Pastor Grayson’s “sort of channel” is the very boundary we need most of all, the gracious institution of one day a week in which we are called by God to cease from that which occupies our time and energy on the other six days, especially for the purpose of corporate worship under the ministry of His Word and the other ordinary means of grace, and that we might also be reminded of the coming eternal rest promised to each one that trusts in Christ alone for pardon of sin.

Recently, a periodical was delivered to my mailbox with a front-cover photo highlighting the issue’s lead article on NFL head coach Frank Reich and his leadership. The piece was laudatory, focused as it was on Reich’s significant leadership and mentoring roles as a key figure in the league. While such a focus seems to me appropriate for a secular periodical, I confess my own inability to grasp why a self-acknowledged Reformed and Presbyterian-friendly publication should disseminate such a piece to its readership.

It seems to me self-evident that highlighting the NFL career of Coach Reich must of necessity influence some readers at least to consider whether traditional Reformed standards on the Lord’s Day – especially Westminster’s – perhaps are too strict, or even inappropriate, in 2019. When I served on my presbytery’s examinations committee a decade ago, I became quite accustomed to hearing men express their “exceptions” to the Westminster position on recreational activities on the first day of the week.[1]

Admittedly, this is a difficult issue, one on which godly, Reformed men have taken various positions since the Reformation. But to my knowledge, it has been virtually unknown for Presbyterians who remained faithful to the Scriptures to promote the view, implicitly or explicitly, that a regular pattern, or ongoing practice, of commercial or business activities on the Lord’s Day – without any basis in a legitimate work of necessity involving preservation of life, health, or basic well-being – was acceptable for a church member, much less for an elder (like Reich). Yet for an article such as the one in view to skirt the issue of Sabbath profanation seems to me an implicit, albeit unintentional, acknowledgment that unnecessary business activities on the Lord’s day – indeed, entertainment- or recreation-based business activities – are nothing to be concerned with nowadays. I refer to those within the visible church, broadly defined, not outside it.

Whether or not one views the NFL as much of a factor in the decline of Christian Sabbath or Lord’s Day observance in the last half-century or so, why should a Reformed journal, by its omitting the issue, imply that such activities as the NFL engages in are acceptable to Reformed readers? It’s not that I dislike football. [As a boyhood Redskins’ fan I well remember Ken Houston’s famous tackle of the Cowboys’ Walt Garrison on the 1-yard line in the last minute of a Monday night game in 1973, saving Washington’s 14-7 win – I was at that game with my Dad, plus got to go in late to school the next day. Five years later, Isaiah 58:13-14 – shown to me by a dear brother in Christ, my best-man, and longtime elder – convinced me to think differently about the Lord’s Day.] Back to my point, the Reich-leadership piece appeared, not in Sports Illustrated, but in the Ministry & Leadership journal of Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS). What message has been sent?[2]

The piece notes that Reich is both an alumnus of RTS as well as the former president of the seminary’s Charlotte, N.C., campus. Thus, a reader of an RTS journal could hardly be in error to expect an article bearing a former president’s name to promote the principles and doctrines of the very seminary that he has been so closely associated with. But that is not the case when it comes to the Fourth Commandment. Rather, Reich’s example as an NFL coach – a key figure in a multibillion dollar corporation the bulk of whose revenue is produced on Christian Sabbath days during the fall-winter months each year – runs counter to the commandment to “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

The article quotes Reich’s acknowledgement that playing and coaching in the NFL carries with it “absolute high accountability on everything that you do. . . . you are more accountable.” True enough. But what both he and, more importantly, Ministry & Leadership appeared to overlook is the glaring “eye in the sky” reality that God has given to mankind a moral law summarized in Ten Commandments, one of which prescribes that one day out of every seven is to be kept as holy time. While the culture gradually has tossed in the towel and left the playing field regarding that commandment since the early-mid-1800’s, many Reformed and Presbyterian churches – and friendly institutions like RTS – still affirm its validity and importance.[3]

While Reformed Christians believe that the resurrection of Christ altered the Sabbath day from the last day of the week to the first, the one-in-seven principle stands as morally binding for all time. This is not to say that one’s Sabbath- or Lord’s Day-keeping, nor any other law-keeping, is the basis of one’s right standing with God. Rather, as Paul writes in Titus 3:4-7, “. . . when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior . . . being justified by His grace. . . .”

