We are just over a week away from Easter. In some church traditions, the period leading up to Easter is meant to be marked by fasting during Lent. Similarly, of course, Advent would have marked a period of fasting up until Christmas rather than an excuse for a daily chocolate! Now, I’m from a background that doesn’t really do the church calendar and in fact, even whether or not we should be observing Lent isn’t on the agenda in our church. However, the place of fasting and whether or not it is commanded is something that does sometimes come up. With that in mind, I was interested to see Steve Kneale comment on an article about fasting from Growing Christian Disciples recently.
In his article, Dave Carlson quotes Philippians 2:5-6.
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
He then goes on to argue that fasting helps him to “have the mind of Christ” as he learns to be humble, relinquish things and go without. This seems to rather miss the point Paul is making. First, having the same mind of Christ isn’t something we magic up through following mystical practices. Rather, we agree with him, we take the same view and the same approach as him. How do we do that? Well, first of all we do it by listening to his Word. Secondly, Paul is telling us what he means by having the mind of Christ. He is specifically encouraging us to be humble and servant like in our treatment of others. Paul writes:
“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”[1]
Note that this Christ like attitude is not worked up through some mystical spiritual discipline but grows out of the encouragement and comfort that we have in Christ and the Holy Spirit. In other words it isn’t something that grows naturally out of lack and self deprivation but out of fullness. The idea that we should practice things like fasting as a form of spiritual discipline have come to the fore amongst Evangelicals particularly since the publication of Richard Foster’s book “A celebration of discipline.” Now, whilst some people may have found it helpful to do some of the things he suggests, I am rather of the view that his book represented a wrong turn. We are not meant to grow as believers through the practice of a special and arbitrary set of disciplines. As Steve notes in his article, these kinds of ascetic disciplines are described by Paul as “of no value”. In other words, they are futile and useless in bringing us closer to God.
They make no difference because they are external and do not deal with what is going on in our hearts. If at heart I’m selfish, greedy, lustful then I will spend my time in solitude and fasting hankering for a MacDonalds, or imagining things in my mind that I should not. If in my heart I am hungry for God then with or without fasting, I’ll seek to pray and praise him.
Carlson’s article doesn’t engage with what the rest of Scripture has to say about fasting. It is a shame, because I think that if he had started to look at what Scripture had to say, he would have found that it explains what is actually going on. Let’s have a look at three Old Testament passages:
Then all the Israelites, the whole army, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the Lord. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the Lord.[2]
Here, the people of Israel have come together after horrific and degrading sin by the Benjaminites. The tribe of Benjamin refuse to repent and so the people are drawn into a civil war against them. It’s in this context that they seek God, offering sacrifices and fasting.
When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the Lord. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord.” Now Samuel was serving as leader of Israel at Mizpah.[3]
This is after the Ark of the Covenant has been captured but then returned by the Philistines who are oppressing Israel. The people are being called to return to God in order to seek his deliverance from the enemy.
“They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and for the nation of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.”[4]
This is after the defeat of Israel and death of Saul. Now, on some occasions, fasting seems to be linked with confessing sins and interceding before God for deliverance and so in those contexts, it may be that it was intended to indicate their need and dependence on God alone. You will notice that this is a corporate thing done together.
A common theme is that fasting is linked to grief and weeping, whether mourning sin, bereavement or tragedy. Whilst fasting may have become ritualised and set, it doesn’t seem to be that way in the early history of God’s people. In fact, we might do better to see fasting as a natural, overflowing expression of grief. Moreover, there is a sense that eating and drinking falls down the list of priorities because other, weightier matters take precedent.
Of course, we have the example of Jesus fasting in the New Testament. In Luke 4:1-2 we are told:
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted[a] by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.”
I would make three observations about this. First, note that Jesus is “full of the Holy Spirit”, there is perhaps a sense in which he is so full of something more important that this takes priority over his need for food. He will respond to Satan’s temptation by pointing out that “man does not live by bread alone.” Secondly, he is being tempted. Again, the testing takes priority over other things.
Third, the image that we are seeing is of Jesus recapitulating Israel’s history, crossing safely through water and spending time in the wilderness. The 40 days are symbolic of Israel’s 40 years wandering in the wilderness where a primary test for them was the lack of food and water. The question was whether they would trust God, grumble or take matters into their own hands. Jesus, the obedient Son, unlike disobedient Israel trusts God.
So, fasting has nothing to do with this spiritual discipline we hear about today. Indeed, whilst there is a liberty towards things that Scripture doesn’t forbid, I wonder if that kind of fasting is not merely of no value but may actually be harmful when it distracts us away from the true discipline of godliness in Christ through the Gospel. Perhaps we should be actively discouraging people from setting out to fast in that kind of way.
What I think might be better would be to say that rather than setting out to fast, Christians should be encouraged to set out to do the things that have priority. That might be taking time to grieve the loss of someone dear (and perhaps we shouldn’t in those cases be rushing to say “you need to eat something”), to mourn over sin and to plead and intercede with God. In such cases, fasting rather than being this separate thing we do as a discipline may happen naturally as we turn our attention to those things which at that time are of greater importance.
[1] Philippians 2:1-4.
[2] Judges 20:26
[3] 1 Samuel 7:6
[4] 2 Samuel 1:12.
Faithroots 