The Calendar: How We Measure Time vs. How God Does
Time as a Human Construct and a Divine Reality
“God’s order is not subject to our schedules. We number our days, but He holds eternity in His hands.” — Dallas Willard
The calendar is one of humanity’s most enduring inventions. Long before digital planners and clock apps dictated our lives, civilizations sought to bring structure to time, carving order out of the shifting heavens. We have always needed to mark time, to assign it meaning, to track the rising and setting of the sun, the passage of seasons, the anniversaries of great events.
But while we measure time in neatly divided months, years, and centuries, God does not mark time as we do.
The Gregorian calendar, the global standard, is an instrument of precision. It calculates leap years, corrects seasonal drift, and aligns human timekeeping with astronomical reality. It is a brilliant feat of human design—yet, it remains just that: a design. A framework imposed on time itself, not an intrinsic reality.
But God’s time is not bound by the mechanics of human record-keeping.
Scripture speaks of appointed times, divine seasons, and an eternal timeline beyond human comprehension. Isaiah 46:10 declares, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” God’s calendar is not a series of arbitrary dates but a sovereignly ordained sequence of events, unfolding according to His will.
If the way we structure time reveals something about us, then the way God orders time reveals something about Him. The question is: are we aligning our lives with our calendars, or with the divine timeline?
The Calendar as an Act of Dominion
“The very act of numbering days is a claim to authority.” — R.J. Rushdoony
The first calendars were not just practical tools—they were acts of dominion. To measure time was to assert control over it, to create an ordered existence in an unpredictable world.
The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Mayans all devised complex calendrical systems, attempting to track the rhythm of the cosmos with mathematical precision. For these cultures, calendars were not just about organization—they were about power. The ability to declare when festivals would be held, when kings would rule, when debts would be forgiven—this was the power of shaping time itself.
Even today, who controls the calendar controls the culture.
• The Roman Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar, was a declaration of imperial order, binding the world to a standard of time that mirrored the authority of Rome itself.
• The shift to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, ordered by Pope Gregory XIII, was an assertion of papal authority—correcting the Julian miscalculations and further cementing the Church’s role in structuring time.
• The rise of secular calendars and globalized timekeeping has gradually stripped religious significance from time itself, making it a tool of industry, commerce, and state efficiency rather than worship and remembrance.
In Institutes of Biblical Law, Rushdoony notes that “the modern calendar reflects an abandonment of the sacred. By shifting timekeeping away from biblical cycles, we have placed the measurement of time into the hands of secular rulers and corporate entities.” The world tells us that time belongs to governments, businesses, and productivity. But Scripture tells us that time belongs to God.
So, what happens when we start living by the world’s time rather than God’s?
Sacred Time vs. Secular Time
“Modernity has made time a servant of commerce, but Scripture makes it a servant of worship.” — Joe Boot
In the Bible, time is not neutral. It is structured for worship, remembrance, and expectation.
God established His own calendar for Israel, filled with holy days, Sabbaths, and festivals designed to remind His people of their dependence on Him. These were not arbitrary dates; they were moments of divine appointment, tied to the rhythms of creation, history, and redemption.
• The Sabbath was instituted before Israel’s law (Genesis 2:3), built into the very pattern of creation itself. It was a declaration that time belonged to God, not to human labor.
• The Passover was tied not just to a historical event but to God’s redemptive timeline (Exodus 12:14), pointing forward to Christ.
• The Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:10) was a radical restructuring of economic and social time, resetting debts, freeing slaves, and restoring land—because God’s justice is not bound by human systems of wealth and power.
Contrast this with modernity’s approach to time.
The West, having abandoned sacred time, has embraced a tyranny of endless productivity. The calendar is now dictated by market cycles, corporate fiscal years, academic semesters, and digital schedules—time as a commodity, not a gift. Instead of resting in the order God established, we have become slaves to efficiency, deadlines, and economic progress.
As Tim Keller observed, “The modern person lives under the crushing burden of time-as-task. There is always more to do, more to accomplish, more to optimize. But the Sabbath, and by extension God’s entire structuring of time, is a declaration that we are not defined by what we produce.”
The question is not whether time will be structured—it always will be. The question is: whose structure will we follow?
The Gospel and the Fulfillment of Time
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son.” — Galatians 4:4
History itself is divided by Christ. Time is measured as before and after His coming. And yet, the world continues to act as though time belongs to kings, presidents, and corporate boards.
But God’s time is not bound by human calculation. It moves according to His decree, not ours.
• The world expected a conquering Messiah, but Christ entered history in a manger, at the precise moment ordained by God (Luke 2:6).
• The disciples asked Jesus when the restoration of Israel would take place, but Christ answered that it was not for them to know the times the Father had set by His authority (Acts 1:7).
• The church awaits the final fulfillment of time, when Christ will return and all things will be made new (Revelation 21:5).
God is not slow, though we may think Him so (2 Peter 3:9). He is not constrained by human clocks or our desire for immediate resolution. He moves according to His perfect will—sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly, but always sovereignly.
So, how do we live as people shaped by God’s time rather than the world’s?
Living by the Right Calendar
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” — Psalm 90:12
As Christians, we are called to live in time differently. Not as people consumed by productivity, but as those who recognize that time itself is a gift to be stewarded, not controlled.
• Do we shape our schedules around worship, remembrance, and rest, or only around productivity and deadlines?
• Do we treat our days as our own to manage, or as time entrusted to us by God?
• Do we live as though history is marching toward a meaningless future, or as though it is moving toward Christ’s return?
Because in the end, our calendars will reflect our theology.
And time belongs to the One who made it.
