Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek Vreeland explores the often-overlooked role of the body in Christian spiritual formation. Because we are embodied people, following Jesus involves more than what happens in our thoughts, emotions, and souls. Rooted in the incarnation, Christian spirituality is an embodied experience. Jesus, the Word made flesh, demonstrates the goodness and importance of the human body.
Derek draws from Eugene Peterson, Athanasius, Thomas Merton, and his own experience to consider the connection between body and soul. He argues that caring for our bodies is part of becoming like Jesus and encourages listeners to develop regular practices of movement. Whether running, walking, hiking, biking, swimming, gardening, playing with children, or simply taking the stairs, the goal is not intensity or athletic achievement. The goal is cultivating a life of movement and recognizing that what we do with our bodies matters.
Key Takeaways
Christian spirituality is an embodied experience.
Our bodies are good, created by God, and essential to our human experience.
Jesus took on a human body and elevated the goodness of embodied life.
Body and soul are integrated rather than competing parts of who we are.
What happens to our bodies affects our souls, and what happens within us can affect our bodies.
Physical training has value, even though it is not the ultimate goal of Christian life.
Spiritual formation includes intentional practices for the body.
Movement can be a simple and sustainable practice for caring for the body.
The goal is not necessarily intensity, but developing regular habits of movement.
Find forms of movement you enjoy and cultivate a life of staying on the move.
Books Mentioned
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places — Eugene Peterson
On the Incarnation — Athanasius
New Seeds of Contemplation — Thomas Merton
Scriptures Mentioned
Psalm 139:13–14
1 Corinthians 6:19
1 Timothy 4:8
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Transcript
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to To another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your one man host, Derek Vreeland, and I am glad that you have joined me for this episode.
As I mentioned in a previous episode, I have signed a book contract. Very, very excited to work on a new book, Recovering Hypocrites, Discarding Image Management for Wholehearted Integrity. And because I’m writing that book, a lot of the podcast episodes are going to be on the themes of virtue and character and integrity. And indeed, we’ve been doing that for a while. Someone asked me recently, oh, are you going to do any more interviews? And the answer is yes. I have been talking to some author friends that have new books coming out, and I’m eager to get back into a routine of interviews, but that’s not today.
Today I want to talk to you about why the things we do with our bodies, why it matters. But before we jump into today’s episode, let me invite you to leave a rating or a review. That really helps us. And subscribe to Peaceable and Kind if you haven’t already And this episode, I think, is going to be a combination of encouragement and also gentle challenge. So if you find any value in this episode or a previous episode and you want to share it with a friend, I would encourage you to do so. Let’s get started.
So we have been talking in some previous episodes about what the Holy Spirit is doing on the inside of us. We’ve been talking about spiritual practices. I have been introducing and reintroducing you to the virtue tradition. Because I’m convinced that the concept of ancient virtue ethics And present-day spiritual Christian formation, they belong together. They’re not exactly the same, but I think that we can learn From the ancient virtue tradition, and it can help us overcome our hypocrisy. I think it can cause us to grow in faith
Because remember what virtue is. Virtue is a settled quality in our heart and mind. that instinctively causes us to want to live a life of integrity. And this is the the the the good life that Jesus talks about. The virtue of anything is that quality that makes it good. So the virtue of a kitchen knife is how sharp it is, right? Because a sharp kitchen knife is better than a dull kitchen knife. And I have drawers full of dull kitchen knives. But virtue is is that quality. And I know virtue is a is a word that we don’t use as often, but virtue is that quality of the thing that makes it good, that makes it excellent. And so for the ancient Greeks, for Jesus the apostle and the early Christians They reflected on what makes human beings good. What is the virtue of humanity?
And so we’ve been exploring virtues like courage and humility, and we’ve also been exploring how we participate in what the Holy Spirit is doing. We participate Through practices. We often call these spiritual disciplines. I’ve preferred to use the metaphor of spiritual pathways that these ancient Christian practices, things like prayer and scripture reading and meditation and contemplation and fasting and worship and communion and on and on it goes. It is these spiritual practices that enable us to participate in the Spirit’s work.
So we call them spiritual practices, but an emphasis on these so-called spiritual disciplines Cause us to forget about something very, very obvious, and that is we have a body I think our approach to Christian spirituality has been far too spiritual and less embodied
And I can, if I want, I could build a case that the blame for some of this oversight lies at the feet of Plato. So I’ve been talking a lot about Aristotle. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, these are the three big heavy hitters of ancient Greek philosophy. And Plato was Aristotle’s teacher And Aristotle disagreed with Plato on a number of fundamental issues. And Plato has been helpful. In the development of Christian theology. There’s no denying that. Helpful even in how the Apostle Paul articulates certain things in the New Testament. So I’m not pointing all the blame at Plato, but I can say that there are some things that Plato taught that causes us to so elevate the soul that we forget about our bodies.
