Fasting

Question: Should Christians fast?

Yes, Christians should do anything in their power that will bring blessing to themselves or others. Beyond a doubt, in many instances fasting brings blessings to the one who fasts as well as to others.

It is sometimes said that fasting belonged to the Jewish religion but not to the Christian. However, this contradicts the plain teaching of the Bible. In Acts 13:2, we are told that it was while they "ministered to the Lord and fasted" that the Holy Spirit spoke to the leaders of the church in Antioch. In the third verse, we are told that it was after they had "fasted and prayed" that they laid their hands on Saul and Barnabas and sent them off for the work to which Jesus had called them. In Acts 14:23, we are told that at the ordination of elders, they "prayed with fasting."

There is no virtue in a person's going without his necessary food. However, there is power in humbling ourselves before God by fasting because we have an acute awareness of our own unworthiness. There is power in a complete earnestness in seeking the face of God that leads us away from even our necessary food so that we may give ourselves up to prayer. If there were more fasting and prayer and less feasting and frivolousness in the church of Jesus Christ today, we would see more revivals and more wonderful things worked for God.

Footwashing

Question: Why do Christians not generally wash each others' feet as commanded in John 13:3-17?

There is NO commandment in this passage that every Christian should wash every other Christian's feet. Nor is there today any church in which every Christian washes every other Christian's feet. [Note: I have heard that there are today a very few churches that do this washing of feet.] There is a command here that when some other Christian needs to have his feet washed (John 13:10), we should be ready to perform even so menial a service as this for him, and thus do as Jesus did to His disciples in their need.

There is not the slightest indication that Jesus was appointing a ceremony to be performed in the church. The disciples had come in from the road with their feet dusty. The passage implies that they had bathed earlier in the day, and therefore did not need a total cleansing, but because they were wearing open sandals, needed to be washed. Yet each one of them was too proud to wash the other disciples' feet. There was no servant present to do it, so Jesus, though He knew He had come from the Father and was going to the Father, and that the Father had given all things into His hands, rose from the table and performed for them the menial service that was needed.

Jesus' action has no resemblance whatsoever to the mere performance of the ceremony of washing feet that do not need to be washed, solely for the sake of doing the same thing that Jesus did. The lesson of the passage is plain enough, namely, that we ought to have the kind of love for one another that makes us ready to perform the lowliest service for one another.

~R. A. Torrey~