Exercising the Body (For the Sake of the Soul)
00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, you have a new edition out of your book Brothers, We Are Not
00:00:08.100 | Professionals, and it's a book for pastors, but I remember reading it cover
00:00:11.460 | to cover for my own Christian Growth several years back, and in this new
00:00:15.140 | edition, what's changed is you've added six new chapters, and one of those
00:00:17.940 | chapters is on exercise. It's not easy to explain the body-soul dynamic; this is
00:00:22.420 | pretty tricky stuff, but what have you learned as you've thought through the
00:00:25.580 | topic of exercise and why exercise matters? I learned things from the Bible,
00:00:31.700 | and then I learned things from trying to work it out. What I see in the Bible is
00:00:37.260 | that bodily training is of some value. 1st Timothy 4, 8. Spiritual training is
00:00:46.540 | of value in every way, so if you have to choose, choose spiritual training, but he
00:00:50.660 | does say bodily fitness, bodily training is of some value, so I know in Paul's
00:00:57.980 | mind there's some good in this, and he says in 1st Corinthians 6,
00:01:02.980 | "I won't be enslaved by anything. The stomach is for food, food is for the
00:01:10.020 | stomach, both will be cast away, and all things are lawful for me, but not all
00:01:17.780 | things help, all things are legitimate for me, but I won't be enslaved by any,"
00:01:21.860 | which means Christians should never be in bondage to food and drink, which means
00:01:29.300 | you should ask, "Well, what should be the guideline?" And I would assume with
00:01:34.520 | Jonathan Edwards, who had resolutions about this, that we eat in a way and we
00:01:39.140 | drink in a way that doesn't deny the sheer pleasure that God intends us to
00:01:43.820 | have, he says that plainly in the pastoral epistles, but don't jeopardize our own
00:01:50.060 | faith or another's faith, our own health, that would undercut our ability to
00:01:55.780 | serve Him. You know, in that same text, I remember years ago, seeing for the
00:02:01.780 | first time, it says, "The Lord is for the body, and the body is for the Lord," and I
00:02:09.460 | always heard, "The body is for the Lord," my mother, you know, taught me not to
00:02:14.420 | smoke because your body's the temple of the Holy Spirit, and you don't treat your body
00:02:18.100 | that way. That argument worked for me as a kid, but I never noticed the
00:02:23.180 | Lord is for the body, which means God is very pro-body, He's not a Platonist. He's
00:02:28.940 | gonna, He created the body, He's gonna raise the body from the dead, He believes
00:02:32.260 | in the body, He wants us, therefore, I think, to take care of the body. So that's
00:02:37.780 | that's my biblical piece. My practical piece is this, two things. When I was in
00:02:44.500 | Germany, remember, realizing for the first time, so I'm between 25 and 28 years old,
00:02:50.820 | I'm real slow, so I should have known this earlier, but when I lack sleep, I get
00:02:58.340 | irritable. That is, I'm impatient. When I get enough sleep, I'm less irritable and
00:03:04.820 | more patient, and that created a huge theological problem for me, because the
00:03:09.980 | Bible says that patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, and now I've just said
00:03:13.860 | it's a fruit of sleep. So you talked about the soul-body dynamic, well, there
00:03:18.340 | it is. Crystal clear, my sanctification level rises and falls with eight hours
00:03:26.140 | versus five hours of sleep. How in the world can that be biblical? And the way I
00:03:31.500 | resolve that is this, the way the Holy Spirit, who knows that we are soul and
00:03:37.820 | body, produces His fruit is not only directly by giving us supernatural power
00:03:45.020 | to be patient when we haven't gotten enough sleep, but He also gives us the
00:03:50.940 | humility to go to bed and stop playing God and get enough sleep and admit, "Okay,
00:03:57.300 | staying up another two hours either to waste it on TV or to work my tail off
00:04:02.060 | trying to get more done on my dissertation, both of those are sinful,
00:04:06.140 | and you are bringing about your impatience by failing to sleep." And the
00:04:11.260 | Holy Spirit cuts that off and says, "No, you must be humble. I'm going to make
00:04:15.980 | you humble enough to go to bed." That's one. And here's the other one. I know
00:04:20.380 | that I'm prone to depression and discouragement, and I have simply
00:04:24.420 | discovered, Tony, that if I go to the gym three times a week and hammer my body,
00:04:30.020 | that is get on an elliptical and push through three, four, five miles and sweat
00:04:36.540 | two, three pounds off, I don't get depressed as often, period. Now, I'm
00:04:43.540 | sure there are physical reasons for that, these little endorphins or
00:04:47.620 | something that are released in the brain or whatever, or it could be just I'm
00:04:50.780 | satisfied with myself more than if I just sit and vegetate at home. Whatever
00:04:55.340 | it is, I know that works. I know depression hurts my ministry, depression
00:04:59.900 | hurts my marriage, depression hurts my parenting. So, for the sake of kingdom
00:05:04.260 | purposes, I'm off to the gym. You know, you can just leave aside exercise. That's a
00:05:08.380 | big controversy, but eating is not controversial. Everybody has to eat to
00:05:12.700 | live, and everybody has to sleep to live. Those are two. You can live without
00:05:17.340 | exercise, but you can't live without eating and sleeping. And then the question
00:05:20.820 | becomes, "All right, how do I govern my eating and sleeping to maximize my
00:05:27.660 | life, my soul, for the kingdom?" And everybody will discover the connections
00:05:32.740 | if they think about it. Thank you, Pastor John. The newly re-released book is titled
00:05:38.220 | "Brothers, We Are Now Professionals," and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:05:41.020 | If you have a question for Pastor John, please send it to us via email at
00:05:43.900 | AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. Please include your first name and your
00:05:47.580 | hometown. You can find thousands of other resources from John Piper for free
00:05:50.940 | online at DesiringGod.org. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening.
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