What about yoga and tai chi when you are a biblical believer?

What can we, as biblical thinkers and feelers, learn from the philosophical ideas of China and India? Well, simply that there are exercises that are good for your body and your mind. The Bible is not against physical exercise. Paul only says that the Greek-Hellenistic sports of his (and our) time are not sufficient. There is more. Make sure you open yourself up to the spirit of God, he says.

India has yoga and China has tai chi and qi gong. The exercises from China are definitely good for your body. This has now also been scientifically proven. They keep you supple and healthy, but they also awaken your mind in a positive way.

Yoga does this too, although one of my good friends, who after years of spirituality came to know the power of Jesus, is trying to find out which exercises make room for the spirit of God and which do not. Because for Biblical believers, that is ultimately what it is all about: making room for the spirit of the God of Jesus.

We read in the New Testament that the body is seen as the temple of the Holy Spirit. The message is: take good care of it. Don't give it over to alcohol, drugs, orgies, and other unhealthy activities. But apart from that, the Bible is not a book that focuses much on physical exercise, although it does not reject it.

Or maybe it does?

Certainly. Anyone who thinks that Jewish culture in Jesus' time did not value the body at all is mistaken. For example, there was constant dancing in the Old and New Testaments. Take a look.

In Exodus 15:20-21, we see Miriam leading a group of women in a “dance of victory.” Jephthah's daughter came out to meet him dancing with a tambourine (Judges 11:34). In Judges 21:21, the daughters of Shiloh gather together to dance. And in 1 Samuel 18:6-7, women from various cities dance and sing in honor of their kings.

2 Samuel shows that David also dances (6:14-16). He does this to honor God, which is something that is praised in Psalm 149:3 and 150:4. You can use dance as a form of prayer. Ecclesiastes (3:4) says that you should dance occasionally, and the prophecies predict that things will be better in the future and that people will “dance again” (Jeremiah 31:4,13).

Jesus himself was familiar with dancing and uses it in a metaphor: “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance...” (Matthew 11:17). And in Luke 15:25, we see dance as an expression of joy. The prodigal son has returned, and that must be celebrated.

In short: there is a lot of dancing in the Bible. Ecstatic dance? Jesus was familiar with it, even though it was called something else and was less ritualized at the time.

Even today, we encounter dancing in Judaism. Think of the Hasidim, a Jewish movement that was once established in Poland and Ukraine by the Baal Shem Tov (1700-1767). He preached dance and song as means of coming closer to God. The dance of the Hasidim is influenced by various traditions, but certainly also by the Bible. Modern Orthodox Jews also dance, as do Sephardic Jews, but less exuberantly than the Hasidim.

Hasidim understood that dance had different functions. It helped to break down spiritual barriers between God and man. It strengthened unity within the community, for example during holidays. It could give shape to the joy that faith evoked with its commandments. And then there is the more mystical approach, in which dance is related to energy and harmony.

In other words, both the Jewish and biblical traditions lacked something like tai chi or chi gong, but there was dancing, which was even seen as a form of prayer in some places. As for Christian traditions, dancing does seem to occur, for example in Africa and in the Negro spiritual communities of America and beyond. In other environments, Christianity was not exactly known for its affinity with dance. On the contrary, Calvinism has always been opposed to exuberance, whereas the Bible is not.

Someone who is comfortable in his own skin can be a pleasure to the Holy Spirit, who rightly experiences such a person as a temple. Christianity has sometimes paid little attention to the body. That could be different. And why not ‘hanging out’ with our Chinese and Indian friends?

With their healthy bodywork and massages, they can really mean something to the faithful people from the Christian and Jewish corners. Massages have many pleasant effects. We don't know whether they were completely unknown in biblical culture, but we do know that Paul believed that we should take good care of the body, and that there is a lot of oiling and anointing in biblical history.

What we can let go of, in any case, is the medieval image of the body as the devil's playground, with its passions and desires. Paul calls our body “the temple of the Holy Spirit.” This is very far from the idea that the body is “the dungeon of the soul,” as some Indian and Greek (and later Christian) philosophers claimed. Certainly, the body can become a dungeon, but Paul says that we must be careful with addictions, which imprison people mentally. Bring. The apostle says about this: “Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything.”

This also applies to biblical believers, of course, in their approach to yoga and tai chi. In themselves, these methods are fine, but when they become a purpose in themselves, or are seen as a new religion or spiritual goal, we are not on the biblical track. If you choose for such a life...good luck, but not the biblical believer.