What if God loves your body?
What if “your body is a temple” is not a shaming shamer, yelling at you to make your body worthy by doing xyz?
Gentle reader,
This week, I’ve been thinking about how much we need to know that our bodies are included in the grace of God. I’ve been thinking of how much we’re taught that our bodies are something we’re supposed to get right, a kind of “work” for “righteousness.” This piece is a repost from my blog before I moved here to substack. I hope those subscribers who have already seen it will forgive the repeat.
What if “your body is a temple” is a gift of grace?
A given?
A truth that just is yours, in Christ, through the power of the Spirit?
A status you cannot earn?
What if “your body is a temple” doesn’t mean you owe anything to the diet industry?
Not anything; not a penny, not a calorie?
What if “your body is a temple” doesn't mean you owe a single ounce of energy to Madison Avenue?
What if “your body is a temple” cannot be taken hostage by insurance companies wanting to charge you by the pound or by doctors who won't look past your weight to see you?
What if “your body is a temple” is not a shaming ableist shamer, used to insist that you owe the rest of us good health, as if good health were earned through individual morality?
Paduan 15th Century, Christ's Body Held by Two Angels, 15th century
What if “your body is a temple” is not a shaming gnostic shamer, used to convince you that attraction & desire can't be good things?
That thighs and lips can't be good things?
That the sensual should somehow be anything but sensual?
What if “your body is a temple” declares the sacrilege of a 'fitness' industry focused on 'attractiveness' and the sacrilege of the corporations trying to sell you cosmetics & protein powders & endless, endless THINGS as you chase that supposed attractiveness & worth?
What if “your body is a temple” means what the Bible says it means:
"God’s Spirit dwells in you" (1 Cor 3:16) & "you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body" (1 Cor 6:20)?
What if “your body is a temple” means the Spirit, who is GOD, makes your very flesh the holy of holies?
What if “your body is a temple” means you're beloved of the Father through the Son in the Spirit?
What if “your body is a temple” means you can "glorify God in your body" by praying that the Spirit would empower you to live like Jesus?
What if “your body is a temple” means you can "glorify God in your body" by lifting your hands in praise or bending your knees in worship?
What if “your body is a temple” means you can "glorify God in your body" by attending on the means of grace and coming to the Lord's table to receive the body & blood that will sustain you, body & soul, day by day?
What if “your body is a temple” means you can "glorify God in your body" by seeking the fruit of the Spirit, serving the world God so loves, & faithfully pursuing good work?
Richard Norris Brooke, A Pastoral Visit, 1881
What if God-glorifying-temple-bodies DO have to do with food & health & sex but not in the ways a sinful world claims?
What if God-glorifying-temple-bodied-people move for joy & service & refuse to equate health with racist, classist, misogynist, ableist standards of 'attractiveness'?
What if God-glorifying-temple-bodied-people eat for nourishment, eat for delight, eat in fellowship, without APOLOGIZING for savoring the joy of fat and salt and juice?
What if God-glorifying-temple-bodied-people eat & remember those who have no food & those with eating disorders?
And they work for food justice, for systems that can feed the hungry and sustain creation?
What if God-glorifying-temple-bodied-people treat sex as a good gift of God, & dignify it through faithfulness in marriage & through fighting its denigration in systems & norms which hurt people?
What if God-glorifying-temple-bodied-people are the flesh & blood evidence that racism is heresy, white supremacy is heresy, nationalism is heresy, misogyny is heresy, the cult of youth is heresy?
What if "your body is a temple" means that God cherishes your stretch marks & your scars, your cellulite & your skin, your numbered hairs and tired feet, loving the story of a finite life lived for God's glory, of self-giving, of repentance & relationship & love?
What if "your body is a temple" is demonstrated in baptism, confirmed in discipleship, proved most decisively in Jesus's incarnate flesh, and anticipated in the resurrection of the dead?
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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What if our bodies are not primarily a liability for sin but an opportunity for righteousness.
I’ve come to believe that the gnostic tendency is the primary syncretism for late modern evangelicalism.
Excellent stuff.
Great thoughts! Thank you!
I so agree with your reference to Gnosticism. I'm certainly no scholar, but it seems to me that body shaming, body "worship", and the pervasive view that what we do to our bodies or with our bodies (i.e. sexually, abuse, etc) is an expression of a modern neo-Gnosticism that has influenced culture and sadly, the church.