Value the Human Body

One of the most controversial things about you is your body. In 2025, many of our biggest issues have to do with our humanity and, in particular, our human bodies:

• Sexuality and “gender”
• Bodily presence vs. remoteness
• Emotional presence vs. distraction
• Human intelligence vs. artificial intelligence
• The sedentariness of life and work vs. the need for exercise
• Technology as extensions of our bodies, helping us do things vs. simply doing things for us

Our explosion of technological innovations in the modern world has not caught God off guard. He made the world, and us, for this. He put the raw materials for technology into the same rich dust from which he formed Adam. Technology is a God-ordained, God-approved aspect of the creation mandate (to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion; Genesis 1:28), as well as the Great Commission (to make disciples of Jesus; Matthew 28:19). Our various tools and devices can be used wisely and for good, or sinfully and for destruction.

Living as Fully Human

One of the biggest challenges of our lifetimes will be living fully human lives in a dehumanizing age. Would it be true that today the average person feels less and less human?

• Our pace of life
• How little we sleep
• What we eat and drink
• The increasing remoteness and thinness of our relationships
• The power of our tools and technologies that subtly condition us to do, and even to attempt, less and less

In such times, the Christian faith grounds us in our creatureliness and calls us back to a life that is more fully human, living as the humble creatures God made. (Human and humble are from the same ancient root, meaning “earth.”)

The many and wonderful technologies we’re making from the ground can lead us to forget our creatureliness, that we too are from the ground, and to the ground we will soon return.

In case you’ve been conditioned to overlook the inimitable design, abilities, and beauty of the human body, and instead to gawk at machines (most recently, AI), Tony Reinke pays stunning tribute to our Creator’s genius in his book, quoting and commenting on a video by Kevin Kelly called “The Future of Robots” (page 251 in God, Technology, and the Christian Life).

How prone are we to marvel at what the smartphone can do and overlook the stunning abilities of the hand that holds and taps and scrolls this phone, and is far more impressive and valuable than the device!

Value the Body

One of the key points of overlap between Tony and me in our respective theologies of technology and exercise is the human body. In Tony’s last chapter, he says, “Technologies that devalue the human body will never honor the Creator” (253). So, a key question for new technologies will be, Do they honor the human body or not?

That may be the unifying focus of our projects: the Christian valuing of the human body that honors our Creator, which is no small thing. That’s why God made the world, and why he made us — for his glory (1 Corinthians 6:20; 10:31).

At Desiring God, we believe that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him — so a Christian vision for technology, and a Christian vision for exercise, has at its heart our seeing, enjoying, and representing our God by the ways we steward the most amazing created reality in all the world: ourselves.

The banner we put on this gathering today is “Unusually Human.” We believe that at least one aspect of our call as Christians in such times is to be unusually human. That is, fully human — which, sadly, may seem to be less and less usual even among professing Christians, with screens, with AI, with all manner of augmentation to our bodies, and with the effect our technological habits have on our bodies and souls over time.

I really struggled with what to do in these first few minutes before throwing the door open for Q&A. First, I planned to focus on the human body, since the body is a main point of intersection between our two projects. But then I realized, I would hardly be saying anything about exercise. So, first I planned to flesh out this outline, but now I’ll just give it to you. This is the story of the human body in six layers:

1. God made our bodies.
2. Sin has seized our bodies.
3. God himself took a human body (and accomplished our redemption in a human body).
4. God himself dwells in our bodies (the Holy Spirit).
5. We glorify God now in our bodies.
6. We await a spectacular bodily upgrade.

I realize that, of those six, the one that’s the most live (and perhaps feels the most immediately relevant) is the one with the now: We glorify God now in our bodies. So, let me say a little bit more about that, and then I’d like to finish with ten brief maxims on the Christian and physical exercise. Then we’ll bring up Tony and answer questions together about both tech and exercise.

So, first, here are three truths to clarify bodily existence for the Christian. (All three are relevant to both tech and exercise.)

