FASTING SECRET # THREE

 FASTING SECRET # THREE

Overcoming The Sinful Nature

Here is an excerpt from chapter three:

1 Cor 9:24­27 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. 

25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. 

26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: 

27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

I want to show you several Bible versions of 1 Corinthians 9:27. They are quite enlightening.

1 Cor 9:27 but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. NASU

1 Cor 9:27 but I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected. ASV

1 Cor 9:27 But I give blows to my body, and keep it under control, for fear that, after having given the good news to others, I myself might not have God's approval. BBE

1 Cor 9:27 but I hit hard and straight at my own body and lead it off into slavery, lest possibly, after I have been a herald to others, I should myself be rejected. Weymouth

Look at the comments in Vincent's Word Studies on verse 27. "I keep under" hupoopiazoo. A feeble translation, and missing the metaphor. The word means "to strike under the eye; to give one a black eye." It occurs elsewhere in the New Testament but once, Luke 18:5 (see note). The English Revised Version (1885): "I buffet." The blow of the trained boxer was the more formidable from the use of the "cestus," consisting of ox­hide bands covered with knots and nails, and loaded with lead and iron. So Entellus throws Iris boxing­gloves into the ring, formed of seven bulls'­hides with lead and iron sewed into them (Virgil, "Aeneid," v., 405). They were sometimes called guiotoroi, "limb­breakers." A most interesting account is given by Rodolfo Lanziani, "Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries," of the exhuming at the foundation of the Temple of the Sun, erected by Aurelian, of a sitting bronze statue of a boxer. The accompanying photograph shows the construction of the fur­lined boxing gloves secured by thongs wound around the forearm half­way to the elbow. The gloves cover the thumb and the hand to the first finger­joints. The writer says; "The nose is swollen from the effects of the last blow received; the ears resemble a fiat and shapeless piece of leather; the neck, the shoulders, the breast, are seamed with scars... The details of the fur­lined boxing­gloves are also interesting, and one wonders how any human being, no matter how strong and powerful, could stand the blows from such weapons as these gloves, made of four or five thicknesses of leather, and fortified with brass knuckles." "Bring it into subjection" doulagoogoo. The English Revised Version (1885): "bring it into bondage." Metaphor of captives after battle. Not of leading the vanquished round the arena (so Godet), a custom of which there is no trace, and which, in most cases, the condition of the vanquished would render impossible. It is rather one of those sudden changes and mixtures of metaphor so frequent in Paul's writings. See, for instance, 2 Cor 5:1­2. (from Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1997, 2003, 2005, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.) 

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So yes, we are talking about fasting and prayer. Let me point out two things that stand out in Vincents Word Studies. "to strike under the eye". When you are fasting, you are in a sense, striking yourself under the eye. You are beating yourself repeatedly with the fist...

CHECK OUT THIS SHORT 4 MINUTE YOUTUBE VIDEO ON THE SUBJECT