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Who Fasts?: Fasting: Matthew 6:16-18

Jumi

Jumi

Well-Known Member
Audie said:
Warm or hot water is the thing to have.
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That's my choice as well. Usually with a bit of something mild tasting. Not too hot, not crazy amounts of sugar or with crazy pH.

Audie said:
You might be interested to google a bit on Chinese
view of this.
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Read somethings, that's interesting, did not know about that. But it makes sense to me as I do the same. :D
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
Jumi said:
That's my choice as well. Usually with a bit of something mild tasting. Not too hot, not crazy amounts of sugar or with crazy pH.


Read somethings, that's interesting, did not know about that. But it makes sense to me as I do the same. :D
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Drinking fountains will sometimes have hot and cold
water, but those of use with good sense wont drink
from either. Thust ye not the water in China!
 
sealchan

sealchan

Well-Known Member
I find that for myself (and I am sure countless other Americans) skipping a meal alone would be a sacrifice. I have been able to achieve a release from dinner but I have my occassional snacks.

Excessive eating and poor food choices are a problem for many and one that I continue to struggle with. Food is comfort. Not eating when I want to is a real psychological challenge. Oftentimes I feel a residual emotional feeling of sadness if I don't get to reward myself with food.

Still I have made great progress but it has been a long, slow, patient battle...one that I am still fighting. My reviewing this scripture has helped me want to renew my discipline when it comes to the fifth food group...desert.

I also need to re-create my desk as a sit or stand configuration. Sitting all day isn't good and standing, while not always as comfortable, will help keep my metabolism from tanking. My weight is slowly increasing again partly, I think, due to my job moving to working from home and the loss of my sit-stand workstation.

So my goal is to be hungry by the time I go to bed each day. It is a spiritual struggle and it is humbling. It reminds me that I have a body and it has a voice and I must negotiate with it if I am to master my instinctual needs and make good moral choices.
 
Jumi

Jumi

Well-Known Member
Audie said:
Drinking fountains will sometimes have hot and cold
water, but those of use with good sense wont drink
from either. Thust ye not the water in China!
Click to expand...
I'd probably have a good purifier if I traveled there and carry my own bottles. :D
 
Shaul

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
There are several fast days on the Jewish calendar. I follow them. They are proscribed by the Torah.

Fasting isn’t something done for show, if it is being done for the right reasons. Jesus wasn’t saying something new when he said not to make a show of it. Judaism said long before he was born.
 
sealchan

sealchan

Well-Known Member
Shaul said:
There are several fast days on the Jewish calendar. I follow them. They are proscribed by the Torah.

Fasting isn’t something done for show, if it is being done for the right reasons. Jesus wasn’t saying something new when he said not to make a show of it. Judaism said long before he was born.
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What do you make of Jesus' emphasis on this? Rather than talk about fasting, he chose to speak about not making a show of fasting.
 
Shaul

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
sealchan said:
What do you make of Jesus' emphasis on this? Rather than talk about fasting, he chose to speak about not making a show of fasting.
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Jesus was agreeing with many of the Jewish sages, actually. Whether Jesus actually made much emphasis on this may not be true. The sources for the stories come from the Christian “New Testament” which openly states its purposes is to be propaganda (in the original sense of the word), it is biased. Antinomianists and those Christians that perceive that Judaism is a threat or challenge to Christianity like to create a straw man of Jews as hypocrites. It suits their purposes.

Trust me when I tell you this, Jews who are fasting on Yom Kippur aren’t doing it to put on any show. There are admonitions in Judaism to wash your face, to fast with “joy” from within, and to try to look as “normal” as possible while fasting. Indeed Judaism teaches that someone who makes the fast grudgingly gains nothing from it. Fasting is a privilege if done for the right reasons.
 
A

A.C. Simon

Member
I see fasting as a tool, not for health benefits or anything like that, but for the purpose of the kingdom of God. It can be used along with prayer to get revelation or questions answered like you see with Daniel; or you can gain power from fasting like you see in the end of Jesus fast it says He returned in the power of the Spirit; or for a petition to be answered like when David fasts for his child not to die, and many more uses. From what I can see in my life fasting works and if done not to get glory from others, God will glorify you so that you in turn can glorify Him.
 
dfnj

dfnj

Well-Known Member
sealchan said:
Jesus teaches us...don’t look like you are suffering even when you are suffering through your fasting. Even compensate for any outward evidence of fasting so that public approval will not rob you of God’s approval.

This teaching is analogous to those prior in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Don’t seek public pity or approval for your hardship, cover it so that only God can see. Jesus is likely responding to a behavior that he saw too much of in his time and making the continual point that the kingdom of heaven is open to those who cultivate an inner psychological attitude that is in line with God’s desire for us. The inner effort one makes trumps the outer effort one needs to make to be a good person and a good member of your society.

Rather than analyze this section of scripture I want to ask people on this forum:
  • Do you fast?
  • How so and why?
  • And if you do, how do you understand Jesus’ teaching that we shouldn’t make a public spectacle of it?
Thanks!
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sealchan

sealchan

Well-Known Member
Shaul said:
Jesus was agreeing with many of the Jewish sages, actually. Whether Jesus actually made much emphasis on this may not be true. The sources for the stories come from the Christian “New Testament” which openly states its purposes is to be propaganda (in the original sense of the word), it is biased. Antinomianists and those Christians that perceive that Judaism is a threat or challenge to Christianity like to create a straw man of Jews as hypocrites. It suits their purposes.

Trust me when I tell you this, Jews who are fasting on Yom Kippur aren’t doing it to put on any show. There are admonitions in Judaism to wash your face, to fast with “joy” from within, and to try to look as “normal” as possible while fasting. Indeed Judaism teaches that someone who makes the fast grudgingly gains nothing from it. Fasting is a privilege if done for the right reasons.
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I trust you...I have seen how strongly the author of Matthew has sought to pit the Jews and the Jewish leadership at the time as on the wrong side of things. Certainly this author's account should be understood to be biased in this manner.

What about how this particular New Testament scripture speaks to the emphasis on one's inner action vs outer?
 
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