Christ Himself affirmed His lordship over the Sabbath, surely a nonsensical act if the weekly institution was soon to pass away. While these points have been debated, twisted, or ridiculed by a secular society and its institutions as well as by non-Reformed churches especially since the nineteenth century, in contrast RTS is an evangelical and Reformed school, with a historically heavy dose of Presbyterian influence. RTS affirms the moral law of God, including all Ten Commandments. For more than fifty years, countless pastors – graduates of RTS – have done so, for which many Presbyterian and Reformed congregations and members should be thankful to the Lord. I am.

But my greater concern with this piece is its messaging. As PCA ruling elder Brad Isbell wrote earlier this year, “Does [highlighting] the case of Frank Reich make it easier or more difficult for church officers to convince members that they should consider how their own Lord’s Day recreational and commercial choices affect the abilities of others to worship and rest on that day [?].” Isbell added, “No two officers or church members approach the Lord’s Day in exactly the same way. No one believes that they keep the day perfectly or maybe even well. But certain actions and words actually steer others away from our standards’ teachings. We wouldn’t want to do this with any other commandments. . . . Why would we do it – implicitly or explicitly – with the fourth?”[4]

Westminster Larger Catechism 118 adds to the theme of messaging and social influence as follows: “The charge of keeping the sabbath is more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors, because they are bound not only to keep it themselves, but to see that it be observed by all those that are under their charge; and because they are prone ofttimes to hinder them by employments of their own.” As Isbell pointed out, no one claims to practice the Lord’s day perfectly; and I include myself here. But why should a Reformed journal publish material highlighting patterns of a leader, governor, or superior contrary to the doctrines of the readers it seeks to encourage in their walk with Christ?

Quoting Coach Reich, the RTS article states, “Structure is your friend; discipline is your friend; routine is your friend. . . . my experience in the pastorate and as a seminary student is that the schedule and the discipline was absolutely critical to create boundaries.” Reformed believers have long agreed in the value of boundaries, as did nineteenth-century Baptist pastor Joseph Carson Grayson, who ministered, interestingly, near Charlotte, N.C. In 1841 he wrote:

. . . the manner in which the christian observes the Lord’s day, forms a sort of channel, in which the general course of his christian life is apt to run; then O! brethren, remember the Lord’s day to keep it holy, not that we are to expect to live entirely, free from sin on that day, for we find, there is not a just man upon earth, but that sinneth . . . but let us lay aside the cares and business of the world . . . and pray to God for his spirit to enable us to spend the day in attending to the duties of our holy religion. . . [emphasis added].[5]

Pastor Grayson’s “sort of channel” is the very boundary we need most of all, the gracious institution of one day a week in which we are called by God to cease from that which occupies our time and energy on the other six days, especially for the purpose of corporate worship under the ministry of His Word and the other ordinary means of grace, and that we might also be reminded of the coming eternal rest promised to each one that trusts in Christ alone for pardon of sin. While even the Reformed community appears now to be at least midway through the fourth quarter on this matter, let me take this opportunity to plead with those who write, edit, and manage Reformed publications of various sorts, to reconsider the degree to which you are influencing your readers, regarding the Fourth Commandment, toward a biblical goal (line).

Forrest L. Marion is a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America; he lives in Montgomery, Ala.

[1] “This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations,o but also are taken up, the whole time, in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.” Westminster Confession of Faith 21.8

[2] Lynne Wingard, “A Faithful Foundation,” Reformed Theological Seminary Ministry & Leadership, Fall 2019, 6-11.

[3] Wingard, “A Faithful Foundation,” Reformed Theological Seminary Ministry & Leadership, 8.

[4] Brad Isbell, “Honoring the Lord’s Day in An Age of Sunday Sports,” The Aquila Report, Jan. 17, 2019.

[5] Forrest L. Marion, “Elder J. C. Grayson, The Biblical Recorder, and the Sabbath,” The Aquila Report, Oct. 25, 2018.