Skip MacCarty. In Granite or Ingrained? What the Old and New Covenants Reveal about the Gospel, the Law, and the Sabbath. Berrien Springs, Mich:: Andrews University Press, 2007.

"When God’s love is responded to with faith, it produces a new covenant experience, which results in loving obedience. But if God is responded to with legalistic obedience (or with no obedience), it results in an old covenant experience. That’s the significance of the old and new covenants in summary," says MacCarty.

A book suggesting that the New Covenant did away with the Old Covenant and the need for Sabbath-keeping prompted MacCarty to undertake a study of the covenants that, he says, proved to be a challenging and rewarding study. He says it is essential to understand the covenant issues "if any confusion over the importance of faith, obedience, and God’s laws, including the Sabbath, is to be resolved."

MacCarty is associate pastor for evangelism at Pioneer Memorial Church on the campus of Andrews University. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree and is a specialist on the relationship between stress and spiritual life.

James Richard Wibberding, Sabbath Reflections. Telford, Penn.: Big Fish, 2006.

"Those who revere Sabbath can readily make a biblical case for why they keep it but usually fall back on tradition for how they keep it," says Wibberding, who admits to doing the same. What he shares in this weekly devotional book is a log of his journey through Sabbath in Scripture. "Developing the much-needed biblical case for how to experience Sabbath as God intended is best done through experience," he adds, which is an experience guided by Scripture.

This book, published in 2006, is Wibberding’s second. The first, Learn to Preach Before Next Weekend, caught the eye of bloggers and lay preachers for its straightforward and practical approach to putting a sermon together in memorable fashion.

Wibberding pastors the Telford, Pennsylvania, Seventh-day Adventist Church.

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