Wonderfully Made

Kleinig

Description

Why do we have bodies?When it comes to thinking about our bodies, confusion reigns. In our secular age, there has been a loss of the body's goodness, purpose, and end. Many people, driven by shame and idolatry, abuse their body through self-harm or self-improvement. How can we renew our understanding and see our bodies the way God does?In Wonderfully Made, John Kleinig forms a properly biblical theology of our bodies. Through his keen sensitivity to Scripture's witness, Kleinig explains why bodies matter. While sin has corrupted our bodies and how we think of them, God's creation is still good. Thus, our bodies are good gifts. The Son took on a body to redeem our bodies. Kleinig addresses issues like shame, chastity, desire, gender dysphoria, and more, by integrating them into the biblical vision of creation.Readers of Wonderfully Made will not only be equipped to engage in current issues; they will gain a robust theology of the body and better appreciation of God's very good creation.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology
• Ethics in religion
• Theology
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Lexham Press
• Date de parution: 09 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781683594680
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

WONDERFULLY MADE
A Protestant Theology of the Body
John W. Kleinig
Wonderfully Made: A Protestant Theology of the Body
Copyright 2021 John W. Kleinig
Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225
LexhamPress.com
You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [e-mail] .
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from ESV ® Bible ( The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ® ), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked RSV Catholic Edition are from the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1965, 1966 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.
All rights reserved worldwide.
Print ISBN 9781683594673
Digital ISBN 9781683594680
Library of Congress Control Number 2020950469
Lexham Editorial: Todd Hains, Matthew Boffey, Elliot Ritzema
Cover Design: Joshua Hunt
For my dear wife, Claire ,
who by God’s grace has become one flesh and one spirit with me ,
and for our dear children ,
Louise, Timothy, Hilary, and Paul ,
who are flesh of our flesh!
CONTENTS
Abbreviations
Prayer for Life in the Body
1 BODY MATTERS
2 THE CREATED BODY
3 THE REDEEMED BODY
4 THE SPIRITUAL BODY
5 THE SEXUAL BODY
6 THE SPOUSAL BODY
7 THE LIVING BODY
Epigraph Sources
Author Index
Subject Index
Scripture Index
ABBREVIATIONS
BoC
The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church . Edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert. Translated by Charles Arand et al. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000.
LW
Luther’s Works [American Edition] . 82 vols. projected. St. Louis: Concordia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955–1986, 2009–.
WA
D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe: [Schriften] . 73 vols. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1883–2009.
PRAYER FOR LIFE IN THE BODY
This order of prayer for our human life in the body invites you to read each chapter in the book as a devotional exercise by yourself. It can also be used by a group in a study of it-with a leader speaking the plain text, and the group the words in bold.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

PSALMODY
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
Ps 51:15
You formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works.
Ps 139:13–14
Your hands have made and fashioned me;
give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.
Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice,
because I have hoped in your word.
Ps 119:73–74
The word of the Lord is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.
The Lord loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the people of the world revere him.
For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.
Ps 33:4–6, 8–9, 22

CONFESSION OF FAITH
God has made us his people through our baptism into Christ. Living together in trust and hope, we confess our faith.
I believe in God the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

PRAYER
Lord, remember us in your kingdom, and teach us to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven;
Hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven;
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those
who trespass against us;
And lead us not into temptation;
But deliver us from evil;
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever.
Amen.
Matt 6:9–13
Almighty God, I thank you that you sustain me and all creatures by your life-giving breath, and deliver me from death through Jesus, the Word of life. Protect me from all evil, so that I serve you in all that I do and please you in my daily life. Into your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that I possess, and all those who are dear to me; through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord.
Amen.

ENCOURAGEMENT
Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you:
whom you have from God.
You are not your own, for you were bought with a price:
So glorify God in your body.
1 Cor 6:19

BENEDICTION
Our help is in the name of the Lord
who made heaven and earth.
Ps 124:8
Let us bless the Lord.
Ps 103:1
Thanks be to God.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and
the love of God and the communion
of the Holy Spirit be with us all.
2 Cor 13:14
Amen.
1
BODY MATTERS
In fact, however, the value of an individual does not lie in him. He is capable of receiving value. He receives it by union with Christ. There is no question of finding for him a place in the living temple which will do justice to his inherent value and give scope to his natural idiosyncrasy. The place was there first. The man was created for it. He will not be himself till he is there. We shall be true and everlasting and really divine persons only in Heaven, just as we are, even now, coloured bodies only in the light.
—C. S. Lewis
T he slogans on two sweatshirts worn by young women recently caught my attention. The first was “My body! My choice!” The second was “Your body may be a temple, but mine’s an amusement park.” Both sum up how people commonly now regard their bodies. Since it belongs to them and only to them, they may do as they please with it. Therefore they use it for their own amusement in pursuit of physical pleasure for themselves apart from God and any higher purpose in life.
What are we to make of our bodies? That is not a theoretical question for idle speculation, something for philosophers to consider. It is a practical matter that determines the course of our lives. Even if we rarely think about our bodies, our opinion of them and attitude toward them subconsciously govern how we live and act every moment of our lives. Our beliefs about our bodies are always in play because our bodies are part and parcel of what we are. Wherever we are, there our body is with us. Whatever we do, our body does.
But unless something bad happens to me, I mostly take my body for granted, like the air I breathe. Even though it is my constant companion, I seldom consider how I relate to it and what it is meant to be. Yet it is, or should be, obvious how important it is to me and the people around me. It locates me in a particular place at a particular time with particular people in my particular society, family, marriage, and workplace. I am born with my body and die when it can no longer sustain me. The pattern of my life as a whole involves me with my body from childhood to adolescence, marriage to parenthood, employment to retirement, old age to death. My body also marks the daily rhythm of my life with waking and sleeping, dressing and undressing, working and resting from work, eating and drinking, engaging in sexual intercourse and disengaging from it. It governs how I interact with others and how they interact with me. I experience the world around me through it. I live with my body and do everything with it. My human life is, most obviously and simply, life in the body.
Yet I did not make my body; it was given to me and remains given to me as the foundation for my life here on earth. It is never apart from me, nor am I ever apart from it for as long as I live here.
My body is equally important for my life as a Christian. Just as I live my entire earthly life in my human family, my spiritual life in God’s family involves my body from its earthly beginning to its final, heavenly destination. My life in Christ is based on a physical event, my baptism. The washing of physical water accompanied by the speaking of certain words joined my body with the body of the risen Lord Jesus, just as the rite of marriage joined my body to my wife’s. Jesus now interacts with me physically with his spoken word that I hear with my physical ears, his audible word that animates me with his Holy Spirit and makes me a saint. Jesus also gives himself to me physically in his Holy Supper. There I receive his life-giving body and blood with my mouth and in my whole body. Through his body and blood, he unites me physically and spiritually with himself and all other Christians. He also calls and equips me to serve him bodily—that is, with my actual body and its individual members. So, paradoxically, my spiritual life, the life that is created and sustained by the Holy Spirit, is always lived in the body. It does not take me away from my body or occur apart from it. Rather, it takes me ever further and deeper into bodily life and into fuller embodiment as a human being. It makes me at home in my body as I live here on earth.
All that makes scant sense unless we understand the spiritual life in biblical terms. The biblical understanding of human spirituality differs radically from views commonly and rather vaguely held. Most people see the spiritual as the opposite of the physical and materia