Blog Search Results

Great Lent: The Season of Fasting

Fasting A spiritual and physical discipline If you are looking for a Lenten reading plan, make sure to check out my book, 40 days with the Fathers: A Journey Through Church History, which will take you through the first 400 years of church history in forty days! Lent is upon us once again (according to Western tradition), and so I thought it’d be good to write something on the discipline of fasting, which is often neglected or overlooked in many Protestant churches. And much like any major holiday, there is the usual arguments and accusations about how it's all just pagan festivities with a "Christian mask". Easter is no different, and usually gets hit...

The Temptations of Jesus: Pride

Welcome to the first part of a short series I'm writing during Lent. We’re on the first Sunday of Lent, and so I’m going to be looking at the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, and the temptations he endured. A new post will be up every Sunday, and you can view the series overview here: Lent 2018. Mark 1:12-13And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. That’s all Mark has to say on that time Jesus spent there, and John doesn’t mention the forty days at all. That leaves only Luke and Matthew which mention th...

Does Easter Have Pagan Origins?

...hers fast forty days … And this variety among observers [of the fasts] did not have its origin in our time, but long before in that of our predecessors.–Irenaeus (c.180) Notice here that Irenaeus mentions that this was a practice passed onto them by their “predecessors”, a term often used in conjunction with the Apostles themselves, or those who immediately came after them, putting the origins of this Lenten fast much earlier than when Irenaeus wrote in 180, and also possibly having Apostolic origin. The Easter controversy and why we celebrate it when we do Back in the days of the early church, there arose a controversy around the celebration of Eas...

From Dust to Redemption: The Meaning of Ash Wednesday

...Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–2) and was intended to prepare believers spiritually for the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. Athanasius, the great bishop of Alexandria, regularly wrote paschal (Easter) letters to the churches to encourage fasting, self-control, and moderation during this period. His writings provide valuable insight into how Lent was observed in the early Church and confirm that the practice was well established long before later claims that it had pagan origins. In one of his letters, written around AD 332, he describes the structure of the Lenten fast: The beginning of the fast of forty days is on the fifth of the m...

Is fasting an expectation for Christians?

...hers fast forty days … And this variety among observers [of the fasts] did not have its origin in our time, but long before in that of our predecessors. — Irenaeus (c.180) Evidence for this is well established from the ancient letters that we still have available to us, such as from Irenaeus quoted above. As you can see, the fast varied in the earlier times until it became fixed at forty days across the whole Church in the run up to Easter. Fasting has been a steadfast part of the faith not only in the earliest of times, but even as ‘recently’ as the Reformation era. John Calvin, in his Institutes, wrote on the topic as it appears in his time th...

Fasting: A spiritual and physical discipline

...Lent the forty days “fits” from Ash Wednesday to Easter Saturday, by not counting the Sundays of Lent, otherwise it would be 46 days. Types of Fasts There’s a whole variety of different fasts which the Church has observed over the years (see this calendar as an example of Greek Orthodox fasting)! But here’s a breakdown of some typical fasts which anyone in good health should be able to keep which I’ve taken from the various teachings found in the Church Fathers letters on fasting and Lent: Weekly: A fast observed every Wednesday and Friday until sundown in the Traditional practice (see below) or a bread and water only diet. Wednesdays and Friday...