We come to the third and final post on Scot McKnight’s book titled Fasting. We will comment on Part 2- “Wisdom and Fasting.”

First, I want to emphasize again that while I had read a lot of books on fasting and thought it would be hard to read anything new, Scot offered a fresh, creative and compelling “take” on fasting that I could never have imagined. Second, because I know Scot and have had leisurely conversations with him, I hear both a skilled teacher’s and a passionate pastor’s heart in Scot’s writing.

Part 2 of his book is only 3 chapters compared to Part 1’s nine chapters. Yet, for Part 2’s brevity, it carries a load of helpful spiritual direction. Chapter 11 concerns the spiritual dangers attendant to fasting and to fasters. The dangers took sharp focus in Isaiah’s writings and have plagued God’s people ever since.

Chapter 12 surprisingly discusses the benefits of fasting, but with this expected McKnight caveat:  “I do believe that there are tangible, real, beneficial results from fasting, but I also believe that fasting is not an instrument to get what we want” (155). Scot points away from instrumental fasting to this: “Communication with God is, in my opinion, the intent of fasting” (149). If communication with God is fasting’s intent, then fasting for its benefits makes God an instrument that exists for us. Scot will have none of that. And, again, Scot has plenty of quotes from church history to complement his observations.

Let’s be reminded of Scot’s definition: Fasting is the natural, inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment in life (166).  A–> Sacred Moment, B–> Fasting, C–>Results. Scot emphasizes the need to focus on A to B, not B to C with results seen as benefits. He even comments that there may be no results whatsoever from fasting.

Scot wisely ends the book with some medical advice which he received from MD’s. Fasting can be dangerous to the health of the body. The Bible no where speaks to the bodily benefits of fasting or of fasting as a diet. Be warned of those marketing a spiritual discipline for its benefits. This far afield from the Sacred Text.

I come away from Scot’s book with this challenge: Be more attentive to life, to its sorrows and pains. Be more attentive to God and how God feels about human pain and affliction. Be more attentive to my own soul and my need for growth in grace. Let the sacred grief be felt and let it move me to fast in order to be in communion with God. Benefits may come; they may not. God is the center of fasting, not me and my “benefits.”

Scot, thanks for a very informative, transformative book.

John

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