And so modern Christians use the word spiritual all the time, right? So we talk about spiritual practices and spiritual disciplines and our spiritual life. Sometimes when we see someone who is becoming so enraptured with the life of the spirit, we say, oh, they’re being too spiritual. Or sometimes we even use the word spiritual to mean Christian. But when we look back in the New Testament, The Apostle Paul who primarily uses the word spiritual, the Greek word is pneumatikos When Paul uses that word, he is not talking about things that are immaterial or invisible. When Paul uses the word spiritual, he’s using it in a way that describes certain activities or items. That are in some way related to the Holy Spirit. So a biblical definition of the word spiritual isn’t simply immaterial Rather spiritual means of and related to the Holy Spirit.
So Eugene Peterson One of my great heroes writes in the book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places that we really should just remove the word spiritual from our Christian vocabulary. Eugene Peterson writes, spirit was not, quote, unquote, spiritual for our ancestors. It was sensual. It was the invisible that had visible effects. It was invisible, but it was not immaterial.
So giving our attention to the awareness of what the Holy Spirit’s doing within us, giving attention to the growth of virtue within us, Christian character formation with us. We can take all of those activities and place them under the category of Christian spirituality.
Now, the word spirituality, much like spirit and spiritual, has lost some of its meaning. But when we when we think of spirit and spirituality, things that are spiritual. from a Christian perspective. When we think of those things from a Christian perspective, I don’t want us to think of those things That are invisible, immaterial, or disembodied. Because I really do think Christian spirituality Isn’t as spiritual, isn’t as invisible, immaterial as we have imagined. Because rooted in the incarnation Remember, incarnation is the doctrine of Jesus becoming a human being. So, rooted in incarnation, our experience of the Holy Spirit is an embodied experience.
I mean, had Jesus, the Word of God, come to us in literal words only in some giant teleprompter in the sky. Well, then we could probably develop some kind of vision of Christian spirituality that was just about Knowledge and wisdom and inner desires and feelings, enlightenment, intellectual intuition. But Jesus didn’t come that way Jesus came as the word made flesh, not the word made text. And because of that What we experience in our bodies matters. It matters because God’s salvation came to us in a real physical body.
Let’s go back to the early church fathers. Of all of the writings of the early church fathers, I think perhaps the most important, and I say it because it’s easy to read, I think, it’s short at least, but Of all the writings of the early church fathers, the one I recommend that should be top on your list is On the Incarnation by Athanasius. I was rereading my copy. I have underlined. I have notes in the margin. I have highlights. There was a time that I was reading it every Advent season in preparation for Christmas. And it’s short. I mean, my copy is less than a hundred pages. Uh, you can find it online at the nation’s on the incarnation. I mean, you can read it online um or order a copy. I I like to hold a real physical book.
But Athanasius, fourth century church father, so important, deeply influential, and he described Jesus as taking on a physical body like ours. and that that wasn’t a limitation for Jesus, rather it became an instrument.
So here’s what Athanasius says. Athanasius writes in on the incarnation Not even his birth from a virgin therefore changed him in any way, nor was he defiled by being in the body, rather he sanctified the body by being in it. So His point is that Jesus remained the eternal Son of God in becoming a man. There’s nothing that changed about Jesus’ divinity in becoming human. In the same sense, his humanity did not limit him in any way.
And this is a great mystery. Yes, Jesus set aside his God powers to become a man, so he couldn’t like fly around and You know, he wasn’t all-knowing. But these weren’t really limitations according to Athanasius. These became instruments because Jesus set aside, he emptied himself. of all that authority and power as God to live as a real human being without ever ceasing to be God. And so we say of Jesus, he is 100% fully God, 100% fully man. This is the mystery of the incarnation.
So He was saying that in being born of a virgin, that didn’t change him in any way. And it didn’t defile him. And then Athanasius has this one line, it’s so important. He sanctified the body by being in it.
Jesus in his incarnation took on flesh and blood, took on a real human body So that he could defeat sin and death on our behalf. Right, the incarnation is necessary for the cross So our salvation is a matter of not only Jesus dying, but Jesus dying in a real human body on our behalf, in our place, as our representative. And we Received the redeeming benefits of all that. So that was the instrumental use of a body. Jesus took on flesh and blood to defeat sin and death on our behalf.
