What Does The Bible Say About Health?

What does the Bible say about Health?

— Matt Edmundson

Our relationship with health

My default when I think about good health is to think about the food I eat, how fit I am and how much weight I am carrying around my stomach. My default is physical health. But since the pandemic started, I now think about my mental health too.

Health is a funny word that means different things to different people, and we each have a different relationship with this idea of health. For some of us, it can be a raw topic and one that we feel shame about. For others of us, we may have become a little too obsessive about it.

How do I know I am healthy?

Is it by how I feel? By how I look? By how many minutes I have spent on a treadmill? How many times have I been sick recently? One fundamental way we do it is to compare ourselves to others. Do I look like that person? That, in itself, is not healthy. And if you think about it - there is no real defining line for health; it is hard to know if we are actually healthy.

So zooming back in, looking at the Bible and asking what health principles God gave could really help us regain a sense of balance in this whole area, something which I think we all could do with.

So how does God's Word define health?

In the Bible, the word health can also be translated as wholeness. To be healthy is to be whole. That's a really good definition of health right there. When you think of health, think of wholeness.

I found that the Bible talks about 5 key areas of health and wholeness. These are:

1. spirit health,

2. soul health (Let's just quickly define what the soul is - your soul is your mind and your emotions. So mental health and emotional health come under soul health),

3. body health,

4. relationship health and

5. economic health.

And what fascinates me about this is that in the Bible, they are not all independent of each other, but instead, they are heavily connected to each other. They are all interdependent.

The apostle Paul, who wrote many letters in the Bible, put it this way to the church

“May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together––spirit, soul, and body––and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. ”

-- 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (The Message)

Here Paul is praying that they would experience wholeness - that they would be healthy spirit, soul and body - that they would be kept fit. He is linking all of these ideas together. They are interdependent ideas.

It's also essential to notice that God makes us whole. Self -help is OK. Self -Care. Self -Love. Whatever phrase you use doesn't matter because it all comes from self. They are not bad ideas, just limited ones. The best self-care I can do is let the God who formed me make me whole through His grace. The best self-love is to love the Creator who makes us whole and healthy in a way that I could never reach on my own.

The apostle John, one of Jesus' closest friends, also wrote a letter to a dear friend of his called Gaius, and he opens it like this:

“Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.”

-- 3 John 1:2 (NIV)

Here, John links economic health and body health to soul health. In other words, your economic and body health will somehow be limited to the strength of your soul health - which is your mind and emotions. This idea is critical because if you are strong in body health, but your relationships are in a mess and you don't have healthy thinking, then you are not whole. In other words, health is not just about your body health; it is about you being whole spiritually, about being mentally healthy and physically healthy, as well as emotionally, economically and relationally.

My Journey With Health

So this is all great in theory, but how does it work practically? Good question.

A few years ago, I had poor physical health. I was overweight and unfit. Then I was fit, but still on the plump side and struggling with diabetes, so when I looked at the five areas, God showed me that I needed to change three specific things:

1. The first one was my spiritual health. It is the centre and key to everything. For me, it was clear that I had issues with self-control. And yes, that is a spiritual issue because the Bible calls it a fruit of the Spirit - something that manifests in you as the Holy Spirit lives in you.

2. Then there was my soul health (which was closely linked to my thinking) because our media and culture had so misshaped it. My thoughts needed renewing but so did how I felt, my emotional well being about the whole thing. I needed to see this all through God's eyes and let Him shape my thinking.

3. And, of course, I had to work on my physical health.

Had I just worked on my body health, I would have done what I'd always done - and fallen back into the stop-start, stop-start give up pattern that I get stuck in. So I needed to deal with my spirit health and my soul health too.

With that foundation laid, I do want to start by looking at this idea of physical health. In future livestreams, we are going to touch on some of these other areas, like our mental health, our thinking, our relationships and so on so make sure you are subscribed to get notified when we do.

A healthy body

Let me start by saying that the Bible is pretty silent about your body shape, ideal BMI, having a six-pack or how we look. As a society, we have placed a tremendous value on our looks, our obsession with plastic surgery, fillers and so on are. The trouble is body dysmorphia is on the rise at an alarming rate, as are eating disorders. This is not the Gospel! Jesus was never about finding value and identity in how I look. Proper health comes from our identity in Christ, which is not wrapped up in our body mass or shape. The Bible, though, does talk about what to eat and drink, and how to exercise and rest.

