I have notes on lots of things Jonathan  I even document PMs as a general rule (unless they are short PM relationships) so everyone who is an Airianna PM buddy better beware *wicked grin*.
By the way Jonathan, good questions. I am excited this post was brought up!
Okay, true to my normal self, I have crafted another longwinded post. All please bear with me and forgive me for always having too much to say on a subject.
#1) Should we write on Sunday?
Okay, I am going to take this first question to explain some of my positions. All of the other questions branch off of this one. So here goes.
First, why shouldn’t we write on Sunday? I think it is interesting that most everyone here has accepted Sunday as the Sabbath day. It isn’t. If we want to get technical, the Sabbath is Saturday. The scriptures speak of the Sabbath, not Sunday. Now, some people have said that the commandment can be read as “one day in seven,” basically leaving it open as whatever day you want the Sabbath to be, but this view is inconsistent with scripture. In Exodus 16, before the Israelites came to Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments were written, God sent manna from heaven six days a week. The seventh day (Saturday, not Sunday) was the Sabbath, and they were told to rest (verse 23). In other words, God picked the day when the manna did not fall. In verse 23 God said, “Tomorrow is to be a day of rest.” He thus confirmed the weekly cycle.
Also, under the Jewish law, you cannot choose just a part of the law —you must obey every precept of it (Gal. 3:10), including the “do not eat pork”. So if we are taking the Jewish law stance, we have to take that stance on everything.
So, I think we need to alter our point of thinking here. A lot of us are basing our arguments off of Sunday being the Sabbath.
Also, let us face it; this is a secondary issue, an important one, but a secondary one. Now, I use this phrase a lot it seems, so I figured I’d explain myself right now. I divide primary and secondary issues by their affect on Salvation (thank you to my pastor, for wording my feelings on secondary issues so well). The rapture is secondary in my opinion. Being pre-trib or post=-trib, doesn’t affect your salvation. What you believe on the virgin birth and the trinity, will. So while I think this is an important and edifying discussion, it isn’t something to become divided over. Not that anyone was. I was just preaching to the choir here (to which Philli is laughing).
Before I get any further, I want to address another point. I don’t think it is a secret that I feel very strongly that the Lord convicts each person and their families differently. As a young lady (we aren’t going to discuss my age at this moment) living under my father’s roof and protection, I do what he says. Now, my Daddy is the most amazing man alive. Human with a sin nature, but amazing (and that is not just Daddy’s little girl talking). Daddy isn’t arbitrary, although he does not always explain his reasoning to me. He loves me and wants what is best for me. Were he to ask me not to write on Sundays, I would do so, despite personal conviction (he wouldn’t, but you get the point). I think everyone needs to know what their parents (if you are still under their authority) think and believe on the subject. That should dictate, in my opinion, what you do on this subject.
Now that we have that all of these things sorted out, let us continue this stimulating conversation (well, I hope it is stimulating for you, and not putting you to sleep. I am being stimulated  ).
#2) If we write on Sunday and make money from our writing, isn't that the same as working on Sunday? If we write on Sunday and don't make money from our writing, is that acceptable?
I guess I always feel the need to ask why, as Christians, we shouldn’t write on Sunday, due to the work factor? Let me explain myself. Isn’t work worship? Paul counsels us that whatever we do or say, do it as a unto the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father (Col 3:17) So doesn’t that mean that work is worship? Wherever a Christian may find themselves, that, is holy ground, because the Lord is with them.
I’m a farm girl-or was before we were blessed with Samuel. There is always work to be done on a farm. Now, we always tried to limit what we did on Sundays, because the bodies of farmers and their children need some serious rest, but that didn’t always happen. Sometimes we had to take care of animals, or help someone else in our farming community. There would be many times during hay season where a farmer could lose his entire crop due to a rain storm if my family did not help him, directly after church, bale and stack his field. Or when an outside goat infected our herd we had to fight day in, day out, to save them. Now, some people told us we should give up the farm. If we couldn’t find a day in our week to rest and completely devote our minds to Christ then obviously our farm was sucking too much out of us and we were not worshiping the Lord properly. But that’s just it. I think people need to seriously look at what worshiping Christ is. It isn’t just worshiping him in a building with a steeple on it (let’s hope not, because my church doesn’t have a steeple!). When we went to help a fellow farmer with his hay field, we were serving him in Christ’s name, worshiping Christ through our actions of self sacrifice. Believe me, the last thing I really wanted to do was help bale a field. It is horrible, back breaking work you can’t understand unless you’ve done it (or had it vividly described to you, as in Evening’s case). The working conditions are terrible! Even if you aren’t allergic to grasses and nature, you’ll have the symptoms of allergies when you do this job. The heat is unbearable. But we set those feeling aside, rolled up our sleeves alongside another, and went to work. Tell me how that is not worshiping and serving Christ on a Sunday? We aren’t preaching or technically evangelizing (ties into next question), and we are helping someone make a profit, but aren’t we still worshiping?
