It is a sedentary age. It is true for so many of us that if we do not deliberately pursue opportunities to exercise, we can remain unhealthily static. Those of us whose work is with words and whose primary tool is a keyboard may face special challenges in this regard. Personally, I know it would be possible for me to spend the great majority of my life almost entirely motionless. I know it would be possible, but I also know it would be neither wise nor healthy.
As a pastor and writer, David Mathis is in much the same position as I am—a person whose work requires little activity and who therefore must be deliberate about exercise. To counter the temptation toward inactivity, he wanted to do more than merely enroll in a program or force himself into a routine. Instead, he wanted to develop a theological basis for exercise and then begin to act upon it. The results are a short but powerful little book titled A Little Theology of Exercise.
Alongside breathing, eating, thinking, feeling, and speaking, one of the great fundamentals of human life is movement. Bodily activity is so basic, so obvious, often so assumed, that we easily overlook what a veritable superpower it is. Yet movement is one vital aspect of our enduring human nature that our present age threatens to undermine.
Indeed, it does. Therefore, “Our need is not for conserving calories but for putting to good use the abundance of calories we consume (almost) without thinking.” This matters because “to the degree that our default is to move as little as possible—rather than to move freely, eagerly, and enjoyably—we undermine or inhibit some essential dynamics in the Christian life. As Christians, we cannot content ourselves with taking our bearings from our sedentary society. Our modern excesses are not just of human concern but Christian concern.”
On this subject, Mathis’s burden is to persuade Christians that there is both joy and value in modest bodily training and that they ought to put God at the center of it. The word modest is important here, for Mathis’s goal is not to persuade Christians to become musclebound or to run ultramarathons. Rather, his goal is for Christians to be active with their bodies and to reap the benefits that come with it.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first, he asks how we can make exercise holy and answers by exploring what the Bible says about our bodies and the role of prayer in all we do, including exercise. In the second part he considers different motivations and incentives for exercise—five particularly Christian reasons to exercise. “My hope in identifying and explaining these five reasons is that you will refine, deepen, and sanctify your motivation for exercise. I offer these as invitations.”
What are those reasons? To bring glory to God (for God can and should be glorified in our bodies), to build and condition the brain (which acknowledges the close synergy between the mind and the body), to develop the instinct for exertion (which bears fruit in many spiritual pursuits), to grow in our joy in God (since a healthy and happy body can enhance our joy), and for the sake of good works (since we can do more good for others when we care for our bodies than when we neglect them).
At the end of it all, Mathis simply asks his readers to consider the default posture of their lives, whether they are passive and sedentary or whether they include regular activity and movement. “Do you think of your life as essentially stationary unless compelled by some great force into action? Or do you think of yourself as active, moving, working, often beckoned to stop or sit to address some particular task? Do you think of physical activity as an opportunity—to be happy, make others happy, and even draw fresh admiring attention to Christ?” He asks Christians to consider whether there may be health, joy, and blessing waiting for those who will simply cultivate a new set of habits and rhythms.
There is lots I appreciate about A Little Theology of Exercise. I appreciate that it is little, for personally I feel no need for a big or even medium-sized one. I appreciate that its goal is modest amounts of movement, for few of us need great or extraordinary amounts. I appreciate that it lays a solid theological foundation for its subject since I have always found that the changes that stick are the changes that spring from biblical conviction rather than personal desire. And I appreciate its focus on seeing exercise as a means to do good to others and glorify God, the most essential and noble of goals. For these reasons and many others I benefited from it and expect you will as well. I gladly commend it to you.