The Bible on food and drink

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. ”

-- 1 Corinthians 10:31 (ESV)

This is a great guiding principle - eat and drink to the glory of God. But what does it mean to do this to the glory of God? I think it means a lot of things - but mainly in worship and celebration of Him. Don't separate your food from your Christian faith. When you do something to the glory of God - you are thinking about something much bigger than yourself at that moment.

This, for me, not only covers what I eat but also how I eat.

How much should I eat & drink?

And this is where I struggled. I couldn't just eat one cookie. I had to eat the whole packet; it was what the Bible calls excess, or gluttony.

It seems that excess doesn't glorify God which also applies to drink - especially alcohol.

Is it OK for a Christian to drink alcohol?

This is quite a common question in the church. There is a famous joke that floats around that Jesus turned the water into wine and the evangelicals have been trying to turn it back ever since. We see Jesus turning water into wine and we see Him drinking wine, but we don't see Jesus drunk, we only ever see Him hanging out with drunk people. In fact, the Bible tells us to avoid getting drunk, which it also calls excess.

“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit ”

-- Ephesians 5:18 (KJV)

So a critical biblical principle is this idea of excess - but what does it mean? Food and drink are good. And most of our natural foods are a gift from God. I am not sure about sprouts; they may have come due to the fall!. Part of God's gift to us is food and drink. Too much though, is excess; it is gluttony. We can over consume what God gives us, and it goes from being good to being bad. If I consume too much carbs and sugars, I am at risk of diabetes. One translation says that excess will ruin your life. Too much food, too much drink ruins your life - something we all intuitively know to be true.

I would also venture to say that not eating enough food is another form of excess, and that can also ruin your life.

How to avoid excess

This is tricky isn't it - and you will know this to be true if you have wrestled with food and diets. Fortunately, there is hope in the Gospel of Christ! I mentioned earlier that I could work on my spirit health in the area of self control because self control is a fruit of the spirit - which is something that the Holy Spirit who lives in me, manifests in my life.

In other words, to get the physical self control, I can let the Holy Spirit work in me - and this transformed my thinking because it stopped being about me striving and what I could do in my own strength, and it became more about relying on Him, listening to Him and allowing Him to work in my life. This, in turn, has changed what and how I eat over time. Let me tell you, this idea is life-giving to the Christian because it is based on His grace; it is based God's strength and not my own. It is less about me and it is shame-free!

I've started to do a really simple thing, I try and pray before I eat anything. It might sound silly, or even over kill - but you know what, it works for me. I just ask the Holy Spirit, should I eat this? It has worked well for me because it was easier for me to do this, and obey His promptings than it was to try and will myself into a dietary change.

Intermittent fasting

Of course, one of that ways that the Holy Spirit leads in self control and excess where food is concerned is fasting. It turns out that both Science and the Bible agree that fasting regularly is good for your health. It's also an excellent way to help develop the spiritual fruit of self-control.

So what did I learn about exercise?

“Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come. ”

-- 1 Timothy 4:8 (NLT)

Physical training, or exercise, in the Bible, is called good. And that's important. But again - notice the link between physical health and spiritual health here - physical training is good, but godliness is better. Godliness is spiritual health.

In the Bible, we can look at Jesus and see that He was physically active as He would walk everywhere. The Bible often tells us to be strong - as strength is a sign of health. We can have strong, spiritual health and strong, soul health but also be physically strong. So strength training also makes sense to me as well as being physically active.

So how do I go about getting healthy?

Here's a truth that we all know to be true: none of this is automatic. You have to work at it. You have to partner with the Holy Spirit. Spirit health involves the uncommon art of faith, risk-taking and self-control. Strong mental health means working on your thought patterns, which is never easy. You have to work at relationship health, economic health and body health. That's the way it is. You have to come to a place where you surrender your ideas and beliefs to God and then partner with Him, and when we do, yes, it is hard but is also life-giving.

We may find it hard in one or two areas - such as those that suffer long-term illness or disability. So what can you do? What is the Holy Spirit highlighting to you today? Where do you need to partner with him?

Look at the five areas and pray into that. Things aren't always straightforward. I said at the beginning many of us have a strange relationship with health. Some obsess about it. Some feel a lot of shame here, but God makes us whole, makes us truly healthy; He is the only one that can do that. You might be able to workout harder, but He is the only one that can transform you spirit, soul & body!

So remember, when we work with the Holy Spirit and let Him change our hearts and minds, then real, divine, shame-free, balanced, life-giving, biblical health and wholeness can flourish in us, and that can happen starting right now.