Fitness Is Not an End in Itself
Christian Fitness
A Christian motivation for exercise is the good of others. Or we could say, for love’s sake. I exercise to make myself a better servant of others, to be fit for good works.
When my life is joyfully active and less sedentary, when I feel strong—when it seems clear to me that a happier life comes from activity, not passivity—I’m more ready to spring into action to help others. I’m ready to move. Ready to respond. Ready to hear. Ready to help. I believe that exercise makes me a better servant of others—a better husband, father, pastor, and friend.
Regular bodily exertion not only assists our personal pursuit of joy in God and fights against joy-destroying sin but also readies us to move beyond self-focus and have our hearts primed to meet the needs of others. Here’s how John Piper explains why he has set aside time to exercise for more than fifty years:
My main motive for exercise is purity and productivity. By purity, I mean being a more loving person (as Jesus said, “love your neighbor,” Matthew 22:39). By productivity, I mean getting a lot done (as Paul said, “abounding in the work of the Lord,” 1 Corinthians 15:58). . . . In short, I have one life to live for Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:15). I don’t want to waste it. My approach is not mainly to lengthen it, but to maximize purity and productivity now.1
A Little Theology of Exercise
David Mathis
In our sedentary age, many feel either sluggish or trapped in a self-focused fitness culture. A Little Theology of Exercise encourages readers to healthily steward their bodies for the service of the soul, the praise of God, and the good of others.
Precisely because “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10), we want to adequately condition our bodies so that they are a help, rather than a hindrance, in the daily cause of love. We want our bodies to be an aid—not an obstacle—in readying us to sacrifice our own comforts and energy to do good for others at home and for the church and beyond.
Fit for What?
From this perspective, Christians can appreciate the term fitness. To call an active, able, healthy human body fit implies that the body is not an end in itself. The body’s “fitness” is not for posing on camera or on stages but for doing something—accomplishing tasks in the world. The goal of fitness is not to look good in the mirror or on Instagram. True fitness serves other purposes. The body is fit to do something. The question is: Fit for what?
In Christ, we have far better answers to that question than secular workout culture and its false gods. Twice Paul uses a phrase that could be our rallying cry for a genuinely Christian call to fitness: “ready for every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21; Titus 3:1). In Christ, we want to cleanse our bodies “from what is dishonorable” (that is, from all forms of sin, including laziness) and “be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21).
We want to be ready. Ready to move and display God in his world. Ready with hands and arms, not too bulky and not too flabby, that can reach and lift and pull and push. Ready with feet and legs that feel life and energy in every step and spring with joy into blessing others. Ready with minds, hearts, and wills that typically would rather move than lounge, that would rather be active than sit and watch a screen for too long, that would rather work to help others than to calculate how to move as little as possible.
In the service of love, we want to get (and keep) our bodies, depending on our season of life, in the condition needed to serve God’s callings on us to love others. We want to be the kind of people who desire to do good for others, knowing that such good often requires exerting our bodies in ways that are uncomfortable in the moment and even unthinkable if we are lazy and unfit.
We want to be ready. Ready to move and display God in his world.
As we have rehearsed many times, Paul says, “Glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:20). But how does a body glorify God? One way to approach the question is through the lens of Matthew 5:16: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Invisible joy in God, in the inner person, overflows into visible, outward acts of love for the benefit of others (good works), accompanied by audible words that testify to the worth and value of God in Christ.
“Let your light shine” is what God’s imagers do. They make the invisible God visibly present to human eyes in a particular place and time. What others see is our bodies doing good to bless others. And critical to God being glorified in our bodily actions is that our joy in him is made known in our faces, words, and manner. When our good works are seen (and heard) to be an overflow of our joy in God, he is glorified.
Not long ago, a friend and I were discussing the New Testament commands to love and good works. He commented, “Some of us imagine the Christian life as being sedentary, more about sitting than standing, more about talking and listening than anything causing exertion.”
Although some may assume that life in Christ is lived mainly in living rooms and coffee shops, you don’t get the impression that early Christians were sitting around all the time. They were active. Of course, we welcome the Lord’s invitations (indeed commands!) to meditate, study, and be still in his presence. But we also encounter the teachings of Jesus, Peter, James, and Paul—one after another—sending us into gospel-informed, faith-fueled lives of meaningful activity.
Devoted to Doing Good
As just a taste, consider more of what the apostle Paul had to say to his young associates Timothy and Titus. The rich in this present age, he writes, are not to sit on their wealth but to “do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share” (1 Tim. 6:18). In his calling as a pastor, Titus is to be active, showing himself “in all respects to be a model of good works” (Titus 2:7). That is, don’t be a model mainly by what you don’t do but by the good works you perform—not to earn God’s favor but as evidence of it so that you may extend it to others.
Paul expected both sound words and good works from his protégés. And he expected all Christians would be not just willing to do good but be “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). He wanted to ensure that those who profess faith are “careful to devote themselves to good works” (Titus 3:8). The problem with the false teachers in Crete was this: “They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work” (Titus 1:16). Paul’s instructions for Christians provide a conspicuous contrast: “Let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful” (Titus 3:14).
Particularly in our sedentary times, let us pray that the phrase the apostle crafted for Timothy and Titus would be true of us—that we would be “ready for every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21; Titus 3:1).
Notes:
- John Piper, “Brothers, Bodily Training Is of Some Value,” in Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, exp. ed. (B&H, 2013), 186–87.
This article is adapted from A Little Theology of Exercise: Enjoying Christ in Body and Soul by David Mathis.
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