What Would Jesus Do for Exercise?
Did Jesus Exercise?
Let’s start by asking, “Did Jesus exercise?” and that will help us consider, “What would Jesus do for exercise today?” The question leads us to ponder how contextual, civilizational, and even generational this modern phenomenon of exercise is.
My simple answer to the question “Did Jesus exercise?” is: No. He did not exercise in the way I would define “exercise.” Was he physically active? Yes, indeed—active enough he didn’t need “exercise.”
I borrow a simple definition of exercise from Harvard’s Daniel Lieberman: “voluntary physical activity undertaken for the sake of health and fitness.” If that’s what “exercise” is, then, as far as we know, Jesus did not exercise. We have no record of him opting into extra physical activity to supplement an otherwise sedentary lifestyle, to get and keep himself in holy physical health. He didn’t need to. He worked with his hands as a carpenter until he was in his thirties. And he walked everywhere he went (minus that one famous triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday). Two millennia ago, common men like Jesus spent far more time on their feet and lived far more active lives than we do today.
For one, they had no automobiles—and that is more significant than many of us realize. In just the last century, automobiles (and air travel) have become such givens that we can hardly imagine life without them. Where we live and work and play and purchase is now decided based on automobiles moving us around between places rather than our walking. Over time, day after day, week after week, year after year, that adds up to far more sedentary lives than most humans lived not that long ago.
Add to that the emergence of the television in the middle of the last century and now the near ubiquity of screens everywhere we go—and the little screens in our pocketses and handses all day.
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.
Meanwhile, two millennia ago (and just 200 years ago), most people walked everywhere they went. Day after day in his teens and twenties, Jesus worked with his hands and was on his feet. Then, in his public ministry, Jesus walked his way all over Galilee and first-century Palestine. Every visit to Jerusalem and back put another 150 miles on the sandals.
Also, remember that Jesus wasn’t sinful. He wasn’t lazy, and so he didn’t spend any more time sitting than was holy. And he wasn’t gluttonous; he didn’t overeat.
So, my simple answer to the first question is, no, Jesus did not exercise in the way that I’d define “exercise,” and he did not need to.
Would Jesus Exercise Today?
Now, let’s bring this forward twenty centuries into the strikingly different technologies of our times. We ask, “What about today? If Jesus were among us today, in our far more sedentary age, would he exercise?”
I would start with vocation and occupation, which for most adults is a large portion of our weekday lives. If Jesus were doing manual labor today, working with his hands and on his feet—and regularly walking miles from place to place—then he would not need to opt into additional “physical activity undertaken for the sake of health and fitness.” If his life were sufficiently active apart from exercise and he were experiencing the God-designed regular movement of the human body that helps it work at its optimal function, he would not need to exercise.
But for many of us, surrounded by screens, sitting for our daily commutes, and sitting at our jobs, we do need the “voluntary physical activity” of exercise. Exercise is a modern and recent phenomenon to help us get to the normal levels of movement for which God designed our bodies—for physical, mental, and emotional health.
If Jesus was among us now and had a pretty sedentary vocation, I suspect he would exercise. Many of us modern workers spend endless hours sitting and hardly moving, and this can be especially true for pastors. We’re on our computers writing sermons, and we do a lot of reading (as we should!), and we have counseling appointments where we sit in a room.
I think the average pastor today would be wise to supplement his vocation with some form of exercise. And I do suspect that Jesus would do some modest form of exercise if he lived the kind of sedentary life many of us do today.
Of course, as the perfect man, Jesus also would not overeat, and he would not be lazy. Meanwhile, we’ve been trained by our modern technologies to move as little as necessary. We have been conditioned, not just with high-calorie food and drink but endless creature comforts, to expect ease and paths of least resistance. We expect to give minimum effort. I pull into a parking lot and my instinct as a modern person is, Where’s the closest space available? Really? Instead of walking an extra ten or fifty steps? I do not live in a time of famine. Those extra steps will do me good, not ill.
So, I suspect Jesus would evaluate his own vocation, the activity levels of his work-life and overall life, and he would compensate, as needed, for physical inactivity with some modest exercise.
What Would Jesus Do?
Finally, then, what might Jesus do for exercise? Now we’re really pushing into the speculative, but I think we might end with a couple constructive points.
First, I doubt Jesus would be a bodybuilder. I don’t think he would run marathons and do triathlons. I doubt that the Son of God incarnate, as God himself among us as the ultimate man, would be an extreme athlete.
I think his exercise would be more modest and he still would have “no form or majesty that we should look at him” (Isa. 53:2) on stage or on screen. Jesus would look for the kinds of physical activities that would serve his mental clarity and emotional health, making his will and body ready to glorify his Father and undertake acts of service to bless others and meet their needs in love. And his motivations for exercise would be holy, not vain: acuity of mind, gladness of heart, readiness to do good, ever eager to magnify his Father (Matt. 5:16).
To be clear, Jesus’s apostle affirms that “bodily training is of some value” (1 Tim. 4:8). It would not be sin for Jesus to go beyond modest exercise to specially train his body for strength and stamina and agility. And it’s not sin for his followers to train themselves beyond the more minimal demands of exercise. I affirm that Christians today can be distance runners and bodybuilders, even if the unique God-man would not.
But however minimal or maximal our own bodily activity, we all will do well to consecrate our exercise and training by receiving what God has said about our bodies and their movement, regularly praying with sincerity about and for our bodily lives (1 Tim. 4:4–5). Earnest, regular prayer will go a long way in making our exercise holy.
David Mathis is the author of A Little Theology of Exercise: Enjoying Christ in Body and Soul.
Related Articles
Christians Shouldn’t Normalize a Sedentary Lifestyle
Bodily activity is so basic, so obvious, often so assumed, that we easily overlook what a veritable superpower it is.
The best self-care habits, not only for the Christian but for any human being, lead us back to our Maker and Savior.
Fitness Is Not an End in Itself
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.
Podcast: Do You Have a Theology of Exercise? (David Mathis)
David Mathis discusses what it looks like to build a theology of exercise, the ways physical training can be of value to Christians, and how this might look in different stages of life.
