My experience has been that when the Bible says something I want it to say, I use that passage over and over. A case in point is Acts 20:7. The King James version reads:
And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread… (Acts 20:7a)

From that offhand comment, I can build sermons that show that we have to meet on Sunday, that we have to take the Lord’s supper on Sunday, and that we have to take the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. That’s quite a lot of doctrine from a fragment of a sentence. But then we get to verses about enrolling widows, about laying on of hands, anointing with oil, raising hands when praying… and I’d just as soon ignore those verses.

A good example is Acts 13:2. Let’s read from the ESV this time:
“While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.””
(Acts 13:2)

This verse is interesting to me for several reasons. For one, it’s the only passage that I know of that describes Christians as being assembled for worship. Or should I say, worshiping when assembled. The Bible talks of Christians as doing many things when they come together, but this is the only passage I’ve found that applies the word “worship” to what they did (admittedly the KJV calls it “ministering to the Lord,” but I think we can agree that this is worship).

And what were the Christians doing when assembled? They were fasting, among other things. That fact shouts out to me on several levels. For one thing, I’ve often been told that Christians shouldn’t tell each other when they are going to fast. This passage suggests otherwise. Either they had planned this fast together or this was an amazing coincidence (and the Holy Spirit told Luke that they were fasting). I think it’s obvious that they all agreed to fast on this day.

Now a question for you: How many times have you experienced this? How many times has your church or the leaders of your church had a planned fast? Some of you have experienced that, others have gone a lifetime without following this example. Why is fasting not on the radar for most churches in our brotherhood? Why is this example any less normative for us than other examples of early church life?

We see that fasting was a normal part of Christian life, from the example here, other examples in Acts and from Jesus’ teachings. We see that the church planned group fasts. It appears, from this passage (especially verse 4) and from Acts 14:23, that prayer and fasting were part of the leader selection process. I think that we’ve done ourselves a great disservice by ignoring this fact. On the one hand, it weakens our position when we claim to be restoring the early church; is it fair to only restore the parts we like? But more importantly, I think we’ve cheated ourselves out of great spiritual benefits by not teaching and practicing fasting as a corporate activity of the church, as something that we do together in worship to God.

I think that Acts 13:2 should have as much a place in the life of the church as does Acts 20:7. And the church would be all the stronger if we gave this verse its place.