Fasting and the Preservation of Body and Soul
How Scripture Forms Appetite, Will, and Faithfulness
Fasting feels strange to many Christians because our age has trained us to distrust bodily restraint. We live surrounded by abundance, constant stimulation, and immediate satisfaction. Hunger is treated as a problem to be solved rather than a condition to be governed. Discomfort is viewed as a failure rather than a teacher. In such an environment, fasting appears extreme or unnecessary.
Scripture presents a different posture. Fasting has always been part of the ordinary shape of a life ordered under God. The problem is that the church has been formed by comfort rather than discipline. In an indulgent culture, fasting feels abnormal because obedience itself feels abnormal.
What Fasting Is According to Scripture
Fasting, according to Scripture, is voluntary bodily restraint undertaken for spiritual clarity, repentance, and readiness for obedience. It is the deliberate setting aside of food for a time in order to humble oneself before God and sharpen attention to His Word.
Jesus assumes fasting as part of discipleship. He does not command a calendar or prescribe frequency, but He speaks as one who expects His people to fast.
“Now whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Matthew 6:16–18 LSB
Throughout Scripture, fasting accompanies prayer, repentance, and decisive moments. Ezra proclaimed a fast before a dangerous journey to seek God’s protection. The church in Antioch fasted before sending out Paul and Barnabas. Fasting consistently appears where clarity and submission are required.
Scripture presents fasting as a practical act of obedience shaped by humility, discipline, and submission to God.
Fasting and the Soul
Fasting humbles the soul by exposing dependence. Hunger strips away the illusion of self-sufficiency and reveals how quickly desire seeks control. It confronts pride by reminding the believer that life does not consist in abundance.
Fasting also clarifies repentance. Joel calls Israel to return to the Lord with fasting, weeping, and mourning, not as a display of sorrow but as a posture of submission.
“Yet even now,” declares Yahweh, “return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping, and mourning.”
Joel 2:12 LSB
The restraint of the body presses the heart toward seriousness. It sharpens prayer. It exposes disordered loves. It brings the soul into alignment with confession and obedience rather than emotional release.
Fasting and the Body
Fasting trains the body toward ordered strength and faithful self-governance. Scripture affirms the goodness of the body while demanding that it be governed rather than indulged. The body is not an enemy to be punished, nor a master to be obeyed. It is a servant to be disciplined.
Paul speaks plainly about bodily governance.
“But I discipline my body and make it my slave, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified.”
1 Corinthians 9:27 LSB
Fasting restores order to appetite. It teaches restraint without hatred. It cultivates temperance without asceticism. The body learns that it is not sovereign. The soul learns that obedience governs desire.
Isaiah’s Warning
Scripture warns against fasting divorced from righteousness. Isaiah 58 confronts a people who fasted while maintaining injustice, strife, and self-interest.
“Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke?”
Isaiah 58:6 LSB
God rejects fasting that does not lead to obedience. Hunger without repentance is empty. Restraint without justice is hypocrisy. Biblical fasting produces action. It aligns the heart with God’s commands and the hands with His will.
Why Christians Resist Fasting
Resistance to fasting often reveals deeper loyalties. Comfort resists restraint. Consumption resists discipline. Autonomy resists submission.
Modern Christianity often frames bodily restraint as unnecessary or unhealthy because the governing assumption is that faith exists to preserve ease. Fasting contradicts that assumption. It declares that obedience matters more than appetite and that discipline serves freedom rather than suppresses it.
The resistance usually arises from habits of comfort and convenience rather than from careful theological conviction. Fasting threatens what rules us.
Exhortation Without Legalism
Fasting functions as a disciplined act of obedience governed by wisdom rather than a marker of spiritual status. Scripture never turns fasting into a sacrament or a test of righteousness. It remains a discipline freely undertaken under Christ’s authority.
Pastors, fathers, and leaders should model fasting as an example of submission rather than a tool of control. The aim is the formation of faithful readiness for obedience, carried out without spectacle and ordered toward action.
Practical Direction
Scripture shows fasting connected to significant moments. Fasting before major decisions cultivates clarity. Fasting in repentance aligns confession with action. Fasting as a household discipline teaches restraint, prayer, and seriousness together.
Fasting should be joined with Scripture, prayer, and obedience. Hunger without the Word can produce irritation rather than repentance. Hunger with prayer sharpens discernment and prepares the believer to act faithfully.
A Call to Ordered Obedience
Fasting trains strength rather than weakness. It restores order to appetite and clarity to obedience. It prepares the believer for action under Christ’s lordship rather than withdrawal from responsibility.
The church requires fasting practiced with discipline, governed by Scripture, and ordered toward obedience. Fasting belongs to a confident faith that governs the body, submits the soul, and acts decisively in the world Christ rules.
In a distracted and indulgent age, fasting remains a gift. It preserves both body and soul by teaching the believer how to live under authority with clarity, restraint, and readiness.