Why Take Sabbaticals? What the Bible Says About Extended Rest

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. This last week, most of us were at the beach for our annual beach worship service, celebrating baptisms in the ocean. We talked about rest and the rest that God provides. There’s mandates for Sabbaths and days off, but Jesus says that those days off are really meant to serve us instead of us feeling restricted by how much time we need to take off.

It’s meant to be life-giving for us. But the question comes in this week related to just general days off. What about sabbaticals? There are certain fields that offer sabbaticals. Teachers, professors, researchers, pastors often. We have a sabbatical policy at this church.

Our pastors can get six weeks off every five years. That’s a policy that our elders have agreed to. I just finished my sabbatical, and so the question is, do we find this in the Bible? Is there a reason we do this? I’d say the roots of sabbaticals go all the way back to the Old Testament, where every few years there was more than just a day off. Leviticus 25 describes every seven years, the land took a year off.

We’re not going to plant, we’re not going to harvest. We’re just going to let the land lay fallow, and then come back next year. It’s a whole year off every seven years. Of course, if the land is taking a year off, that’s not just the land taking a year off, it’s that the people working the land are taking an entire year off every seven years. So the people had rest, a deeper rest.

It has lots of reasons that God would have instituted such a policy. It teaches them productivity is not the end-all be-all. We don’t need to work ourselves to death to keep up with the nations around us. It is a stark difference from what they had just experienced in Egypt, working seven days a week, 365 days a year, all day long as slaves.

It is very different from that. It’s take an entire year off every seven years. It teaches them to trust God. God says that he would be the one to provide for them. You can imagine, even us just taking one day off, we feel like we’re going to get behind. God says, do you trust me?

Just take a step back. Let things lie dormant for a while. Then you’ll move forward with me. I’ll provide for you in the meantime. There’s actually, in the past 10 years, 15 years or so, a good bit of research showing that we will be more productive if we take a little time off. Even just simple things, especially if you’re in creative work. You’re a researcher, you’re trying to figure something out, you’re problem solving. It’s not exactly clear how you’re going to be able to move forward, right? There’s a problem that needs solved. You don’t know how to solve it. You’re figuring that out. What will actually help more than if you just sit down and you’re like, I’m going to keep working, I’m going to keep working until I figure this out.

I’m just going to nose to the grindstone. Eventually the answer will come out, right? Instead of that, you will actually figure out the answer quicker if you’re taking breaks and doing something that is not related to the work at all. Go for a run, have dinner with a friend, get your mind completely disengaged from this problem that you can’t see an answer to. And then over here, the answer will just pop in your mind and then you’ll be able to move forward.

And so it’s a principle that we see with the agriculture and the land of the Old Testament. You just let it lay fallow for a while, and it will actually be able to produce more than it would have if you’d just been working it, working it, working it. And so that seems to be built into the fabric of creation. It’s not just the way land produces crops.

It’s not just the way that our minds can figure out the answer if they disengage from the problem for a while. It’s not just that we’ll be more productive if we take a day off. It’s everything. It’s woven into the creation narrative. His rest.

This is how creation works best. And so that’s why we have our sabbatical policy. That’s why God commands things throughout scripture. That’s why we need Sabbath. It’s because it’s part of how we’re made. It’s part of how the world is made. I’ll speak on behalf of our pastors that we are very grateful for a sabbatical policy, and we’re trusting that God will use it as he has used Sabbath throughout scripture to really bring us to more fullness in him.

So I’m praying that, and I’m sure you will too. Thanks for the question. We’ll see you next time.