Every Body Matters: Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your Soul

by Gary Thomas

Few pastors or Christian writers have dared to approach the subject of how proper eating and an active lifestyle can affect how we serve God. Author Gary Thomas does just that. And he reaches all the way back to the apostle Paul, who wrote that we need to prime our bodies to become, "an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work." To illustrate the body/soul correlation, Thomas presents engaging and diverse stories that include a young mom who got fit through volleyball and reaped spiritual rewards in her marriage, a 300-pound pastor who realized his obesity was eroding his ministry impact, and a woman who gained the spiritual strength to survive a contentious divorce by training for a marathon. In every instance, Thomas makes a direct connection between the physical challenge and its spiritual consequence. This book is a must read for anyone seeking new and compelling motivation for strengthening their bodies and fortifying their souls.

Visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOJVmFwlYbA for more.

• ISBN10: 0310412250
• ISBN13: 9780310412250
• Publish Date: 22 November 2011
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: Zondervan
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[Charli G.]

When it comes to spiritual matters, one does not really take into account the amount of weight they may be carrying on their bodies. Most pastors do not preach about this topic and most church members probably would not be particularly pleased to find the topic of the Sunday message to be about how healthy eating habits and proper exercise are related to spiritual things.

While this book does a fairly good job of pointing out that spiritual matters can be affected by how much physical weight a person is carrying, and does touch on a couple of reasons why a person may be carrying that weight, I found this book to be more aggravating than not.

Part of the reason I did not like this book was that I have always been taught, regardless of the faith the church I am attending - be it Baptist, Pentecostal, Mormon, or otherwise, is that your life ends when God wills it to do so. The very fact that Gary Thomas repeatedly states in the book that your life may end before your ministry is supposed to end, that you may die before God's purpose for you is completed, makes no sense to me. I cannot fathom how it is that the Devil could possibly be causing me to overeat, not exercise, get out of shape, and then die if God does not will me to die at a particular time. This flies in the face of having faith in God in my opinion and in the opinions of friends with whom I discussed what I was reading.

While this book may give readers a new reason for losing weight, that is really all this book is doing - giving you a new reason to lose weight, along with a few suggestions that you could get from your primary physician.