Value the Human Body: Technology, Exercise, and the Pursuit of True Joy

0:00 One of the most controversial things about you in 2025 is your body because it's so under assault. Humanity, the human body in our culture, think about sexuality and gender, bodily presence versus remoteness, emotional presence versus distraction. think about all the talk now about artificial intelligence and then there's the sedentariness of our lives i hope that you're not going to be seated all day i unfortunately get to stand here you're in a seat hopefully not your whole saturday has to be in a seat but our lives and our work because of machines have become so sedentary and so we have this modern need for exercise which we'll talk about and then we have technology as extensions of our body that help us to do things or do things for us so this explosion of technological motivations in the modern world has not caught our god off guard this was his design this was his plan he made the world he made us he put the raw materials for technology in the same soil that is rich and the soil from which he formed us the technology is god ordained and it's god approved to fulfill the creation mandate he gave all humans and to be useful in the great commission as we seek to do it desiring God. Our various tools and devices can be used wisely and helpfully or sinfully and destructively, as you know. And one of the biggest challenges in our lifetimes, those of us in this room, however young, however old, one of the biggest challenges will be living fully human lives in a dehumanizing age.

2:02 let me ask you this would it be true today that the usual human is less and less human and what i mean by this what i mean by that is this think of our pace of life various pressures that would have us rush between appointments and keep the busyness of the calendar we have how little sleep we get we're getting some of the least sleep in human history what we eat and drink and you may not have the budget to be able to afford the best eat and drink and so it's mass-produced they're the increasing remoteness and thinness of our relationships and there's the power of our tools and our technology that subtly conditions us to do or even attempt to do less.

3:02 Think of the mindset of, I got to get the closest parking spot so that I take five or ten less steps. Why not enjoy the extra steps into the grocery store? It's been conditioned into me. Closest parking spot by this whole transit society of planes and trains and automobiles. And so in such times as ours, the Christian faith newly grounds us back in our creatureliness. And it calls us back to a life that is more fully human than the lives that we see around us in the unbelieving world. You know, the word human is built on the Latin humus for ground or dirt. and that's the same root from which we get humble as well as hummus that's that's a different thing humble and human this is what we're made we're creatures let's be humble creatures that remember we're from the ground the same ground we're taking our technology from these many and wonderful technologies that we're making from the ground can allow us to pretend that we're a little less creaturely have some aspirations for superhumanity or rising above the humble origin and limits that our god has given us in his created world now if you're if you've been conditioned to overlook the inimitable design and abilities and beauty of the human body and rather gawk at machines and most recently AI, then Tony pays a stunning tribute to our creator's genius in page 251 in his book.

4:54 I love this. He's quoting a guy here named Kevin Kelly. So when he mentions Kelly, you'll know what he's talking about. Tony says this. Actually, it starts with the quote from Kevin Kelly. There is some fantasy that we can make an AI robot that is superior to humans in all dimensions. That's just technically, engineeringly impossible, says Kelly. We cannot make a machine that excels humans in all dimensions. You can make a machine that can run faster than the human. You can make a machine that can jump higher. You can make a machine that can crawl lower. but you can't make a machine that does all those things at the same time because there's an engineering trade-off in addition to us being fairly powerful we're incredibly flexible end of quote here's tony's comment he says after three years of experiments on the surface of mars by the curiosity rover one of its engineers estimated that the same work three years the same work could have been accomplished by one human in about a week. Compared to robots, the human body is powerful, flexible, and efficient. It can run for 16 hours every day, optimizing its mere quarter horsepower of energy governed by a brain that requires less power than a light bulb.

6:20 we are tremendously efficient adaptable and powerful robots are not and then kelly comments we don't know how to make a flexible powerful machine so a little bit of the eye if you if you're prone somebody lifts up a phone and and you're prone to have your eye drawn to the phone and the pixels and to be in awe of the next thing apples bringing out, not realizing that this is so much more amazing and valuable. You can throw these things away. Valuable and precious. That we can scroll and tap and that this opposable thumb works like it does. Isaac Newton said, in the absence of any other evidence for the existence of God, the opposable thumb alone would be enough to convince me of God.

7:16 these human bodies are amazing and that very much relates to our our product our shared project in talking about technology and talking about exercise in the appropriate uh christian appreciation for the human body god has made how prone are we to marvel at our tools and not be impressed by god's work in us so so one of the our key overlaps is is the human body Another quote from Tony here, he says, technologies that devalue the human body will never honor the creator. That's a key principle. Technologies that devalue the human body will never honor the creator. Tony, I'm looking forward to taking that and applying that. As you think about various technologies, new technologies come along, to think about the value of a technology related to it, how does it orient itself on valuing the human body and thus honoring the creator of that body?

