Transcript
Ben Fallon: Today’s episode of Ask Paul Tripp features two answers from the archives on seemingly unrelated topics, but we hope that the gospel principles contained in both will be insightful and helpful to you. Here’s Paul answering a concern: Can followers of Christ practice yoga?
Paul Tripp: What does it look like to be a light in your neighborhood? Well, I want to capture what I would like to say to you in a single provocative New Testament word. It’s in 2 Corinthians 5. Paul says, “We are, therefore, Christ’s ambassadors.” Think of that term. What is it that an ambassador does?
So I can’t answer this question about Christians and yoga without putting it in its theological context and that is the theology of God’s common grace. Every human being experiences God’s grace everyday. Because God loves us, because He’s a God of tender, faithful mercy, He allows bad people to do good things, fallen people to make wise contributions, so that life would be livable for us.
Let me give you one of the clearest examples of common grace that we all experience: that selfish people, who don’t love God, have no reason to do anything else but love themselves, generally, are willing to obey traffic laws. You know, if God would remove His grace, the most dangerous thing you could ever do is get in a car and drive, but God restrains us. God gives a surgeon, who repudiates the Lord, the ability to discover things in the human body that bring healing to thousands and thousands of people. So, I’m always going to be in this tension where I will need the wisdom of people. I will be blessed by the wisdom of people who don’t love God, who don’t serve Him, who don’t know Him, who, in their lives, believe things that are not true.
So it is with yoga. Yoga is two things. It’s [an] errant philosophy and it’s something really healthy you can do with your body; and you just have to be able to distinguish the difference and I can tell you how I would do that. I think it’s very important, when you have young children, for those young children to be regularly examined by your most often unbelieving pediatrician. He is skilled and at the science of human development. He knows what should be happening in the bodies of those children in their physical and mental capacities; and he’s going to be very helpful to you. But I would not look to that physician for parenting help because that pediatrician doesn’t have a biblical model for parenting and he’s not going to offer me the kind of counsel that I need.
So I can benefit from the physical regimen of yoga, because that stretching of the muscle system can be a very healing and health-giving thing, without buying into the philosophy of people who designed that system. God is willing to give them wisdom about things in the human body for the betterment of our lives.
And so, that’s what you’re always doing. You’re always matriculating this world. That is an example of God’s common grace, discerning when you can participate and when you must withdraw. And that’s just not a yoga thing. That’s [an] everyday thing for all of us.
BF: The next question comes from someone asking for Paul’s recommendation about Christian books. What are the three most essential books for the Christian life?
PT: You know, when somebody asks me to give them three or four essential books for a Christian, my brain melts because there’s a way in which I always think that when I stand up to speak, there are a couple hundred people that stand up behind me who have contributed to everything I have ever understood about my relationship with Jesus. I think of a famous thing that Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones said. Somebody’s commented on the uniqueness of his guitar leads and he said, “l never played a lick I didn’t steal.” That is my ministry. I am the product of the voices of many, many people.
So all I can do is tell you three books that have been formative for me. The first one is a Puritan book. Puritans are hard to read, but you can find renditions of this book that are easier. It’ s John Owen on The Mortification of Sin. That book is a classic. Not only did I see my heart in that book in ways that were devastating, in the good sense of devastation, devastation that would drive me to seek and celebrate grace; but I understood how to handle scripture. There’s a moment where John makes a point from Romans and then, it’s followed with fourteen pages of application. He wanted people to have a street-level understanding of the word of God. I just think it’s a model book and it’s worth the work that you’d have to put into it.
Second book is by John Piper. It’s The Pleasures of God. In that book, I saw the glory of God in ways I’d never seen it before, what pleases God in ways I never saw before; and it has placed me both on a personal and ministry trajectory that I’m very thankful for.
The third book is The Christian Life by Sinclair Ferguson. That little book takes the theology of the Christian life with specific doctrines and talks to you about how to live in light of those truths. It’s enormously helpful because what The Christian Life does is it bridges the gap between your confessional theology and your functional theology because often, we say we believe these things, but we don’t actually live those things at street-level.
Those three books have been very helpful for me, very formative for me. I’ve never been able to keep a copy of The Christian Life in my library because I always end up giving it away. I’m thankful for John Owen. I’m thankful for that people have recaptured Puritans and that they’re still available to us. And sometimes, John Piper is a bit mocked because he’s had one single zeal his entire ministry but I’m thankful for how God has raised up a man to hold the glory of God in front of us. Those three books, I think, are worth your effort and will leave an indelible imprint on your life.
BF: In every resource we produce here at Paul Tripp Ministries, our mission is to connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. But we can only do that with the support of partners like you. If you have been blessed by our ministry, and if you feel led by God and are financially able to contribute to our mission, please consider making a donation at PaulTripp.com/Give. Thank you for your generosity!
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