Self-denial
Self-denial in scripture is not bare austerity but a turning of appetite, possession, and even life itself outward — toward Yahweh and toward one's neighbor. The pattern runs from Abraham on Moriah to a poor widow at the temple treasury and out to apostles who reckon their gains as loss. Across the canon it is consistently set against its opposite, self-indulgence, so the topic is most clearly seen when the two are read together: a rich man feasting "every day" against a man who renounces "all that he has," a king's banquet against a fast in sackcloth, the belly that is one's god against the body that is buffeted into slavery to the gospel.
The Call to Deny Oneself
The bluntest form of the call comes from Jesus on the road. He calls the multitude with his disciples and says, "If any man wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; and whoever loses his soul for the sake of me and the good news will save it" (Mark 8:34-35). Luke's parallel makes the demand recurrent rather than once-for-all: "let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me" (Luke 9:23-24).
The call escalates. Discipleship is incompatible with any rival affection: "If any man comes to me, and does not hate his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own soul also, he can't be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross, and come after me, can't be my disciple" (Luke 14:26-27). It reaches its outer edge in the renunciation of property: "So therefore whoever he is of you⁺ who does not renounce all that he has, he can't be my disciple" (Luke 14:33). The companion saying about the body is just as severe: "if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off" (Mark 9:43).
Renunciation of All Things
Disciples respond by leaving what they had. Fishermen "left all, and followed him" (Luke 5:11). A toll-collector named Levi "forsook all, and rose up and followed him" (Luke 5:28). Peter speaks for the Twelve: "Look, we have left all, and have followed you" (Mark 10:28). Jesus answers with a promise that loss is repaid: "There is no man who has left house, or wife, or brothers, or parents, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life" (Luke 18:29-30).
Paul applies the same accounting to his own pedigree: "what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. But on the contrary, I also count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and regard them as crap, that I may gain Christ" (Phil 3:7-8). The widow who "of her want cast in all that she had, [even] all her living" embodies the same posture without theology attached (Mark 12:43-44).
Subduing the Flesh
Once one is in Christ, self-denial takes the form of an ongoing war on what Paul calls the flesh. The old man "was crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be done away" (Rom 6:6); "those who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal 5:24). The verb tense is past, but the practice is daily: "for if you⁺ live after the flesh, you⁺ must die; but if by the Spirit you⁺ put to death the activities of the body, you⁺ will live" (Rom 8:13). The positive form is to clothe oneself: "But put⁺ on the Lord Jesus Christ, and don't make provision for the flesh, to [fulfill] the desires [of it]" (Rom 13:14). Walking by the Spirit produces the same result on the other side: "But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and you⁺ will not fulfill the desire of the flesh" (Gal 5:16).
Paul reports it of himself in athletic terms: "I buffet my body, and bring it into slavery: lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disapproved" (1 Cor 9:27). Peter pleads it of his readers: "Beloved, I urge you⁺ as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly desires, which war against the soul" (1 Pet 2:11) — the goal being that one "no longer should live the rest of [one's] time in the flesh to the desires of men, but to the will of God" (1 Pet 4:2). Colossians names what dies: "Put to death therefore your⁺ members which are on the earth: whoring, impurity, immoral sexual passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry" (Col 3:5; cf. 1 Thess 4:3).
Colossians also flags a counterfeit. Mere "do-it-yourself religion, and humility, and severity to the body" has "a show of wisdom" but is "not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh" (Col 2:23). Self-denial in scripture is not severity for severity's sake.
Restraining the Appetites
A whole sub-tradition concerns ordinary appetite. Proverbs sketches the table-discipline: "When you sit to eat with a ruler, Consider diligently him who is before you; And put a knife to your throat, If you are a man who is given to soul. ... Don't be among winebibbers, Among gluttonous eaters of flesh" (Prov 23:1-20). Honey is a parable of moderation — "Eat so much as is sufficient for you, Or else you will be filled with it, and vomit it" (Prov 25:16). Mastery of self is greater than military victory: "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty; And he who rules his spirit, than he who takes a city" (Prov 16:32).
Jesus extends restraint past food to anxious calculation about food: "Don't be anxious for [your⁺] soul, what you⁺ will eat; nor yet for [your⁺] body, what you⁺ will put on" (Luke 12:22). The eschatological warning runs the other direction: "But take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your⁺ hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come upon you⁺ suddenly as a snare" (Luke 21:34).
