Second, on the positive side, is Sasse’s exhortation regarding “the glory of not needing to strive from Saturday night to Sunday night . . . we get to rest.” To which he adds, “. . . it’s glorious to get to reflect on the things of the Lord.” Physical rest facilitates spiritual rest, of which the worship of Almighty God is the most valuable form.

As many will know, former U.S. Senator from Nebraska who went on to serve as president of the University of Florida, Ben Sasse, is dealing courageously with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He has been a striver and a highly accomplished gentleman. Sasse is also an outspoken, reformed (Calvinist) Christian, and very recently he offered insights on five topics in an interview with The Washington Stand. One topic was the Sabbath:

I have repented to my family. It started before this diagnosis, but we’ve talked about it a lot more intentionally since then. I have repented to my family about not having been a good leader about the Lord’s day. We never missed Sunday morning worship, but often by [2:00 or 3:00] in the afternoon, our hearts and affections and attentions were getting on to all the achievements we had to do, starting Monday morning. . . . And a lot of that work is important and meaningful, but man, the feast day of the soul is more important. . . . And I now want my kids to view the glory of not needing to strive from Saturday night to Sunday night as an unbelievable blessing . . . we get to rest [emphasis added].

Let’s be humble with our kids and say . . . it’s glorious to get to reflect on the things of the Lord. What can we read together as a family this Sunday? How can we lock up our phones? How can we set aside time on the Lord’s Day to just linger and reflect back on the sermon, not have to get out of church the second it’s over, but go find the folks who are in need . . . or the visitors there. But I’d say two of the most practical . . . ones for us: we lock up our phones most of Sunday and we read aloud together a lot.[1]

There is much to commend here, and a few historical additions may help to tease out its richness. First, the negative lesson he has for us. What Sasse describes in the first paragraph above is what our spiritual forefathers called a “partial” Sabbath observance: attending worship on the Lord’s Day morning but by the afternoon returning one’s attention to the worldly affairs of the next six days.

In 1828, William Bullein Johnson of South Carolina, among the foremost Baptist ministers of his day—and the first president of the Southern Baptist Convention—wrote the first of two circular addresses on the subject of the Sabbath at the State Baptist Convention’s request. (Note that the vast majority of Baptists in the South in that era were Calvinists. Calvinist was not a bad word to them, but a very good word.)

As a quick aside, given our nation’s upcoming anniversary a quote in 1835 from the periodical of Virginia Baptists is apropos: “He that will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American liberty.”[2]

In part, Pastor (Elder) Johnson dealt with the matter of “the redeeming of the Sabbath from a partial use, and from its abuse.” Johnson feared that many Christians used the Sabbath “principally as a day of preaching, [and so conceived] that when they have attended upon this duty, they have done all that is required.” That is basically Ben Sasse’s description of his former practice, and, of course, he is not alone. Today the vast majority of professing Christians are probably in that camp, too. Johnson added that as a result, many frequently “waste its remaining hours in idle conversation, in a mental arrangement of their business, in visiting unprofitably, or in sleep.”[3] (In most of those areas, a spectrum existed which made for some ambiguity; but for the Christian to make no attempt to sanctify a lengthy conversation or a friendly visit or to typically sleep away the bulk of the afternoon, is abusive to the Sabbath’s purpose.)

Second, on the positive side, is Sasse’s exhortation regarding “the glory of not needing to strive from Saturday night to Sunday night . . . we get to rest.” To which he adds, “. . . it’s glorious to get to reflect on the things of the Lord.” Physical rest facilitates spiritual rest, of which the worship of Almighty God is the most valuable form.

With the PCA’s upcoming General Assembly set to meet in Louisville next month, this is an opportune moment to highlight a few lines from a letter of the Louisville Presbytery to their churches 190 years ago, in the spring of 1836. Seeking to encourage the churches within their bounds with an exhortation that was pastoral in tone, they said of the Sabbath:

. . . you must also be aware that the power of religion will always be measured by the reverence which is paid to the Sabbath. If that day be sacredly devoted to communion with God—if the thoughts be abstracted from the affairs of time and transferred to those of eternity—if the day be loved as a period of cessation from the detractions of temporal things; it then truly becomes the great growing period of grace. The soul becomes invigorated with divine life, and the fragrance of the Sabbath is extended over the whole week.—He who is the best Sabbath christian, will also ever remain the best every day christian.[4]

In the Lord’s grace which is more than abundant, our brother Ben Sasse has learned these very things. May others who name the name of Jesus Christ take these truths to heart as well, no matter how many days they expect to enjoy in their earthly tent. Two centuries ago, Elder Johnson closed his message with these words:

. . . when on the holy Sabbath [the church] shall appear in the majesty of her Lord; when the whole moral force of her spiritual engines shall be brought, under the command of ‘the Captain of her Salvation,’ to bear upon the purposes of God; when his throne shall be encircled on every returning ‘first day of the week,’ with the prayers and the praises of the congregations of the righteous—then shall the windows of Heaven be opened, and a blessing be poured out most abundantly upon the saints—then will energy divine fall upon the counsels, the plans, and the efforts of ‘the servants of the most High God’—then will that vast moral machinery, now in operation for pulling down the strong holds of satan, and building thereon the Redeemer’s kingdom, exert its mighty influence with complete success—then will the conquests of Immanuel be pushed to universal empire . . . [to] be brought out with shoutings, crying ‘Grace, Grace, unto it.’[5]

Forrest L. Marion is a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church (PCA), Crossville, Tennessee.

[1] Kathy Athearn, “5 Insights from Ben Sasse as He Faces His Last Days on Earth,” The Washington Stand, May 7, 2026.

[2] “Tribute to John Calvin,” Religious Herald, Jan. 2, 1835.

[3] Minutes, South Carolina Baptist Convention, 1828, 25-26.

[4] Western Presbyterian Herald (Louisville, Ky.), Apr. 28, 1836 [emphasis in original].

[5] Minutes, South Carolina Baptist Convention, 1828, 29-30.