As Christian leaders, how are we to view our physical bodies?
What part do our physical bodies play in being spiritually healthy?
As a medical doctor, I am only too aware of the fact that our experience of our physical bodies varies greatly. I am particularly mindful of two church friends—one recovering from a heart attack and the other going through the rigors of chemotherapy. They remind me that our bodies are a source of enormous frustration and deep pain.
In my work as an Occupational Health Physician working with church leaders, I have also witnessed the profound sense of loss felt by Church ministers following a life-changing illness. Whether it’s a new diagnosis of a progressive neurological disease or Long Covid, which threatens their calling to remain in full-time ministry, the impact is significant and painful. By contrast, I have also seen how our physical bodies can be an extraordinary resource. When we are fit and well, we can be fruitful and productive in ministry. Furthermore, when we invest in our physical fitness, it can invigorate our minds and lift our spirits for effective ministry.
For me personally as a sixty-something guy, I have my own experience of living in my physical body as aches, pains, and stiffness increase and injuries/ailments take longer to heal. What does the future hold for me as my parkrun times gradually increase? In my attempts to buck the trend of physical decline, I wonder if I might have another marathon in my legs. My wife has her doubts!
So should we treat our bodies as an encumbrance to be endured or are they precious gifts from God to be nourished and cherished? I believe three foundational truths are essential to help us view our bodies correctly.
NEPHESH
The Greek philosopher, Plato, taught that the soul is separate from the body. The influence of Platonic dualism led some theologians in the Church to teach that we would be better off without the burden of our physical bodies. However, this view of the human being is found neither in the Old nor the New Testament. When the Old Testament writers use the Hebrew word, nephesh, often translated ‘soul’, they have in mind an embodied soul, a unified whole of body and soul together. Or to put it another way, nephesh is the entirety of who we are, including our body[1].
The creation story in Genesis confirms this.
God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Gen 1.27
As the narrative unfolds, we are left in no doubt that our bodies are an integral part of what it means to be made in his image. The New Testament underlines the importance of our physical form when God himself becomes incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. John’s gospel is very clear on this point.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
John 1.14a
The apostle Paul is equally positive about the human body. He reminds us that our bodies are ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’ (1 Cor 6.19a). This is why he instructs his readers to ‘honour God with your bodies’ (1 Cor 6.20b) Slaves are viewed no differently. To the slaves in Colossae he writes, ‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart (psyche), as working for the Lord’ (Col 3.23a). Psyche is the Greek equivalent of nephesh, so Paul is clearly referring to the work that slaves are doing with their physical bodies.
Given this background, it is vitally important that we learn to live well in our bodies, seeing them as precious gifts from God; by nourishing our bodies, we feed our souls. When the author Paula Gooder describes soul-making, she makes clear that our bodies are an essential part of the process. ‘Soul-making’, she writes, ‘is a deliberate intention on our part to pay attention to who we are called to be and to seek regular refreshment so that we can grow more and more into the people God yearns for us to be . . . This soul-making is something which includes our bodies—that active seeking out of refreshment that animates us and brings us new life only makes sense if it includes our bodies as well as our ‘inner’ life”.[2]
So, what kind of body refreshment will you seek out? Whether going for a peaceful stroll or taking a demanding hike; starting piano lessons or joining a community choir; or perhaps preparing a healthy meal for your friends, God invites you to ‘live out of a richly animated, integrated existence that brings life and refreshment’ (Paula Gooder).
DECAY AND DEATH
As much as we may delight in our bodies, and use them in fruitful ministry, we know that they are subject to frustration, decay, and death. Our bodies experience this along with the whole of creation, that waits ‘to be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God’ (Rom 8.21).
King David is particularly conscious of his frailty, when he writes in one of his psalms,
Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress;
my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
my soul and body with grief.
My life is consumed by anguish
and my years by groaning;
my strength fails because of my affliction,
and my bones grow weak.
Ps 31.9-10
Our bodies, then, can be an arena in which we are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. They wear out, because this is what happens to bodies in a fallen world. So we would do well to learn contentment by making peace with our finitude. As the theologian Kelly M. Kapic puts it, ‘Many of us fail to understand that our limitations are a gift from God, and therefore good. This produces in us the burden of trying to be something we are not and cannot be’.
We’re not only finite and frail, we’re also sinners. Paul writes about the fierce fight that is going inside believers.
But I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
Rom 7.23-24
Paul refers to this fight when writing to the Corinthians.
I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave . . .
1 Cor 9.26b
How, in practice, should we respond to our bodies that are subject to decay and death? Later in life, it might involve making the effort to take a walk around the block, when such walks are arduous, and our physical strength is failing. Or we might decide to take on a new high-intensity exercise programme as a means of preserving our functional capacity in the face of a progressive neurological condition. For others, a Couch-to-5K programme might be a good idea as a response to our longstanding vulnerability to anxiety and depression. This might also improve our powers of concentration or mental stamina.
Some of us may have developed a bad habit of ignoring advice from medical professionals. Perhaps this is a growth area for us, and we should actually listen to the practice nurse when she tells us that in order to reverse Type 2 diabetes, we need to change our diet and increase the amount of exercise we do.
If we haven’t already, we should all establish a set of healthy habits, acting as good stewards of the gift we’ve been given, in preparation for the challenges that may lie ahead. Finally, we must learn patience and peaceful acceptance, when it becomes clear our days are numbered. We should invest in kindness and gratitude, confident that ‘though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day’ (2 Cor 4.16b).
FUTURE HOPE
This leads us to the third and final foundational truth. Our future hope is not some kind of disembodied existence in heaven, where our souls are free at last from the encumbrance of our bodies. Instead, we await an eternal embodied existence on God’s new earth and new heaven. We look forward to the redemption of our bodies, not from our bodies. During my daily devotions this morning, the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians reminded me of this wonderful truth.
Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
Eph 3.20-21
We live now in the sure hope that one day our mortal (perishable) bodies will be replaced by imperishable spiritual ones, that are no longer subject to death and decay. We will be given new bodies fit for life in the new heavens and new earth—a renewed and transformed earth. Therefore, as Paula Gooder puts it, ‘It is vitally important that we learn to live well in our bodies now, as after death we will have to inhabit a body for a very long time’.
In light of this, let me leave you with these extraordinary words from the apostle Paul.
Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Cor 15.51-57
[2] Body: Biblical Spirituality for the Whole Person. Paula Gooder. SPCK Publishing. 2016.