Sirach's wisdom turns up the same theme repeatedly. "Do not go after your desires, And refrain yourself from your appetites. If you grant to your soul the gratification of [her] desire, You will make yourself a cause of rejoicing to your enemies" (Sir 18:30-31; cf. 18:32). At another's table: "Do not stretch out your hand at that which he looks at... Eat like a man what is set before you, And do not eat greedily lest you be despised" (Sir 31:15-16). Insatiability is named as the danger: "Do not be insatiable in every luxury, And give not yourself wholly to every dainty" (Sir 37:29).
The Discipline of Fasting
Fasting is the body-language of self-denial in the Old Testament. It marks repentance — "Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly... Yet even now, says Yahweh, turn⁺ to me with all your⁺ heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning" (Joel 1:14; 2:12) — and intercession: "I afflicted my soul with fasting; And my prayer returned into my own bosom" (Ps 35:13; cf. Ps 69:10).
Israel fasts at Mizpah after defeat (1 Sam 7:6; cf. Judg 20:26). Jonathan fasts in grief for David (1 Sam 20:34); the men of Jabesh fast seven days for Saul (1 Sam 31:13; 1 Chr 10:12); David and his men mourn and fast for Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam 1:12) and David refuses bread until sundown the day Abner is buried (2 Sam 3:35). David fasts and lies on the earth through his child's illness (2 Sam 12:16). Ahab fasts in sackcloth at Elijah's word (1 Kings 21:27); Ezra fasts over the trespass of the captivity (Ezra 10:6); the returned exiles fast in sackcloth and earth on the twenty-fourth day (Neh 9:1). Esther summons her people to a three-day fast before she enters the king: "if I perish, I perish" (Esther 4:16). Daniel ate "no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine into [his] mouth" for three weeks (Dan 10:3); the night Daniel spent in the lions' den, the king at his palace "passed the night fasting; neither were instruments of music brought before him" (Dan 6:18).
The same discipline carries forty-day exemplars. Moses "was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water" (Ex 34:28). Elijah "ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God" (1 Kings 19:8).
The prophets warn that fasting can be hollow. "Why have we fasted, [they say], and you don't see? ... Look, in the day of your⁺ fast you⁺ find [your⁺ own] pleasure, and exact all your⁺ labors" (Isa 58:3); "When they fast, I will not hear their cry" (Jer 14:12); "When you⁺ fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh [month], even these seventy years, did you⁺ at all fast to me, even to me?" (Zech 7:5). Luke's Pharisee in the parable boasts, "I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get" (Luke 18:12) — the form without the heart.
Vows of Separation
Israel formalized self-denial in the Nazirite vow. "When either man or woman will make a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to Yahweh, he will separate himself from wine and strong drink; he will drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither will he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or dried" (Num 6:2-3; cf. 6:13). Samson is dedicated from the womb: "no razor will come upon his head; for the lad will be a Nazirite to God from the womb" (Judg 13:5). Hannah's vow over Samuel reads the same way: "I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and no razor will come upon his head" (1 Sam 1:11). Amos remembers the institution as Yahweh's gift: "I raised up of your⁺ sons for prophets, and of your⁺ young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O you⁺ sons of Israel? says Yahweh" (Amos 2:11). Lamentations describes the polished bearing of the dedicated: "Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire" (Lam 4:7).
The Rechabites are an ancestral parallel. "We will drink no wine; for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us... neither will you⁺ build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any; but all your⁺ days you⁺ will dwell in tents" (Jer 35:6-7). Daniel adds his private rule, refusing the king's table: "Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's dainties, nor with the wine which he drank" (Dan 1:8).
Paul brings the same logic into the celibate life. "I say to those who have never married and to the widowed, It is good for them if they stay even as I" (1 Cor 7:8); "Are you betrothed to a wife? Do not seek to break it off. Are you no longer betrothed to a wife? Do not seek a wife" (1 Cor 7:27). Married couples are warned not to use the principle as cover for neglect: "Do not deprive⁺ one another, except it is by consent for a season, that you⁺ may give yourselves to prayer, and may be together again, that Satan does not tempt you⁺ because of your⁺ lack of self-control" (1 Cor 7:5). The pastoral epistles flag a counterfeit going the other way — those "forbidding to marry, [and commanding] to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving" (1 Tim 4:3). Revelation pictures a final company who follow the Lamb wherever he goes, "those who were not defiled with women; for they are virgins... These were purchased from among men, [to be] the first fruits to God and to the Lamb" (Rev 14:4).
