Praying and Fasting Part 1 - The Origin and Significance

Praying and Fasting
Part 1 - The Origin and Significance

The church is calling you to a day of praying and fasting and then to come join us on the evening of 19 March at our Central Prayer Meeting. I encourage you all to participate in this.

Reformed Churches nowadays do not have a tradition of fasting; so to borrow from Shakespeare, the question is: to fast or not to fast?

Over the next two weeks, I’d like to consider with you the subject of fasting. This week we’ll look at the origin and significance, and in Part II next week, we’ll consider the practice and purpose of fasting in the New Testament.

The word “fast” (abstaining from food) is not mentioned in the five books of Moses. While the Mosaic Law prescribes minutely the foods to be eaten and to be shunned, it did not enjoin fasting. The false doctrine of pagan practices of asceticism (renouncing worldly pleasures in order to try to achieve a high spiritual or intellectual state) was carefully avoided. On the yearly Day of Atonement, Israelites were directed to “afflict the soul” (Lev 16:29-31; 23:27; Num 30:13). This significant term implies that the essence of scriptural “fasting” lies in self humiliation, penitence, and the expression of sorrow for sin.

In the Old Testament, the discipline of fasting was observed by the people for several reasons. For example, when there was public calamity (2 Sam 1:12), or when there were times of affliction (Ps 35: 13, Dan 6:18), or when there was approaching danger (Est 4:16).

As it was practised then, fasting was always accompanied by three other things: prayer (Dan 9:3), confession of sin (1 Sam 7:6, Neh 9:1~2), and humiliation (Deut 9:18, Neh 9:1)

The significance of all this is this. While God does not discourage outward acts of sorrow that are expressive of inward penitence, He does however declare, “Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isa 58: 6-7 NKJV). And elsewhere there are similar warnings against mistaking outward fasting as meritorious before God (Mal 3:14; Matt 6:16).

The “fasting” that God is looking for here is as what Albert Barnes had noted: “Fasting is right and proper; but that which God approves will prompt to, and will be followed by, deeds of justice, kindness, charity.”

We can therefore conclude with a clear principle taught by the apostle Paul: “one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord...while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord” and “food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do” (Rom 14:6; 1 Cor 8:8 ESV).

Hence, we can say that one end of fasting is to temporarily give up something in order to have a sharper focus on God in our prayers.

In Him,
Rev Robert Chew