“Your body is a temple.”

How many times we have all heard this verse, seen it in social media bios, or even on mugs in gift stores! It’s even in a handful of pop songs. For me, and perhaps for other young people raised in the faith, this snippet of the verse is easy to categorize into one (or sometimes both) of two extremes. On the one hand, a narrower interpretation looks at the context that Paul wrote this from; that is, an admonition for Christians to be sexually pure since we belong to God. So at times for myself—and many others who have written on this topic already—we are taught guidelines for upholding this purity. Then we can peacefully write this verse in a journal, maybe with a personal reflection, flip the page and move on. At least for some, that simplicity and directness may be exactly what God calls us to accept and commit to. But there is another common way this verse is taken and taught. Essentially, it is that this is a call for every Christian to live up to a standard for how we care for and present our physical bodies.

“Or do you not know that your body is a 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 Corinthians 6:19-20)

The second interpretation, the one that calls for practical application and a spiritual standard of self-care, is the one I have learned and what I will be going into a bit more detail on now. Up until this week honestly, I have always felt defeated by this verse. My perspective towards my physical body has been a pretty dim perspective for… pretty much always. Admittedly it still is, yet over the past month I think God has gently been asking me to see myself differently. To at least try to see myself through His eyes. 

“A man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself.” (Proverbs 11:17)

“Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.” (Ezekiel 36:31)

As I have alluded to in some previous entries, I used to quietly believe that God had a cruel streak. That if He had a default mode for dealing with those who hadn’t turned to Him, or those of His children who turned away from Him, it was to deal out punishment on them. On me. Now I have an idea of why I assumed this about God, and no, it wasn’t actually because the God of the Old Testament seems to wield power with a strong hand. (That is up to interpretation, and would be a great topic to explore another time soon.) You see, I had always read the above verse in Proverbs 11 strictly in the context of ‘doing unto others.’ Suddenly, as I came across this verse during a recent moment with God, I wondered if hurting myself is still a kind of cruelty in God’s point of view. It made sense then: if I have in myself a kind of inner cruelty, or a lack of healthy self-forgiveness, I am more likely to see God as harsh.

“When we assume God thinks like we think, we miss the evidence of His unfailing kindness, dependability, and deep engagement.” (Wendy Ulrich)

“I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.” (C.S. Lewis)

Self-forgiveness and self-love are part of a mindset that is taking over our culture lately. And for valid reason, as common awareness of mental health and concepts of body image are shifting for what arguably is the better. Instagram influencers, psychologists, pastors, and our best friends are telling us to start recognizing where self-hatred creeps in, and to fight it by loving our bodies. For some, that might mean reserving time for meditation, good food, massages, etc, etc. But personally, “loving myself” in this context has sometimes seemed… wrong. As if I don’t trust God to provide me with good things, but I don’t deserve to chase after them either. Part of that are lies of low self-worth, or of a mindset that compares my body to others instead of what the practical life God wants me to have entails. Yet, where do we distinguish self-love from love of the flesh? On that note, what is the world’s concept of the self, compared to God’s? If there is a difference, then I believe it has to do with what—or whom—is housed in the temples that our bodies are. 

“People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving…” (2 Timothy 3:2-3)

The above verse demands a look into the kind of ‘love’ that we are practicing. Who is it this love is focusing on? If it is solely a nourishing of our own selves, I think this verse argues the point that self-love easily becomes narcissistic. But we have all seen that happen, I would wager. When we are our own temples, with our own self-worship, and our own image of God which looks just like us… that temple is not consecrated to the Spirit He gives us (2 Timothy 1:7). So, we lose the self-control and the fruits of the Spirit that stem from God’s kind of love. We end up hating ourselves, as well as the temple we thought was our own. 

“Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.” (Ezekiel 36:31)

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” (Romans 8:5)

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

So God calls us to hate our flesh yet to love ourselves. What does that actually look like? I think the point of these verses is not whether to avoid spa night, or treat yourself to pizza. Neither is it necessarily to focus on liking what we see in the mirror, nor shaming ourselves for habits that we have formed… or ones we haven’t. Because a focus on those outward things, while they may be symptoms or fruit of a body that is dedicated to God, loses sight of why our temple matters. Our body doesn’t matter so much because we are inside of it, as it does because God is inside of us. 

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1) 

What is so beautiful, so comforting about this verse is that Paul is telling us to dwell on the mercies of God. Again Paul reminds us that our bodies belong to God, but never is this meant condemningly. We don’t have to be temples that are ornamented perfectly for God to dwell in us. That means we have no reason to listen to the devil’s cruelty, when he tries to shame us. I know I will never be able to love myself enough to house God’s spirit, but that is not how it works anyway. God put a new spirit in me, which is decorating my temple from the inside out. Living waters flowing from inside the heart of the temple are washing my scars and flooding out my self-hatred, and gradually filling it with a love that treasures others the way I believe God loves me. And in the end, it’s Jesus’s genuinely unconditional love that matters so much more, and is the only real kind of love I will ever find in myself.