The Self Denied for the Sake of Others
A second strand of self-denial directs the cost outward — toward the neighbor. Paul makes it the explicit duty of the strong: "Now we who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves" (Rom 15:1). Philippians puts it in the language of attention: "each of you⁺ not looking to his own things, but each of you⁺ also to the things of others" (Phil 2:4).
David refuses an offering that costs him nothing: "I will truly buy it of you at a price. Neither will I offer burnt-offerings to Yahweh my God which cost me nothing" (2 Sam 24:24). He vows sleeplessness until Yahweh has a place: "Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, Nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes, Or slumber to my eyelids; Until I find out a place for Yahweh, A tabernacle for the Mighty One of Jacob" (Ps 132:3-5). Moses pleads his own cleanliness in the same language as Samuel after him: "I haven't taken one donkey from them, neither have I hurt one of them" (Num 16:15); "whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded?" (1 Sam 12:3).
The widow of Zarephath gives Elijah her last meal first (1 Kings 17:12-15). Daniel refuses Belshazzar's gold: "Let your gifts be to yourself, and give your rewards to another; nevertheless I will read the writing to the king" (Dan 5:17). Esther risks her life for her people (Esther 4:16). Hebrews describes Moses' choice in the same terms: "choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season" (Heb 11:25). And the recipients of Hebrews are urged into the same posture: "Let us therefore go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach" (Heb 13:13).
The Pull the Other Way
The umbrella is sharpened by its opposite. Scripture is unsentimental about self-indulgence.
The pleasure-seeking life chokes the word — "they are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of [this] life, and bring no fruit to perfection" (Luke 8:14) — and produces the rich fool's monologue: "Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry" (Luke 12:19). It feeds the prodigal who "wasted his substance with riotous living" (Luke 15:13) and the rich man "clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day" (Luke 16:19). It surfaces in the widow "who gives herself to pleasure [and] is dead while she lives" (1 Tim 5:6); in the last-days catalogue of "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God" (2 Tim 3:4); in the past tense of believers who once were "serving as slaves to diverse desires and pleasures" (Titus 3:3); in James's verdict on the rich — "You⁺ have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your⁺ pleasure; you⁺ have nourished your⁺ hearts in a day of slaughter" (Jas 5:5); and in Peter's portrait of false teachers who "count it pleasure to revel in the daytime" (2 Pet 2:13).
The Epicurean voice itself surfaces in scripture only to be rejected. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die" is what Jerusalem says when it should mourn (Isa 22:13), and Paul takes it up only to describe the absurdity of unbelief: "If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (1 Cor 15:32). Ecclesiastes flirts with the slogan more sympathetically — "Is it not good that man should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor? This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God" (Eccl 2:24; cf. 5:18; 8:15; 9:7) — but qualifies it with the verdict that pleasure-as-end is "vanity" (Eccl 2:1).
The Old Testament reads luxury the same way. Solomon's table — "thirty cors of fine flour... ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and a hundred sheep, besides harts, and gazelles, and roebucks, and fatted fowl" (1 Kings 4:22-23) — and his gold drinking-vessels (1 Kings 10:21-22) are reported, then Persia's banquet of seven days with couches of gold and silver and royal wine in abundance (Esther 1:5-7) is reported, and then Amos pronounces the woe: those "who lie on beds of ivory, and stretch themselves on their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock... who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief oils; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph" (Amos 6:4, 6). Babylon hears the same indictment: "you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, I am, and there is no other besides me" (Isa 47:8-9).
Gluttony belongs to the same family. The stubborn son is "a glutton, and a drunkard" (Deut 21:20). Israel's craving for meat in the wilderness "spreads them all abroad" until the people gather quail through a day, a night, and the next day (Num 11:5, 32). Proverbs warns the lover of pleasure into poverty (Prov 21:17), and prodigality, wantonness, and the company of prostitutes (Prov 18:9; 21:20; 29:3) are read as variants of the same disorder.
Paul's harshest verdict ties it all together: those "whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and [whose] glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things" (Phil 3:19). Self-denial, in the canon's reading, is not the rejection of created good — Ecclesiastes will allow that food and drink in their place are God's gift — but the refusal to make any created good a god.