Also, there are some jobs that require the service of people for the care and provision of another. Example: Many of you know about my baby brother Samuel, at least in passing. Samuel has a complicate story I won’t go into here, but he required day in, day out, care. We also had nurses that “lived” with us for a big chunk of time. They had to help work and care for Samuel’s needs at night when our family went to sleep, because Samuel could not be left alone. If we say no one can work or make money on Sunday, we are now saying that Samuel should either be deprived of care, or my family will have to pull a twenty-four hour wake period in order to stay up with him in the night if he had a medical emergency (which wasn’t unusual). And I think us doing that would have been completely counterproductive because we are supposed to be fit vessels for the Lord’s service. If I had to do that every week, I guarantee I would not be a fit servant, and would in fact become an unbearable crab! For the welfare of other people, working Sundays is sometimes a must. I also know that if those people were not making themselves available, many in our society would be put in jeopardy. Samuel isn’t the only baby out there with these needs, and there are lots of elderly who require care on Sundays as well. And let me remind you, they are making money. But aren’t they working in service to the Lord? (I am not going to go into the need to fellowship with the body of Christ and the importance of Sunday worship. This is not the place to do so, and I assume you all know that is important.) Also, let us look at Dr.s and nurses in the hospitals. Should all the hospitals close down on Sundays? What if Samuel had been born on a Sunday? Should the medical staff not have done everything possible to save his life simply because it was Sunday?
#3) Is writing on Sunday not a problem if our writing contains a Christian message and thus counts as evangelism?
Okay, so I answered part of this in the above statements, but I want to bring this point up as well. We should do everything as unto the Lord. Paul Washer (founder of Heart Cry Missionary Society ministries, and a personal friend) always says we should eat ice cream as unto the Lord (this means do not be gluttonous. Ouch! But that is not the topic at hand). The Bible says everything. Your heart is what the Lord cares about. This is part of why I find it hard (since we are no longer under the Mosaic Law) to justify why we can’t write/work on Sunday. Is our heart worshiping? Then how is it a sin?
#4) What if the weekend is the only time we have to write?
Again, it all boils down to your heart. If you love writing so much that you can’t bear to stop on Sunday, you’d rather do that than spend part of the day in your quiet time and prayer life, then you have a problem. Your heart is not right, and you should not write on Sunday. If you don’t struggle with this, and writing is just another outpouring of your worship, then I can’t see there is a problem.
#5) If you feel it's fine to write on Sunday, do you think we should still set aside one day of rest during the week?
Yes, I do. We are made to need rest. Willow brought up some good points on this subject. We get burnt out if we never stop. How can we be good servants of the Lord if we are exhausted and weary? I think the Lord is very wise, He knew what we needed. We should listen.
#6) Would you say that the Bible's mentioning of a day of rest is a commandment or a wise suggestion? Since the Sabbath was made for man, should man, as much as possible, thus take advantage of the day of rest that was made for him?
Brendan already gave the scripture that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man. God gave us the Sabbath as a gift. Christ said “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” The Lord set the example by resting on the Sabbath day.
The Sabbath law was binding on everyone till the day Jesus died on the cross, setting the Levitical priesthood aside because its laws could not save from sin. While ministering on earth, Jesus performed miracles on the Sabbath several times. Jewish leaders felt scandalized by such actions. Their zeal without knowledge defeated the reasons for having the law, and in their hard-heartedness, they also broke these same laws they wanted to keep at all costs.
The foremost purpose of the law of the Sabbath was to make the children of Israel know that the Lord is God, that He created and sanctified them. God told Ezekiel that; "I gave them my Sabbaths as a sign between us, so they would know that I the LORD made them holy." (Eze 20:12) Through Christ’s grace, there is freedom from the dead works of trying to please God by keeping religious rules.
So that is the long and the short of my answer. You all can take it, or leave it, as you so desire. And I am open to discussion, as always.
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