Spiritual disciplines take discipline. There’s an obvious statement but it is worth reminding. When I come back to a discipline, and it is difficult to pick back up, I am reminded of the first time I go on a run after taking time off. You can’t just jump back into it. You must begin again and build up to where you want to be. You never begin in the gym with lifting the heavy weights. You have to continually work at it to get to where you need to be. In short, it takes discipline. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, uses the imagery of strict training to run well. He beats his body and makes it his slave (rather than him being a slave to his body) so that he will run well for the prize. What must always be remembered about spiritual disciplines is that they are not for any appearance of piety but must always center on spiritual purposes of drawing closer to God. When Paul talks of the seriousness in which a person should approach their discipline, he is not calling promoting that one might save themselves. Instead, he recognizes that without discipline all will be a slave to something. St. Jerome of the 4thcentury puts it this way, “Be ever engages, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied.”
One discipline both Jews and Christians alike have practiced to draw close to God and not be mastered by their bodies is fasting. There is a collective grown anytime this practice is brought up and we largely have neglected this discipline in the church. When we look to scripture we find teachings of what not to do when fasting but there is essentially no “how to” book for doing it. That is because it was a common practice in Judaism and in the early church. Jesus’s teachings about fasting begin with the expectation that you will fast, “When you fast…” (Matt 6:16).
There is biblical precedent for fasting. Jesus fasted for 40 days before beginning his ministry. We need to not explain this away too quickly as though it were metaphorical or something else. We are told that he ate nothing and that at the end “he was hungry” (Luke 4:2). It is not unheard of for people to engage in a 40 day fast but that is a discipline that one must build up to and I don’t want to spend time talking about that. There are examples of “partial fasts” in the Bible, where a person gives up delicacies. Daniel had a three-week period where he “ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all” (Dan. 10:3). Paul fasted for three days after his encounter with Christ (Acts 9:9). Fasting is usually a private practice between an individual and God but there were times in Israel’s history where there was an annual public fast required by the Mosaic law (day of atonement in Lev 23:27). Other times a fast was called out of public lament or in seeking God’s guidance. The early church also set aside times of fasting to draw close to God together as a community and also to seek direction.
Is fasting a command? No. But there are strong examples for why we should fast and the benefit is has for both the individual to more deeply abide in Christ and for the community to seek God together. There does seem to be an expectation that followers of Christ will fast in expectation of his return (Matt 9:15). So, why should we fast?
We live in a time of easy indulgence where we get what we want when we want it. If we don’t have it, we can get it in a day or two from Amazon. We live in an impulsive culture where we show very little restraint. Denying ourselves our indulgences helps us to be masters of our bodies rather than be mastered by our bodies. In this, we better understand the words of Paul to the church in Philippi, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Phil 4:12-13). Or as Jesus responds to the disciples when talking to the woman at the well in John 4, “I have food to eat of which you do not know…my food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.”
Fasting helps us keep balance in life, allowing us to reject the nonessential that often take precedence in our lives. We crave all sorts of things that are not God. Fasting helps us direct our basic craving for food and turn it toward craving for God. Paul writes, “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything” (1 Cor 6:12). Richard Foster in his chapter on fasting in “Celebration of Discipline” provides this imagery, “Our human cravings and desires are like rivers that tend to overflow their banks; fasting helps keep them in their proper channels.” Fasting is not a way of forcing God’s hand in prayer and it should not be a means of visible piety. At its core, fasting is a discipline that brings greater freedom to rest in God.