But in that, in becoming a real flesh and blood human being, Jesus didn’t render our bodies useless or unnecessary. Rather, Athanasius says he sanctified the body. He elevated the substance of our bodies, demonstrating what has been true from the beginning. Our bodies are essentially good and necessary to a full human experience.
Remember, in the beginning God made us male and female in the likeness of God. And in Genesis 2, in the in the second creation narrative It says that God scooped up the dirt from the earth and breathed into it the breath of life. So our origin story is that we are these hybrid creatures. We are a mystical integration of the dust of the earth and the breath of heaven And in all that God made, God said it was very good in making us these hybrid creatures, dust and spirit. Or we could say body and soul. It was good. Both our soul, the inside stuff, and our bodies, the outside stuff. So God from the beginning made us to be these integrated creatures.
And Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation says that that we do such damage to ourselves if we try to divide body from soul and say that, oh, our bodies aren’t important. All we should care about is our souls.
Merton writes, Let him not desecrate his own natural unity by dividing himself, soul against body, as if the soul were good and the body evil See, it seems to me that if we lose this integration of body and soul, if we don’t equally value our bodies and souls Well, we cease to become human beings created in the image of God. Merton goes on to say that if we if we divide body from soul or somehow denigrate our bodies in favor of our soul, Merton writes, there is no longer a person There is no longer a living, substituting reality made in the image and likeness of God.
Hey friends, I want to pause this episode for just a moment to let you know that Resurrection, 8 Lessons on How God Restores Us, the third and final book in the God in the Neighborhood Bible study. series is out now. Go to the show notes for ordering information.
So, if we believe what Christians have believed from the beginning, that we were made body and soul by God in the image of God Then neglecting either our souls or our bodies is detrimental to our growth and development as human beings. I mean, neglecting our souls, that is the inside part of us, in favor of our bodies, is a road towards hypocrisy Right, that phenomena’s has been well developed. People who look Christian on the outside, but on the inside they’re full of dead men’s bones, as Jesus said to the Pharisees. So we understand that to neglect the soul in favor of the body is problematic, and yet focusing on our souls, our internal life. And disregarding our body stymies the growth of our character, of the very virtue of our souls
So, what I want to advocate for is a vision of Christian spirituality that has embodied practices. That tend to the formation of our heart. I mean, we need intentional practices for our bodies Because what happens to our bodies affects our souls, and what happens internally in our souls affects our bodies.
It’s true, the body keeps the score. when our inner life has been damaged.
Often as a pastor, when I meet with people to discuss their relationship with God or general concerns, or people want to talk about their doubts or fears or insecurities or anxieties. When they meet with me, I always tell them, now first and foremost, I’m not a counselor. I am not a therapist. I’m a pastor. Now you after this meeting with me may need to consult a counselor or therapist, someone who is licensed and trained, but my training is that of a pastor. So I can listen. uh can pray with you. I can point you to the ways of Jesus that may help. But there’s there’s there’s limitations in in what I can do
Because sometimes people will meet and they won’t talk about their relationship with God or their faith, and they quickly get to more internal issues. Trauma, emotional damage, damaged emotions, deep anxieties. And I want to show care and compassion, but I also want to acknowledge my limitations and the value of professional counseling therapy I have benefited from therapy and continue to encourage other people to do it.
But when they first sit down with me and they’ll just start laying out what’s happening in their life and Often I’ll ask questions like, well, where do you see God at work? Where do you discern God’s God’s spirit through all of this?
And so often when they bring up internal issues, Whether it’s depression, anxiety, things like that. I always give the plug for therapy, but then I’ll ask a question. I’ll say, what do you do for exercise?
And it’s so strange. I’ve done it often, particularly with men. Most often I’m meeting one-on-one with men. And when I ask that, they have this curious look, like, They didn’t expect a pastor to ask about exercise, right? They’re not they’re not in their their their primary care physician’s office, right? Because you know if you have an annual checkup, your doc is a asking you about diet and exercise questions, right? Yeah, I do I do an annual checkup with my doctor and he’s always asking that. And so sometimes people just have the strangest look on their face when I ask that.
Because they’re expecting me to say, well, how often do you pray? Do you read scripture? Are you in church every Sunday? And all of those are valuable and they’re good. But I like to ask that question and and then gauge their response. And often what I hear is, well, I just don’t have time for that. Or I work a job where I’m on my feet all the time.
