A Year in Luke/ActsSample

The chapter culminates with Jesus being questioned about why His disciples do not fast, whilst John the Baptist’s do. Whilst acknowledging that His followers will eventually fast, this question is an opportunity for Luke to summarize the point he has been making in the whole chapter. What Jesus is doing is totally resetting the way people relate to God. It is not enough for either outward or inward transformation to occur, it is easy to fake one or the other. Instead, Jesus wanted total transformation of the wineskins themselves.

Systems like fasting had become about outward appearance for religious elite rather than inward transformation. Through His Ministry, Jesus was leveling things out so that anyone might embody the Kingdom of God.

Fasting now becomes a way of us remembering our need for Jesus to be holistically cleansed. It is not about how often, or how well we fast as much as it is about allowing our bodies to be transformed into clean wineskins for the Spirit to flow into and through.