Value in every way
Paul, weighing two trainings
Paul is not against the body. He has just used an athlete's word for spiritual maturity, and now he pauses to be fair to the gym. Bodily exercise, he grants, has some value — a real but limited return, profitable for the few decades a body lasts. He is not sneering at discipline of the muscles; he is measuring it.
And against that measure he sets another kind of training. Godliness, he says, has value for all things, holding promise for the life that is now and the life that is to come. One training pays out for a season and stops at the grave. The other pays out across this whole life and straight on into the next, with no expiration date.
We live in a culture that will sweat an hour a day for a body destined for the dust and begrudge ten minutes to a soul destined for eternity. Paul does the simple arithmetic we so often refuse to do. If you will discipline yourself for the lesser return, why not for the greater? The training that profits everything, forever, is the one most worth the sweat.
“For bodily exercise has some value, but godliness has value for all things, having the promise of the life which is now, and of that which is to come.”
— Paul, to Timothy — 1 Timothy 4:8 (WEB)
Give to the training of your soul at least the seriousness you would give to the training of your body — for one return ends at the grave and the other never does.
“He shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.”
We will sweat daily for a body destined for dust and begrudge minutes to a soul destined for eternity, expecting maturity to arrive without training. The interior work is to do the honest arithmetic Paul does — to see that godliness profits both this life and the next — and to let that reordering move the discipline of the soul from optional to essential.
This week, set beside the time you spend on your body a deliberate, scheduled time for the training of your soul — and guard it with the same seriousness you would a workout you refuse to skip.
The flesh will sweat for a strong body and shrug at a strong soul, half-expecting godliness to arrive on its own while the years drain away. But the training that keeps paying after the heart stops beating never comes to the passive — and the one who gives the soul what he gives the body gains a profit nothing can touch.
It is a strange inconsistency in us. We accept without complaint that a strong body must be trained — that no one wakes up fit by accident — yet we half-expect a strong soul to arrive on its own, as a gift to the passive. Paul will not let the double standard stand. Both are trained for; only one of the two trainings keeps paying after the heart stops beating.
Notice he does not say godliness profits only the life to come. It holds promise for the life that is now as well — a present return of peace, of rootedness, of a leaf that does not wither in drought. The disciplined soul is the tree by the stream, fruitful in its season and green when others go brown. The question is not whether the training costs you something. It is which training you can least afford to skip.
- Do I train my body harder than I train my soul?
- What present fruit of godliness am I going without by staying untrained?
- Which training can I least afford to skip — and which do I actually skip?
Lord, I will sweat for a body that fades and neglect a soul that lasts forever. Forgive the lopsided care. Train me in godliness, which profits this life and the next, and make me a tree planted by your streams. Amen.