Christian Fasting

Name: Christian Fasting
Price: 59.99 AUD
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ISBN: 9780567729576

Biblical and Evangelical Perspectives

S.H. Mathews

$59.99

Paperback

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English

T.& T.Clark Ltd
30 April 2026

Old Testaments; New Testaments; Christian life & practice; Christian social thought & activity

Rooted in a rigorous social-scientific reading of the New Testament, S.H. Mathews illuminates how fasting functioned within the honor-shame, kinship-bound, and collectivist world of the first-century Mediterranean. Drawing on anthropology, sociology, and historical criticism, the volume re-situates fasting not as a universal spiritual discipline but as a culturally coded practice signalling mourning, repentance, solidarity, and communal identity. By positioning early Christian fasting within broader Jewish, Greek, Roman and Near Eastern contexts, Mathews demonstrates how abstention shaped boundary-making, social meaning, and the maintenance of group identity. The analysis engages closely with key biblical episodes, Moses’ and Elijah’s forty-day fasts, Esther’s intercessory fast, Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s communal fasts, the critique of exploitative fasting in Isaiah 58, and the ritual fasts in Zechariah 7–8, before turning to the New Testament’s reframing of fasting. Mathews offers detailed readings of Jesus’ forty-day wilderness fast (Matthew 4), the controversies surrounding Pharisaic fasting, Anna’s temple devotion in Luke 2, and the communal discernment fasts in Acts 13–14. Throughout, the study shows how concepts such as honor, limited good, the evil eye, dyadic identity, and Mediterranean social structures shape the rhetorical force and theological function of fasting across the canon. Bringing this framework into dialogue with contemporary evangelical interpretations, Mathews challenges modern assumptions that cast fasting primarily as a private or devotional practice. Instead, the book presents a compelling and nuanced account of fasting as a socially embedded act—one that both reflected and reshaped early Christian piety, communal life, and interpretive traditions. A valuable resource for scholars, teachers, and advanced students, the volume offers a rich interdisciplinary lens for understanding one of the most overlooked phenomena in biblical interpretation.

By: S.H. Mathews
Imprint: T.& T.Clark Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 244mm, Width: 169mm,
ISBN: 9780567729576
ISBN 10: 0567729575
Pages: 164
Publication Date: 30 April 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

S. H. Mathews teaches at Fruitland Baptist Bible College.

Reviews for Christian Fasting: Biblical and Evangelical Perspectives

The significance of Mathews’s work is unquestionable. Besides the misuse of other spiritual gifts, the nature and practice of Christian fasting is the most misunderstood in some African church contexts... Mathews has provided the church with a very important tool for addressing the challenges related to the practice of fasting. In short, the book is the outcome of a thorough analysis of a topic that seems neglected by evangelical Christians today. It is relevant and worth reading. * Word & World * Mathew’s book provides reliable information on the meaning and practice of fasting in the first-century world. Before one can decide on what a text means for today, one should first ask what it meant in is original setting. An interpretation of the meaning of texts in their original setting can easily be anachronistic, especially when the cultural scripts evoked by these texts are not taken into consideration. By employing a social-scientific approach, Mathews does not only show what the practice of fasting entailed in the first-century, but also how these texts could and should be applied by Christians today who see the practice of fasting as an essential element of religious devotion. The book also shows that critical scholarship indeed can enhance the faith of believers. -- Ernest van Eck, University of Pretoria