We all own items previously owned by others, whether cars or coffee pots. While exercising recently, I realized that the weight bench I was sweating on—the tool I use to stay fit, healthy, and alive—was previously owned by a man who’s now dead. I know because I bought the bench from his widow.

I’ve dedicated decades of my life to sports and training—as both a coach and someone who works out regularly. But while exercising that morning on the weight bench, I felt more strongly than ever the truth of Paul’s words to Timothy: “bodily training is of some value” (1 Tim. 4:8, emphasis added). Lifting weights can improve life in many ways, but it can’t bring eternal life.

Bodily Training’s Benefits

Bryan Johnson’s Project Blueprint helps customers pursue health and longevity through what the company describes as the “world’s best health protocol.” Johnson made his fortune in Silicon Valley, but he’s best known for “waging a war on death that he claims to be winning.”

Johnson’s aim is to never die: “Every decision about his health is made by specialized software and a team of 30 medical specialists who monitor and analyze data about his organs.” He eats, sleeps, and breathes to keep eating, sleeping, and breathing.

Johnson’s search for a fountain of youth is absurd, but we should recognize what he gets right. It’s a good impulse to care for our bodies through nutrition, exercise, medicine, supplements, therapy, and proper rhythms of rest and work. After all, life is valuable, and God made people—body and soul—in his image.

Participating in team sports and working out with others can improve your health and develop discipline. It can also strengthen your character and reduce loneliness. This is part of what Paul means when he says bodily training has some value.

Participating in team sports and working out with others can strengthen your character and reduce loneliness. This is part of what Paul means when he says bodily training has some value.

Faithful Christians don’t need to look like supermodels or elite CrossFit athletes, but we should aim to bring God glory by caring for the bodies he’s given us. Just as we steward our finances, we should steward our bodies.

Among younger generations today, a growing health consciousness and emphasis on Stoic discipline have many following the same “vibe” as Johnson. But others of us live sedentary lifestyles dominated by screens, and we’d benefit from a renewed commitment to regular exercise in the new year.

We shouldn’t laugh at people who join a gym in January. We should consider imitating them. When my church staff makes goals for the new year, I always encourage the team to set a few “bonus goals”—objectives that have little to do with church life directly but promote personal development and physical training.

Spiritual Training’s Lasting Benefits

This is Paul’s broader point in the passage. False teachers had claimed that “mature” followers of Christ should avoid marriage and certain foods. Paul, by contrast, wanted Timothy to know that true maturity leads to giving God thanks for his created world. Food, marriage, and other earthly gifts like exercise are holy when received through prayer and in accordance with God’s Word (1 Tim. 4:1–5).

But rightly appreciating God’s creation means not overvaluing what God has made. This is why Paul speaks of training as having “some value,” not “all value.”

Spiritual training should matter to us more than physical training. Working out might improve your life and may even extend your life, but it won’t prolong your life indefinitely. Exercise can’t give us the eternal life that only comes from Christ.

One day, all your exercise equipment will end up in a dumpster or be sold to someone else. This is why Paul writes, “For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (v. 8).

Hope Set on the Living God

For the past six years, I’ve served as a coach for cross country and track and field at a local Christian school. Recently, we chose 1 Timothy 4:8 as our theme verse.

The verse helped us encourage young athletes to do hard things, pursue athletic excellence, and discipline their bodies. But it also reminded us that a Christian’s identity doesn’t come from how fast we run, how high we jump, or how far we throw. We “have our hope set on the living God” (v. 10).

A Christian’s identity doesn’t come from how fast we run, how high we jump, or how far we throw. We ‘have our hope set on the living God.’

We need the Word more than we need weights. The gains made in conforming our character to Christ have both present value and lasting value. Joining and committing to a healthy local church will matter far more than joining a gym.

It’s with God’s people that we’re being trained “in the words of faith” and “for godliness” (vv. 6–7). The best “new you” in the new year is the new creation in you: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Beauty is fleeting (Prov. 31:30). All flesh is like grass (Isa. 40:6). Releasing endorphins and reducing stress can’t compete with the fear of the Lord.

To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, both the benefits and limits of exercise remind us that we’re made for another world. The everlasting life we long for is available, but it’s not found by rising to grind each day on cardio equipment. It’s only found through the discipline of faith.

News Source : https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/gym-cant-give/