The Body as a Tool for Spiritual Growth!

 

The following concepts come (primarily) from the books of Dallas Willard, Richard Rohr & Parker Palmer. When we think about sin, we tend to reduce it almost exclusively to matters of the heart, mind or emotions, what we fail to sometimes take into account, is the direct link of these to the body (maybe this is why demons take such an interest in the ‘body’) to give a simple example; murder, adultery, idolatry, gossip and stealing etc, are all physical acts, and cannot take place without the consent and or cooperation of the body, now these actions or outcomes do not take place spontaneously, because there is always an incubation period, where the final outcome is the physical action. In James 1: 13 it says; …“after desire has conceived it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown gives birth to death (physical action)” In this passage James is explaining the sequential path of sin, it always starts as a desire (its very rare indeed that somebody, completely out of the blue, would kill somebody else, almost without exception a long sequence of events normally lead one to this action).

 

The body plays a vital part in sin having ‘its way’ so to speak. When we come to faith we need to retrain the body, and we need to retrain it in righteousness. The spiritual practices bend the body in a new way. These practices break the muscle memory capacity of sin in our bodies, what they do is to break down or at least slow down the rapid sin reflex action in our bodies, the longer we carry out these practices, the more time we have to think about the things our bodies are telling us to do, these practices give us a ‘neutral’ zone where, free from the passions and the overwhelming sense of urgency that our bodies tell us, we can make new decisions and take new directions, this is the meaning of training the body in righteousness, this is (primarily) what Paul had in mind when he says in Romans 12: 1; … “offer your bodies to God as a living sacrifice…which is your reasonable service”

To be continued…. what are these practises?