So one of the things I’ll do is help them see the complexity of their humanity in a pie chart. And say you have all of these different aspects of your life. There is like this financial piece because you have to work and earn money. There is a faith. part of your life, this is your relationship with God. There’s an intellectual and social side. There’s a sexual and emotional, but there’s one piece of the pie that we forget about, and that is the biggest piece of the pie, and that is our physical.
So when we process our work life and paying bills and those type of things, as we think through our relationships and process our emotions and memory. All of these types of things are happening inside our bodies. And I think we tend to give attention to the other pieces of the pie and forget. About our bodies.
In fact, what I have learned is one of the ways I have dealt with stress and anxiety. And just r seasons of of worry and concern is getting outside and moving my body It seems like I am able to process things better emotionally, relationally, intellectually, um, when things in my body are are working right.
I mean, what Pentecostalism did for our understanding of salvation, I want to do for our understanding of spiritual formations Because I really believe that what we do with our bodies is a part of becoming like Jesus.
Pentecostalism directed our attention back to the Gospels To see that when Jesus came to save, he didn’t come just to save our souls, he came to save our bodies. Jesus, when we see him in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we see him in the activity of salvation, both in physical healing and in pardon and forgiveness.
Jesus’ healing ministry reorients our modern understanding of salvation away from these ideas That salvation is saving disembodied souls for another place called heaven. But Jesus in the gospel shows us that salvation is saving the whole person. Saving the body through miracles of healing and saving our souls through acts of forgiveness And so what Pentecostalism has done for salvation, now some will disagree, but I see it clearly in the Gospels. That salvation is not only about our souls, but about our bodies. Some people might argue with that, but I think it has become pretty clear
And so what Pentecostalism did for salvation, I want us to do for spiritual formation, right? That is the work of the Holy Spirit to form us into the image of Jesus. for the joy of God the Father, which has everything to do with character and virtue formation. I want us to see that how we become Less hypocritical and more like Jesus, less divided and more integrated, is not only by giving attention to our souls, but giving attention to our bodies.
The caring concern for our bodies is a good thing because our bodies are by nature good and created by God. I love these two verses In Psalm 139, verses 13 and 14, for it was you who formed my inward parts. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works that I know very well Our bodies are good and created by God. Now, the psalmist says, you form my inward parts, which is true. But God is also forming our outer parts so that inwardly and outwardly we could be these integrated creatures, body and soul.
And our bodies aren’t an obstacle to our recovery and development as wholehearted followers of Jesus. Our bodies are the very place in which the Holy Spirit is at work. This is why Paul very famously asks, Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God? He writes that 1 Corinthians 6, 19. Our bodies are not less important, Paul says our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Now, Paul is talking about our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit in the context of running away from sexual practices that miss the mark of God’s design for us. He’s he’s challenging these Christians that want to go visit prostitutes. uh which is outside of the bounds of of the sexual ethics of Jesus Christ. He’s like, y’all want to go sleep with prostitutes. Don’t you understand that that body In bed with a prostitute is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So Paul is using that metaphor in the context of avoiding sexual sin, but I see it as a helpful reminder. that what we do with our bodies matter.
And so as I kind of wrap up this episode, I I don’t want to Assume that I perfectly understand your life and your world. And so I’m not here to tell you what practices you need for your body. That’s for you to decide
But I will advocate for one practice that I see as essential, and that is movement. God designed our bodies to move. So make a plan to move and keep on moving.
I just talked to a church member just yesterday. She’s a couple years older than me, but we’re in our fifties. And she was talking about walking, jogging, uh, in this combination for like four miles. And she said It just, it is no fun getting old. And I told her, I said, I know, there’s some mornings I wake up and like my entire body is locked down. Like I can hardly walk down the stairs. But I told her that I’ve just decided that as I get older, I’m just going to keep moving and I’m going to fight that temptation. to just sit down and not do anything ever again.
So I’m not telling you what to do except this Challenge for you to make a plan to put your body in motion, to move your body, and to keep on moving.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. And yes, I am aware of what Paul told Timothy, 1 Timothy 4. 8, where he writes, physical training is good. But training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and the life to come. Now some people use that verse as a temptation to avoid any practices related to their body.
But Paul doesn’t say physical training is worthless. He says it’s good. Other translations will say it has some value. And it’s true, physical health isn’t the ultimate goal, but it genuinely matters.
And also, you have to understand Paul in his context. Paul was living in a time before $2,500 leather recliners and streaming services and food delivery and smartphones. Paul was living at a time when by necessity you had to move all throughout the day.
