Blended Gospels: A Question About Fasting

And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and sinners reclining with Jesus, eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And when the Pharisees, and the scribes of the Pharisees saw this, they grumbled and said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink."

And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn and fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

He also told them a parable: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. For the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made.

"Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed and so are the skins. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'"

[Matthew 9:10-17, Mark 2:15-22, Luke 5:29-39 ESV]

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