John the Baptist's Asceticism

QUESTION: Explain Matt. 11:18, 19, "John came neither eating nor drinking," etc. "The son of man came eating and drinking" etc.

ANSWER: John was a rigid ascetic, practicing periodic fasting as specially meritorious, though of course he had to eat and drink to live. Jesus Christ did not periodically fast. He was not an ascetic, nor did he teach his disciples to fast, because it did no more harmonize with the Good News he proclaimed than would a patch of new cloth on an old garment or new wine in old and brittle wine-skins. His eating and drinking were natural, a model of temperance. Fasting is nowhere taught in the New Testament as a Chrisitan duty.

— Steele's Answers pp. 65, 66.