8:18 Because we as Christians know why God made the world and why he made us, for his glory, for his honor. And so technologies that minimize humanity to the point of dishonoring the creator will not prove to endure. They will not prove to be helpful and useful in the long run. In desiring God, we believe that God's most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in him. And that means, that's got some implications for a Christian vision of technology and a Christian vision of exercise. the way that relates is how we see how we feel and then how we represent god in the world is critical for how we view our technology how we view our exercise do we come to technology in such a way that will help us see god better and enjoy him and appreciate him and his son more and then show him and represent him in the world in ways that honor him. So the banner we've put over this brief time this afternoon is the phrase unusually human. That's a phrase we love at Desiring God, especially as we work on our internet tools and our various engineering tools. We want to be unusually human in the way that we minister the gospel, the way that we interact with others.

9:49 And we believe that one aspect of our calling in times like ours, dehumanizing times, is that we be unusually human. That is, we've got to be fully human, and sadly, when many around us seem to be less and less human, we want to be unusually human in being who God's called us to be as we engage with our technology. I really struggled here to know now is this exercise, guys. You're my little exercise thing here. I need to prime the pump here on exercise before we do this Q&A. What do I do next? I had written this whole thing. This is too much on the human body. I'm not saying anything about exercise. We'll have Tony in a few minutes. He can say more about technology. I had this outline. I'll tell you what it was. God made our bodies.

10:42 Sin has seized our bodies. God himself took a body and accomplished our redemption in a human body. God himself dwells in our bodies by his indwelling Holy Spirit which affects everything for Christians as we talk about various different subjects how we exercise, how we engage technology we were talking about AI earlier and that AI can't replicate the Holy Spirit the indwelling Spirit fifth was we glorify God now in our bodies and then sixth was we await a spectacular body upgrade that's coming at the end our citizenship is not in heaven and from there we await our there we await the king who will transform our lowly bodies our bodies of humiliation he'll transform them to be like his glorious body now i realize of those six that they're all relevant all the time to all of us but several are in the past ones in the future and the now one is the fifth one so the first one was creation then there was sin then there was christ and their spirit that that's live now we don't control the spirit he controls us the fifth one was we glorify god now in our bodies so i want to say a little bit more about that before i move on and say something specifically about exercise let me give you three truths about our bodily existence and i hope that these relate to both technology and exercise before we get more specific on that. First, God is for the body. So this relates to that principle Tony was drawing out about technology that values or devalues the human body that honors the creator. God is for the body. He's not opposed to it. He's not uninterested in it. He didn't just design it for once and abandon it. Jesus Christ has a glorified resurrection human body and one day will be transformed in our bodies to be like his glorious body he's for them and so he's for our stewarding them in ways that are appropriate to our calling not neglecting them not worshiping

12:51 them and you see examples of that all around the second god commends bodily exertion not just allowable it's it's commendable and one way that god plainly commends the exertion of our bodies is work. Especially the Apostle Paul. Paul had such an industrious work ethic. Paul commends work left and right, that we not be idle but be busy. The Proverbs talk about the laziness. Sin is laziness. Laziness is sin. Both the physical and spiritual danger. And then in particular, maybe you're listening for this, when does 1 Timothy 4.8 come? This is a spot right here, 1 Timothy 4.8, that affirms the value of training our bodies. Remember, when we get to 1 Timothy 4.8, that's not a revelation that's coming to us in our modern sedentary society.

13:49 This is 2,000 years ago where they walked everywhere they went. They didn't sit in front of screens all day. They had the normal life of 10,000-plus steps a day or whatever that would have been. And into that context, Paul would commend the value, some value of bodily training. So all the more in our day when life has become so much more sedentary. Third then, spiritual health is ultimate. Physical health is not.