1. God is for the body.

God is not opposed to or uninterested in our bodily existence. He is for the body. “The body is . . . meant . . . for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (1 Corinthians 6:13). In the new heavens and new earth, we will have resurrection bodies. Bodies aren’t going away. He’s for stewarding your body — not neglecting it and not worshiping it.

2. God commends bodily exertion.

God plainly commends the use of our bodies through the effort of work (Ephesians 4:28; 2 Thessalonians 3:10), even hard work (2 Timothy 2:6). We are not to be idle but “busy at work” (2 Thessalonians 3:11). Laziness is sin and both a physical and spiritual danger (Proverbs 21:25). And God designed our bodies to reward work and physical exertion.

What’s more, 1 Timothy 4:8 affirms the value of bodily training. That affirmation comes on top of the assumption in ancient times of a far greater degree of physical activity in the course of normal life and work, not to mention travel, than we assume now. Even in that far more active context in the ancient world, the apostle commends physical training.

3. Spiritual health is ultimate; physical health is not.

Tony and I both emphasize this in our projects. To say it another way, related to exercise, an asymmetrical relationship exists between our eternal souls and current bodies. This is an important clarification, often overlooked in efforts to rescue the physical life from neglect and spiritualism.

For the Christian, the charge to bodily training and physical exertion is qualified. Observe the balancing word of 1 Timothy 4:8: “While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

The recognition that “bodily training is of some value” cuts both ways:

• Those today who are sedentary by choice may need to own that God does indeed value the use and exertion of our bodies (and he designed them to work best and happiest when moving).
• And those who are prone to make exercise a new idol may need to own that it is only of some value, relativized by the pursuit of holistic godliness, which “is of value in every way.”

The ultimacy of spiritual health doesn’t mean that the health of the body is insignificant or marginal. (This is where some Christians have gone wrong.) Rather, bodily movement and exertion are important, and as Christians we put the body to work in service of our souls and the souls of others.

Here’s how Tony says it, related to technology:

Colonizing Mars is not man’s greatest challenge. In a techno-materialistic world, new innovations are inevitable. The real challenge is in seeking spiritual flourishing. (283)

That’s what we’re after: seeking spiritual flourishing, with our tech and with our exercise.

Exercise for Spiritual Flourishing

So, then, how might we approach exercise, at least, in ways that seek spiritual flourishing?

“Christian fitness orients not to looking good but to doing good.”

As a pastor, this is my interest in exercise: how it serves not only natural joy but spiritual joy, and so glorifies God through doing good for others. How might exercising my body serve my soul — my spiritual flourishing — and so make me more ready to do good and love others and honor God?

I finish with ten brief maxims on a Christian vision for exercise.

1. God made us to move and to meditate.

Earlier, we talked about the remarkable flexibility we have as humans. God made us the kind of creatures who think and feel, and also move and act. He made us for contemplation and for exertion, for pondering and for doing.

He designed you for rhythms of life: not always being on the go, not always being on the stay. We glorify him by reflecting on him, and rejoicing in him, and representing him in the world. We meditate and move. Typical human life includes both.

2. No body is perfect.

I mean that in two ways. All of us are sinners. Sin dwells in us and affects us, soul and body, in all our faculties. So, nobody is perfect. And no body is perfect. No one has a perfect body. Because of human sin, we live in a cursed world, and in this cursed world, none of us is without ailments.

Most of us know, all too well and all too painfully, how far from perfect our bodies are. All the more with our fickle, invisible hearts. We all have weaknesses and various disabilities, some major, many very minor. In this fallen world, oh, how we should regularly thank God for what bodily abilities we do have.

3. Our modern lives are far more sedentary than our ancestors’.

Read the old books and see how timeless the motions of the human heart and soul are. Our inner lives resonate deeply with the Psalms. But my, how different our outer lives can seem, and that largely because of technology. A major aspect of that is how sedentary life is today vs. biblical times, when they walked everywhere they went and had no screens.

This is a good place to give a definition of exercise, which is a pretty modern phenomenon (especially in the last 150 years). I’m gleaning this from Daniel Lieberman’s book Exercised. Exercise is “voluntary physical activity undertaken for the sake of health and fitness” (xii).

