SEEKING SABBATH
A personal journey
By David Shepherd. Bible Reading Fellowship. 100 pages. £6.99.
ISBN 978-1-84101-536-9
Rushed off your feet — just longing for the next window to get away from it all? Wishing you had a bit of space for what’s most valuable to you? Turned off by legalism, but with a sneaking suspicion there might be something in the idea of a good God giving us a weekly ‘holyday’? Try this book!
David Shepherd (now principal of Belfast Bible College) invites you to share six months of ‘sabbaths’ (for him that’s from Saturday evening through to Sunday evening) with him and his wife as they rediscover God’s gracious provision of a weekly rest. Refreshingly honest and practical, biblical principles are explored and explained — with insights drawn from church history and Jewish tradition. Writing as Dean of a Bible College in Canada, Dr. Shepherd’s lifestyle is sufficiently distant from most of ours to make straight comparisons difficult — but we can easily connect as he grapples with the realities of making Sabbath work for a young family in the 21st century.
Don’t let the fact that this is a slim volume and an easy read — chatty, diary meditations — fool you into thinking it is a superficial work. While studiously avoiding dogmatism, you will be walked through some applied theology with a respectful awareness of different Christian perspectives, while celebrating the excellence of God’s rhythm of rest and work.
If you already value God’s gift of weekly rest, if you want young people to discover joy in worship that gives a fresh springboard to work for God, then give them this book. But maybe buy a copy for yourself to read at leisure. Perhaps take six months of Sundays (or Mondays even, if, like me, you’re a Sunday worker!) to deepen your own appreciation of God’s goodness as you ‘Seek Sabbath’.
Alistair Hornal,
minister, Fairfield — Northwood Hills Evangelical Church, London