14:20 This is a tough point to quite get in the right proportions. Tony and I both emphasize this in our projects. you may want to say it another way that related to exercise there's an asymmetrical relationship between our eternal souls and the temporary body there's the bodily upgrade that's coming the glorious body coming but there's an asymmetrical relationship there between the soul and the body i think it's an important clarification because you know how these pendulum swing. If you have an instance where someone's emphasizing the soul, the soul, the soul, body doesn't matter, and we need to correct that, and so we say both body and soul, they both matter. The body matters, the soul matters, it's all the same. Well, there's an asymmetry in the way that Paul talks in 1 Timothy 4 about bodily training and godliness. So this is 1 Timothy 4.8. While bodily training is of some value, right? Some value. Godliness, he says, is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. So this recognition that bodily training, or maybe we can substitute our modern term exercise, though it wasn't exactly the same thing in the first century, it cuts two ways for us. Those of us today who are sedentary by choice might need to own that God does indeed value the use and exertion of our bodies, and he designed them to work best and for us to be happiest when we're exerting them.

16:06 I'll read a quote in a minute on why that's the case. The other way it cuts is that those who are prone to make exercise an idol may need to own that it's of some value, relativized by the pursuit of godliness, but, and that godliness is of value in every way, and if the godliness is of value in every way, then why not seek to serve in our bodily life, our physical life, the goals and aims of godliness so we're going to put our body to work in the service of our souls here's where tony overlaps on that he says colonizing mars is not man's greatest challenge in a techno materialistic world new innovations are inevitable the real challenge is in seeking spiritual flourishing so that's what we're after tony and i are united in that in our various projects here we are seeking spiritual flourishing with our tech with our exercise and that's why we're doing this gathering here this afternoon and so let me say a few specific things about about exercise this was the exercise guy you know one of the guys that desiring god joked that it was fitting and inappropriate that I be the exercise guy because I don't have a very impressive bodily appearance.

17:33 I'm just such a normal, humble guy. And so this is my task to try to say nice things about exercise for the people who are so good at it that they shouldn't say anything about it in public. Here's my 10 brief maxims on a Christian vision for exercise. I'm going to make these quick. I'm priming the pump here for Q&A. This will go fast. Number one, God made us to move and to meditate.

18:01 We talked earlier about the flexibility of humanity. That's amazing. Evolutionary biologists, people who study psychology and anatomy and physiology, they comment on how different humanity is by leaps and bounds from the animal world because animals have one specific ability. Maybe a second one. This one can run fast. This one's got big teeth. You know, various abilities. But humanity does them all. We're the Swiss army knives of motion. We do so many things. And part of that too is God means for us to pause and think about him. So I read a college, I know. So hopefully you're okay with pondering, with reading, with thinking, with contemplating. God made humans to do that. And he made us to move and go and say and speak and push and pull and go out into the world and represent him as his images, his image bearers. Animals don't image him like humans do. Animals just go and do their thing. They don't think about it. They don't contemplate it. They're not sentient. They're not processing it. He's not glorified in the same way by the motions of their mind and heart. And for us humans, he means for us to meditate, Contemplate him.

19:19 Think about him. Love him. Appreciate him. And then represent him. Go show him in the world. Second, nobody is perfect. Now, I mean that in two ways. This is the sin point. All are sinners. Sin dwells in us, just like the spirit dwells in believers. So sin continues to be indwelling in the Christian and in all nonbelievers. no body's perfect in terms of sin but also no body no body is perfect no one has a perfect body no matter what you've airbrush on your instagram or present what no matter what foot you put forward to the public because of human sin we live in a cursed world and in this cursed world none of us are without ailments we all got small ailments and some have major ailments and disabilities but disability is not a distinct category from everybody else in the sense that we live in a cursed world and we all feel the effects of the fall and if you're you know being a college student right now you got the best body you're going to have your whole life enjoy it it's it's coming down let me tell you i'm 44 it's on its way down it's coming if you don't feel it acutely but you know you know it's not perfect number three our modern lives are far more sedentary than our ancestors read the old books and see how timeless are the motions of the human mind and the human heart it's one of the reasons we love the psalms can you believe the psalms were written 3 000 years ago and yet we can sometimes feel an instant connection to david or to the psalmist in the heart.

21:10 But our outer lives are very different. That's the stuff that trips us up in the Psalms. When he's talking about the outer life, how different, and that's largely because of technology. A major aspect of that is how sedentary our lives are compared to biblical times and the whole of human history. They walked everywhere they went. and they had no screens to make them stop and sit down this is a good place to give a quick definition of exercise which is this is a modern phenomenon this is late 19th century another flourish of this late 20th century and into the 20th into 21st century I'm taking this from Daniel Lieberman's book exercised where he just kind of almost like a throwaway phrase I think it's really helpful He says that exercise is voluntary physical activity undertaken for the sake of health and fitness. before the modern world and modern technology there was no need to do exercise like go exercise voluntarily do physical activity for the sake of health like human life was just active enough that get our blood pumping keep our muscles conditioned go milk the cow go work in the farm go walk into town to do the next thing we did enough activity but with all of our technologies and devices now there's this need to have the kind of health and fitness that's needed for humanity. We need to supplement that. Number four, fitness is a term Christians can appreciate. The question is, fit for what? We can appreciate when people talk about fitness. All right, that's good language.

