Fasting: The Ancient Practices
Scot McKnight
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008, 176 pp., $17.99, www.thomasnelson.com
Sabbath: The Ancient Practices
Dan Allender
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008, 224 pp., $17.99, www.thomasnelson.com
In his volume in a new series on ancient practices, Dan Allender dismisses notions of Sabbath as a lazy day off or a set of legalistic prohibitions. He meanders meditatively around Sabbath principles of delight, sensual glory, holiness, beauty, play, communal celebration, justice, stillness and surprise. The lack of concrete guidelines for Sabbath observance will frustrate some and free others to find their own ways of setting aside space and time to live in the rhythm of God’s future.
In the same series, but in a markedly different style, Scot McKnight’s contribution teems with definitions, scriptural and church history reference, and even a medical description of the physical results of fasting. McKnight distinguishes between the discipline of abstinence and the practice of fasting, challenging those tempted to consider fasting a way to force God’s hand to view it instead as an appropriate body-and-soul response to encounters with grief and the sacred.
