherwise never have if we closed on sabbath? Your brand of legalism creates far more problems for your subjective system of interpretation than I personally would be comfortable trying to defend.
Now, before you say it, I'm not down-playing the Lord's declaration to the Israelites concerning the seventh day of each week being kept holy, when they were under the Law. I'm not denigrating it in any way. Not at all. It was indeed a holy day to them, as commanded. No such command exists relating to the Church.
RDJ, are YOU an Israelite? I'm not, so I'm especially blessed by your inability to force me under the knife of the Law for sabbath observation, or esteeming it as more holy than all other days of the week. You have not presented an convincing argument in your attempt at limiting the scope of what day one may or may not esteem above another at the exclusion of the sabbath. If you don't like it that I esteem every day as holy and sacred unto the Lord, then I don't know what else to say apart from asking you to show me something with substance. The term "esteem" in verse 5 is:
"to approve, esteem: ἡμέραν παῥ ἡμέραν, one day above another, i. e. to prefer (see παρά, III. 2 b.), Romans 14:5" (Thayer's Greek Lexicon)
Having sex with my neighbor's daughter doesn't have to be spelled out specifically to me, in the moral disallowance for
fornication, to inform me that such a relationship is...immoral if she is not my wedded wife. It doesn't have to be spelled out for me in the passages condemning fornication. Do you get what I'm saying about the fallacy you're perpetrating here? You're arguing from silence.
Unless you can show to me otherwise, that the command to the Israelites that THEY keep the sabbath holy, meaning that it was to be set apart from all other days of the week and therefore not intermixed nor spread out, it therefore ended with the advent of the New Covenant in relation to the Church. Give the Lord some credit. He saw what was coming. This complex and advanced world of ours, with its population size, your system simply doesn't work. We don't live in a ideal world. It would be great if we ALL could set aside one day, and enjoy holding in holy regard the Lord in all our thoughts throughout that day together, but we're not in that world any longer. My work is too critical, and too many lives depend on my team. I wish you could recreate what the Lord apparently failed to create for us when we observe the comparative perfection you seem to think your microcosmic theology has captured.
I openly admit my failure to conform to your personal dictates. I also reject, and for good reason, your attempts at forcing your chosen limitations upon the contextual scope in Romans 14. The writer was inspired to mention a couple of specifics, but to imply that the failure to define all of the specifics to which it could ever refer...no. That's presumption at its worst in my books.
M