22:54 We can talk about fitness, but I want to know, fit for what? Fit for your social media account? fit for your next your next image fit for the way that you present yourself uh in public or fit for what if i was going to answer that fit for what question i got this phrase paul used it twice second timothy 2 21 titus 3 1 he says he the phrase is ready for every good work that's the kind of fitness we want as christians we want to be fit ready to do good that doesn't mean we have to have world-class muscles or vo2 max be at the very top echelon of the fitness community the fit for good work you don't have to be at that level but to be at a place where you know what i can get up off the couch i don't have to stay here like i can go up the stairs if my wife left something downstairs, I can go get it and get back up to her. It's not a big deal.

24:01 Or I was talking with Eric beforehand about carrying a child. I mean, not just a small one, but maybe carrying a larger child on your back on a hike to get them to the end of the hike. So being fit to do others good is the kind of fitness we want to emphasize as Christians. Number five it's related christian fitness does not orient to looking good but to doing good this is a divide in the world like when you see those who are most into fitness and it's very much public fitness where i'm taking photographs of myself or need you to take photographs of me and amplify those on the internet the orientation on me looking good and my self idol is totally different than a Christian saying, I want to be used. I want to be used for the good of others, to glorify my Savior. I want to be ready for every good work. Matthew 5, 16.

24:58 Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good deeds. Not see your washboard abs, see your beach body or your beach muscles, but see your good deeds. That's the kind of fitness we're looking for. Fitness that's ready for good deeds to help other people. And then give glory to your Father in heaven. So not see your good deeds and give glory to you. But see your good deeds. You do them. It takes energy and effort to do good. And glorify your Father in heaven. Number six. Exercise is an acquired taste. I'm saying this to try to help encourage people who think, no way. I know this from personal experience, from reading it with others. It's also there's a common sense aspect of it too.

25:51 The joy of movement grows over time. As your legs and your lungs are conditioned, it becomes less uncomfortable and can even be enjoyable. I could say so much more here. I want this to be an encouragement. If this is landing on you as, oh, this is so terrible, I'm dreading this, this sounds so terrible, then I would say it doesn't always stay as terrible as it starts. It can actually become a joy. It can be acquired taste and pleasure to move. Number seven, exercise serves brain function.

26:31 This has been my biggest discovery probably in the last 10 years related to health and approaching it as a pastor and Christian. And let me read a paragraph to you from a Harvard psychiatrist, John Rady, about exercise in the brain. And at a place like Biola, where the life of the mind, I mean, you people are known. Biola is known nationally for the life of the mind, the kind of clarity and depth of thought that's come out of Biola. So the life of the mind should be appealing to all Christians. It's definitely appealing to me, and I hope it's appealing at Biola. Here's the relationship between the brain and exercise. We all know that exercise makes us feel better. Well, maybe not all of us. You may overstate that. We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why. We assume it's because we're burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that.

27:27 But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best. And in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important and fascinating than what it does for the body. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. Still, continuing with John Rady here. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain. and he goes on to talk about the kind of so when you get the blood pumping and you're able to push fresh oxygen and blood and hormones neurotransmitters past the blood brain barrier it relates to alertness and clarity of thought richness and depth of feeling attention span which, I mean, that's notorious in our day, the difficulty with folks' attention span.

28:36 And let me just say, exercise does not produce on its own spiritual joy. But it sure helps the pursuit of spiritual joy when you're not beginning with a natural joy deficit. So personally, this is one of the most motivating things for me. I want to experience spiritual joy in God that he might be glorified. And when I come in with a deficit, it's all the harder. I'd like to come in without a deficit. I'd like a little boost from some exercise joy that the Holy Spirit might be pleased to use in some spiritual Christ-glorifying joy. Number eight, learning to push the body translates into instincts of a healthy soul. you train the will in exercise, especially when you don't want to do something. I don't want to do another set.

