FASTING is NOT a “suggestion”

The fact that most Protestant Christians do NOT fast is because it wasn’t a “tradition” that was handed down to them. It isn’t because fasting isn’t a Biblical practice. It is. It isn’t that Jesus didn’t expect that once He was gone, that His followers would have a practice of fasting because they did.

Matthew 9:14-14 – ¹⁴ Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” ¹⁵ And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 5:33-39 – all reiterate this exact teaching that once Jesus (the Bridegroom) is taken away THEN followers of Jesus WILL FAST. Didn’t say they “might fast” or “could fast”. He left earth, ascended into heaven, and has not returned as of yet. And therefore the teaching stands. It still applies.

Why would Jesus have instructed His disciples in Matthew 6:16 with the opening words, “When you fast…” if somehow Christians were going to be fasting???? It really is a major blind spot in much of the Church today.

We find the Church fasting in the Book of Acts and we know from the earliest days of Church History that fasting became the universal practice of the entire early Church.

What did it look like? Jews had fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. The earliest Christians shifted their fasting days to Wednesdays and Fridays.

Beyond that, Christians fasted before the annual celebration of the death & resurrection of Christ – known in English as Easter, known in the early Church as Pascha (Greek for Passover).

Because these particular instructions are NOT specified in the New Testament, Protestants by and large LOST the early Christian tradition of fasting. By the way, a tradition that the entire Early Church believed came from the Apostles themselves!

But as Protestants, we have learned that “tradition is bad”. Due to the accretions and errors that had developed in the Roman Catholic Church (and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches), what happened is the proverbial “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”.

Fasting was one of those ‘babies’ that got thrown out.

A BIBLICAL teaching and practice has tragically been neglected, if not entirely ignored, because the Roman Catholics (and/or Orthodox) do it. Truth be told, it is a watered-down version of the fasting of the Early Church. But it is better than nothing.

I am ALWAYS having to push back on those who would question Lent. They minimally do not know the history of how/why it developed. They don’t know what the earliest Christians were doing to walk in obedience to Jesus’ expectations that His disciples would be fasting.

I guess the challenge here is this – so you don’t want to fast like the earliest Christians on Wednesdays and Fridays. You don’t want to fast leading up to the celebration of Easter. So, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO FAST? WHEN WILL YOU BECOME LIKE THE CHRISTIAN JESUS ENVISIONED THAT “WILL FAST” WHEN HE IS GONE?

Jesus wasn’t “suggesting” that we fast…He EXPECTED that we would be.

For such a time as this…