We’re living in a different time. It is much easier for me to sit in my recliner. And I’ve had this recliner for, I don’t know, like 10 years. When we went to buy new furniture, uh, we tested out all of these different recliners. I mean, I was like Goldilocks, like sitting in all these chairs. And I found a recliner that fits me so well. And I love it. I tell people, my recliner hugs me. It like it shows me love. Right?
So Paul in his age didn’t have all these comforts, all of these temptations. uh just to sit and watch Netflix and doom scroll your phone at the same time while you wait on your Uber Eats. We are faced with this temptation of a sedimentary lifestyle. And I just don’t want you to fall into those traps.
My grandmother, my dad’s mom, died at age 71. Which is just 19 years older than I am right now. And and I think that that’s far too young. Now, she was a chain smoker, and that didn’t help. Uh but as it was told to me, she raised six kids. My dad was the oldest, but she raised six kids, and after the kids were grown and gone, she sat down and never got up again. And it checks out. I mean, most of my childhood memories of my grandmother were of her sitting at her dining room table, or laying in her bed watching T V.
Now, my grandpa was always active. He was building things in his workshop, cooking meals, tending to things around the house. And he outlived her by ten years. And that image has stayed with me for a while And I don’t want to sit down and never get up again. I want to be the kind of person who stays on the move.
And I have recognized that as long as my body is staying in motion, yes, I can get physically tired, but the effects it has on my internal life. Like whether I’m jogging or walking or biking or hiking, there is something about the repetition of that movement. That brings clarity of thought, it releases stress, all sorts of benefits. So I want to be the kind of person who stays on the move. And my encouragement for you is to do the same thing.
So again, I’m not telling you what to do, but find something that you really enjoy. I mean, I’m not telling you to go run a marathon. I mean, maybe you want to train and run a marathon. I ran a marathon 12 years ago, hated it and loved it. Would still like to do it again someday. But the amount of time it takes for training for a marathon is a lot. But I’ve I’ve ran nine or ten half marathons and countless 5Ks and 10K’s and and all of those type of things. Um and so I’ve enjoyed running, but I know that’s not for everybody. Um so maybe it is running. Maybe not a marathon. Maybe you do a couch to 5K, train for a 5K race.
So if it’s not running, uh maybe it’s just walking, right? If you have uh the kind of neighborhood that has sidewalks where you can walk or find a park or hiking trails near you
I mean, speaking of hiking, I’ve done hundreds of miles of backpacking and hiking out on trails, and there’s something about walking on a dirt trail through a dense forest. or a mountainous trail that leads you to a mountain summit. It does something on the inside of you.
A couple years ago I had a solo hike in Rocky Mountain National Park up to Chasm Lake and back. And I actually video recorded some of my thoughts on the way back. And then I deleted the video because what happened to me is hard to explain. And it’s something I wanted to keep private. But it was an emotional experience. I was moved to tears. And it was a deeply spiritual experience. I I can’t explain it. So there’s something for that.
But again, hiking might not be your thing. Maybe it’s biking. Get a bike. Now I’m not talking about one of those e-bikes where you can just power up and and let the let the bike do all the work. I mean an actual bicycle. Currently that’s what I’ve been doing I’ve been recovering from plantar fasciitis, so I’ve been doing more biking than running, but I’m getting back to running this fall for sure.
And maybe it’s not these things. Maybe it’s it’s swimming. Some people like to swim laps at very low impact, but that’s your body in motion. Maybe it’s just working in a garden or Playing with your kids and grandkids. I love playing with my grandkids. And depending on the time of day, I give them as much of the energy as I have, but uh they just wear me out. I can’t play with them as long as they want me to, ‘cause I usually give out. But playing with your kids, your grandkids, that’s a way to keep your body in motion.
Maybe it’s picking up a new sport, pickleball super popular. I mean everybody’s playing pickleball everywhere. Uh maybe it’s just working in your yard or maybe it’s choosing to take the stairs instead of the elevator or calling up a friend and and going for a walk in the evenings.
The goal isn’t how intense How intensely you’re moving your body. The goal is regular practices for the body. So pick something new. Maybe something that’s going to be difficult and do it. Understand you can do hard things. If you’re like, I can’t walk around the block. Well, all right. Start by walking half of the block.
But I believe that if you will start practices for the body, the more you do, the easier it will become. And you’ll see the benefits. Both the physical benefits, and so the next time you meet with your doctor, your primary care physician. Uh he’ll he or she will notice some differences. Um but not only the physical, but also things that happen internally. Because remember, God created us body and soul, these integrated creatures. And as your body is in motion, it will do good things for your soul.
Well, that’s all that I have for you for this episode. Thank you for joining me. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.