Fasting — More Than Skipping Meals
A covenant practice with deep scriptural roots that most of modern Christianity has forgotten
Isaiah 58 is the most complete treatment of fasting in all of scripture — and it says almost nothing about the physical act. It is about what fasting produces: justice, charity, freedom from bondage.
Most Christians think of fasting as a private spiritual discipline — something individuals do occasionally when they want to feel closer to God or seek an answer to a pressing question. A few traditions maintain structured fasts. Most have let the practice drift into informality or disuse. It is considered optional, personal, and largely interior.
LDS doctrine treats fasting as a covenant practice with outward as well as inward dimensions. It is regular, communal, and tied to direct material care for the poor. And the scriptural case for understanding it that way is overwhelming.
What Fasting Is in Scripture
Fasting appears throughout the Old and New Testaments as a practice bound up with prayer, mourning, repentance, and petition. Moses fasted forty days on Sinai. David fasted when his child was ill. Esther called a fast before approaching the king. Elijah fasted before his journey to Horeb. Daniel fasted repeatedly in preparation for revelation.
In the New Testament, Christ fasted forty days before beginning His ministry. He taught His disciples how to fast — not whether to fast. Matthew 6 assumes it: “When thou fastest” — not “if thou fastest.”
“Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.”
Jesus did not abolish fasting. He corrected the hypocrisy around it and pointed it toward genuine relationship with the Father. The early church fasted regularly. Acts 14:23 records the apostles fasting when they ordained elders in every church. Nehemiah fasted and prayed before making his request to the king (Nehemiah 1:4). Fasting is not peripheral in scripture. It is a core covenant discipline.
The question is not whether Christians should fast. The question is whether they understand what it is for.
Isaiah 58 — The Definitive Text
If you want to understand fasting as God defines it, read Isaiah 58. The chapter opens with God rebuking Israel for a fasting practice that was ritually correct and spiritually empty. They fasted, afflicted their souls, wore sackcloth — and then asked why God wasn't paying attention.
God's answer is direct: your fast is not what I asked for. You fast and then exploit your workers. You fast and then quarrel. The outward form is there; the inward transformation is not.
Then He defines the fast He actually wants:
“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?”
Loose the bands of wickedness. Undo heavy burdens. Free the oppressed. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. This is Isaiah's definition of a true fast. Not the skipping of meals. The breaking of chains — your own and others'.
The chapter continues with a cascade of promised blessings for those who fast this way: health, answered prayer, guidance, strength, restoration, joy. The fast that produces these results is not primarily a physical act. It is an act of covenant solidarity with those in need, enabled by the hunger that reminds you what it feels like to lack.
The Fast Offering — Fasting That Feeds Others
LDS practice connects fasting directly to care for the poor through the fast offering. On the first Sunday of each month — the Fast Sunday — members fast for two consecutive meals and donate the money they would have spent (or more) to the bishop to assist those in need. The offering goes directly to members experiencing hardship: food, rent, medical bills, utilities.
This is Isaiah 58 made institutional. The fast that God chose was the one that fed the hungry. LDS members, by fasting and donating, quite literally do both at once: they experience hunger themselves and use that experience to alleviate hunger in someone else's life.
The Doctrine and Covenants gives additional shape to the purpose:
“And on this day thou shalt do none other thing, only let thy food be prepared with singleness of heart that thy fasting may be perfect, or, in other words, that thy joy may be full. Verily, this is fasting and prayer, or in other words, rejoicing and prayer.”
How LDS Fast and Why
The standard LDS fast involves abstaining from food and water for two meals (approximately twenty-four hours), beginning and ending with prayer. The fast is accompanied by a designated purpose — a specific question, a person being prayed for, a spiritual struggle being offered to God. It is not vague. It is intentional.
Alma's testimony in the Book of Mormon describes how he came to know spiritual things:
“Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit.”
Fasting is not a technique for generating spiritual experiences. It is an act of submission — a physical statement that your body is not in charge. For the duration of the fast, the body is quieted so that something else can be heard. The hunger is real. The discomfort is real. And that is precisely the point: you are telling God, with your body, that you mean this.
Fasting Across Scripture
- Nehemiah 1:4 — Nehemiah fasts and prays before bringing his request before the king
- Acts 14:23 — Apostles fast when ordaining elders in every church
- Alma 5:46 — Fasting and prayer as the path to personal spiritual knowledge
- D&C 59:13–14 — Fasting defined as rejoicing and prayer — inward, not merely physical
What Fasting Produces
Isaiah 58 closes with a list of what the true fast produces for those who keep it: health, answered prayer, the Lord's guidance in dry places, strength to rebuild what has been broken, and the restoration of relationship with God. These are not small promises. They describe a life that works — not easily, not without cost, but deeply and sustainably.
In LDS experience, the monthly fast produces something specific: solidarity. The member who skips two meals is briefly in the condition of someone who can't afford them. That experience — brief and voluntary as it is — creates genuine empathy. When you donate the money from those meals to someone who is actually hungry, the empathy becomes action. Isaiah 58 said the true fast loosens the bonds and frees the oppressed. LDS practice does this literally, month by month, in congregations around the world.
Fasting also produces clarity. When the body is quieted and a specific purpose is held before God in prayer, answers come that do not come otherwise. Doctrine and Covenants 59 describes the fast as a day of rejoicing — not grimness. The fast is not about punishment. It is about opening a channel that appetite and distraction tend to keep closed.
What LDS doctrine recovers in fasting is what most of Christianity has let slip: a regular, communal, scripturally grounded practice that is simultaneously personal (you and God) and social (you and the poor). Isaiah knew both were necessary. Christ assumed His disciples would fast. The early church built fasting into its rhythm. LDS practice restores that rhythm — not as an unusual quirk, but as the text actually demands.