Fasting Question

"Ben,

Great message yesterday. I have been thinking about it all day. I disagree with your assertion that it was not your best on your blog...

So answer a question please. Is Luke 4 chronological? If it is then Jesus was tempted after he had broke his fast. To me that doesn't change a thing about the story, but adds another layer of thought. If Jesus could have eaten, why didn't he? Obviously he would have developed spiritual discipline not to be tempted by the devil during his fast, or at least we gain that perspective in study of the passage. If I hadn't eaten in 40 days and I rolled back into town, I would have hit the first Burger King I saw. Does that make any sense?"

Reader:

Thanks for your affirmation, and more for thinking about God's word and how to apply it to our lives. I'm not sure that we can determine, with certainty, the chronology of the text. Different translators with much deeper historical language experience that I have translated it to sound as though it were either a time of fasting and temptation, and a time of fasting then temptation depending on what translation you read. I believe that the temptation came during the fast, because of help from Mark who deals much less specifically with the whole story, but says that the forty days was a time of tempting (Mark doesn't really dwell on the fasting part). I think that part of the affliction of his fast was the temptation. The reason it appears to be subsequent (fast then temptation) is that Luke is using a writing technique for his polemic. Namely, he wants to make sure that people know it was a 40 day fast. That number has significance throughout biblical literature. It was indicative or lends credibility to Jesus as Savior sent by God. So clarity on that point kept Luke from writing something like, "Jesus went into the wilderness and began fasting, and on the 9th day Satan came and tempted him, and again on the 15th day he came yet again, and on the third thursday of the fourth house of unicorn...and so it was that Jesus had fasted, been tempted and now came back to call his disciples. Then thou takest thine holy hand grenade and countest thou to three...." :-) [Monty Python]

He instead states right at the front he went to fast for 40 days, and then tells the story of what happened during those days.

Now, as to Burger King. I do think you're right that if the temptation of stone/bread came at the evening of day 40, it would be real easy to succumb, and think "it's time to end my fast anyway." I think the temptation to eat would not have resulted in a sin of eating or breaking the fast, because those aren't sins. It would have been denying that God sustains us and provides for us. Taking matters into our own hands to see ourselves as our own provider (an act of pride elevating ourselves and our own priorities over God's is sin), thus "Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."

Those who have done any extended fast know the feeling of eating again after the fast. It is a spiritual experience (and I don't just mean the ham is heavenly). You realize in a deep way that God is your source, His Word is what keeps you alive and has even provided the meal you're about to consume. It is a deep and soulful act to take that first bite.

Great thought. I'm really glad you wrote, and are wrestling with this. I'm thrilled that this week there are SRCers that are fasting for the first time. That together we're trying to become more like Christ, by doing the disciplines He did.

--Ben