29:34 I don't want to go for a walk. I don't want to get up. I don't want to do the next thing. I don't want to do one more rep. You're training the will to not give up at the first felt sense of resistance. And that's really good for humans. it it has good effects on our work good effects on our families good effects on being a dad good effects on being a friend and good effects spiritually to not just fold the first time you feel some discomfort but to have a sense of oh i feel some pushback i'm learning in myself what's my lazy self to push through when should i actually stop because there's pain and when am i It's my comfort level, and I need to push through, and I need to learn that there's joy on the other side of pushing through. the will is trained by exercise number nine we tend to overestimate what can be done in the short run and underestimate what can be done in the long run and i'll say that again uh this is uh this has been an important lesson for me we tend to overestimate i'm talking here about exercise if you want to change and condition your body we tend to overestimate what can be done in the short run i think i can lose 20 pounds this week no and underestimate what can be done in the long run if somebody is is totally out of shape you can't run a marathon next week that would be silly but you know what uh you might make up you might be able to do a lot in six months, starting with walking, making that a little bit more intense. The flexibility we talked about of humanity, it's amazing how plastic or conditionable the human body is, how it responds to needs that are given over time. So when you put the body under some reasonable

31:45 stress over time, this amazing body from God adapts. It adjusts. It's reformed. It's shaped. It's conditioned. And what might happen in six months is amazing. Six days? Nope, you're dreaming. Six months? Six years? Make a huge difference. Last one, number 10. God means for us to pray about and for our exercise. That is, make bodily life holy.

32:17 And the place I'm going and want to finish is in 1 Timothy 4. 1 Timothy 4 verse 3 sets the scene about God's good gifts of bodily life. Verse 3, he's talking about food, talking about the marriage bed, which is, this is bodily life in 1 Timothy 4, which is why I think it applies to exercise and to sleep. Let's put sleep in there as well, bodily life. Here's what he says in verses 4 to 5. Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy, consecrated, made holy by the word of God and prayer. I finish with this. what does it mean to make it holy by the word of God and prayer right so what's the word of God the word of God is his speaking so don't first think leather round book think God's communicating himself the concept of God's word he's revealing himself he does that through his word we rightly capture it in the leather and bound book amen but the word of God conceptually is he's telling us about ourselves. He's telling us about himself. He's telling us about his world. He's telling us about your body. So hear what he's got to say. If you're going to make your bodily life holy, you need to know what God has to say about it. He made it. So listen to him. But then the other thing is, he says it's made holy by the word of God and prayer. He means for us to ask him.

33:57 the previous verse said thank him receive it with thanksgiving thank him for his gifts of bodily life thank him for what abilities we have when no body is perfect and ask him do you pray for your exercise you pray about it i try to i'm going to make this practical is when i start out on a run or lifting weights with my 14-year-old twin boys, I want to consecrate those moments in prayer. Just as I would pray as I come to God's Word to read, I want very practically, and this could be gathering with some guys to play some basketball.

34:41 Father in heaven, would you use this run to accomplish your purposes in me? Give me strength. Prevent injury. get my blood pumping and get my thoughts clear that I can do what you've called me to do today. Help me to be what I need to be as a father for this family in this season at this time. And he would have us to pray about our exercise. If you don't know what to do next, pray about that. And as you get a pattern, pray that God would use it, consecrate it, sanctify it, glorify himself in it. So let me pray and we'll do our Q&A. Hopefully I've primed the pump here some. Hope you got some questions to throw at us. And I am intimidated because Biola is known as a very sharp place. And I bet you guys have some good questions. But I'm thankful I got Eric, Tony at my side. And Eric is a backstop here because he knows how to handle Biola students, I hope, after all these years.

35:37 Father in heaven, thank you for these bodies. None of them perfect. There's a day coming when they will be transformed if we are in Christ. transformed to be like his glorious body. We thank you for them, and we want to be faithful. For now, it's a body of humiliation until that body of glory comes. And there's a death coming. If Jesus doesn't come back first, there's a death coming in these bodies, which will be the ultimate humiliation. And yet, Father, we want to use them. You've put us in them. You've made us them. you've given us, what abilities you have given us, and we want to steward those. And Father, as we extend the powers of these bodies through technology, we want to use technology and steward our bodies in such a way that values you, our creator, honors you as the one who made us and the one who sent your son to save these bodies by taking a body himself to die for us.

36:41 And so would you help us in these few moments? Would you bring to the surface questions that would be helpful for the group here? And I pray you would guard us from error in our on-the-spot answers and make this a helpful few moments for these students and others. In Jesus' name, amen.