I’m a pastor and editor. My work life is very sedentary. Other than public speaking, I’m usually sitting at a computer or sitting in a meeting. If I don’t undertake “voluntary physical activity,” I’ll hardly do anything physical, and will soon be out of shape for the few important physical activities I do need to undertake.

4. Fitness is a term Christians can appreciate.

The question is, “Fit for what?” Twice Paul uses a phrase that would be a great banner to fly over Christian fitness: “ready for every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21; Titus 3:1). Are you ready to do good? Are you fit for good works?

The healthy Christian life is no passive existence, which we should keep in mind in an age that subtly conditions us into greater and greater comfort and passivity. As Christians, we find the words of Jesus and his apostles calling us to action again and again. J.C. Ryle observes,

It would not be difficult to point out at least twenty-five or thirty distinct passages in the Epistles where believers are plainly taught to use active personal exertion, and are addressed as responsible for doing energetically what Christ would have them do, and are not told to “yield themselves” up as passive agents and sit still, but to arise and work. A holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling, are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian. (Holiness, xxiii–xxiv)

This leads to the fifth point.

5. Christian fitness orients not to looking good but to doing good.

Matthew 5:16 says, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see” — what? Your washboard abs? Your beach body or beach muscles? No — “your good works [probably fully clothed as you do them] and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” You do them with such effectiveness and humility that others see you but give glory to your Father in heaven.

Our charge is to make physical exertion a means, among others, to spiritual health and joy. Regular bodily movement and exertion put me in a better position to clearly see and deeply savor God in Christ, and then do others good to show them him as well.

6. Exercise is an acquired taste.

This is from personal experience, reading it in others, and common sense. The joy of movement grows over time. As your legs and lungs are conditioned, it’s less uncomfortable and more enjoyable to put them to work. Let this be an encouragement if you’ve tried exercise and it felt terrible.

Energy grows by expending energy; you increase your capacity by expending what you have. Week one is the worst week. It often gets better from there if you stick with it.

7. Exercise serves brain function.

This has been my biggest discovery as I’ve aged, not just in experience but in the literature. As Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey writes,

We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why. We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important — and fascinating — than what it does for the body. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain. (Spark, 3, emphasis added)

Exercise relates to alertness and clarity of thought, and richness and depth of feeling. None of these produces spiritual joy, but it sure helps in the pursuit of spiritual joy when you’re not beginning with a natural joy deficit.

8. Learning to push the body translates into instincts of a healthy soul.

Pushing yourself into the discomfort of exercise trains your will not to give in so quickly when you experience resistance. The hills that matter most in life are typically the hardest ones to climb, and pushing your body to climb or run hills conditions your will to engage and endure the relational and emotional hills we encounter in life and work and Christian mission.

9. We tend to overestimate what can be done in the short run and underestimate what can be done in the long run.

This is especially true with the body (and perhaps all the more with the inner person). The body is very conditionable — you just can’t do it all at once. If you’re out of shape, you can’t get yourself ready for a marathon by next week. But it’s amazing how you can shape and condition and change your body over six months, and six years.

The power of habit is unleashed by small, very doable actions and modest upkeep over time, not by crash diets and unsustainable resolutions.

10. God means for us to pray to him about and for our exercise.

That is, we are to “make holy” our bodily life through hearing what he says in his word and responding to him in prayer.

First Timothy 4:3 sets the scene of God’s good gifts of bodily life. In this verse, it’s food and the marriage bed, which is why I think the next two verses apply to other aspects of bodily life as well, like sleep and exercise. This is 1 Timothy 4:4–5:

Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

We make bodily life holy, and exercise in particular, by hearing what God has to say in his word about our bodies and their movement and then responding back to him in prayer. Two kinds of prayer are mentioned here. One is receiving his gift of bodily life and movement with thanksgiving. And the second is asking him in prayer, in response to his word, to make our bodily activities holy, to consecrate them to his use and honor in our lives.