Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

• 1 Corinthians 6:18-20

“ ‘Over Himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.’ – John Stuart Mill”

• Bryan Magee, The Story of Philosophy

“Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”

• C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was an English philosopher and political economist.

First, the Scripture.  I have heard countless body builders quote the Scripture above out of context, to justify their personal obsession.  It has to do with sexual immorality, and nothing to do with how much you can dead lift.

The author, Jim Fixx, wrote the book The Complete Book of Running.  He changed his dangerously sedentary lifestyle into a running obsession and died of a heart attack while running.  When his book was flying off the shelves, I was in the Army, and I felt the only way that I would die while running was to be run over by a passing motorist.  It is amazing how Bostonians have the time to roll down the window of their car and spew obscenities and curses on the ground you run on while they are driving over that same ground and they do not have the time to hit the brakes.  But that was decades ago.

I cannot find the quote at the moment, but I think C.S. Lewis said something about how we think we are in charge of our bodies when we enter this world at the behest of another (namely our parents wanting a child).  And God knows the very second at what point we breathe our last, but we have no control over that.

What unmitigated gall does someone have to have to state that we are sovereign over our bodies and minds?

Many forces and entities of this world can put thoughts into our minds.  We have some control over whether we dwell on those thoughts, but not completely.

We can be responsible about what we eat and the amount of exercise we get or avoid.  We can choose to be safety minded when doing everything in our lives.

But we can still die at any moment from any number of things.

Let us be responsible, but let us worship and glorify the One who is sovereign over this world.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.