Living Faithfully With Our Bodies | A Book Review of The Body Teaches the Soul
- Amber Thiessen
- Apr 29
- 6 min read
One of the more surprising moments in counselling happens when I ask about physical health. Sleep, exercise, diet. There’s often a pause, sometimes even confusion. What does that have to do with anxiety?
But over time, it becomes clear that how we care for our bodies shapes far more than we tend to admit.
Many of us have been taught to think of the Christian life as something that happens primarily in the heart and mind. We focus on beliefs, and spiritual disciplines, while the body becomes secondary—or at times, irrelevant.
But what if the way we move through our daily lives is doing more spiritual work than we realize?
This is exactly the tension Justin Whitmel Earley explores in The Body Teaches the Soul.
Living Faithfully With Our Bodies | A Book Review of The Body Teaches the Soul
Content
Content
Purpose of the Book
In the pages of this book, the author shares his story of burnout and anxiety, and how developing a theology of the body led to building physical and spiritual habits which moved him further toward healthy and holy living.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Body Teaches the Soul: How a Lawyer Who Cared Only About the Life of the Mind Began to Realize He Had a Body
CHAPTER 1: Breathing: Breathe Deeply: How Breathing Teaches us About our Unique Union of Body and Soul
CHAPTER 2: Thinking: Garden Your Mind: Mental Health and How the Brain’s Need for Integration Teaches us the World’s Need for Shalom
CHAPTER 3: Eating and Drinking: Fast and Feast: How Rhythms of Fasting, Feasting and Ordinary Fare Reshape Us, Body and Soul
CHAPTER 4: Sleeping. Honor Rest: How Sleeping Teaches Us Our Need for Sabbath
CHAPTER 5: Sickness and Pain: Lament Brokenness: How Physical Brokenness Teaches Us That the Fall Has Ruined Everything
CHAPTER 6: Exercise: Embrace Discipline: How Exercise Teaches Us That We Were Meant for Sanctification Through Suffering
CHAPTER 7: Sex: Seek Union: How Sex Teaches Us That We Were Made for Spiritual Union
CHAPTER 8: Technology: Stay Embodied: How Technology Teaches Us the Danger of Disembodiment
CHAPTER 9: Worship: Worship Holistically: How Worship Teaches Us That Church Changes Our Minds and Our Bodies
CHAPTER 10: Death and Resurrection: Remember Your Death (Is Dead): How the End of This Life Teaches Us That We Are Destined for Eternal Life
Summary
The Body Teaches the Soul is Justin Whitmel Earley’s invitation to recover a thoroughly biblical, embodied spirituality. He writes as someone who once treated the Christian life as a “head project,” expecting it would somehow trickle down into the rest of life. Through his own experience of anxiety and burnout, he came to see that our habits and physical routines are constantly shaping our souls, for better or worse.
In God’s good design, we are a unified whole, body and soul together. This is what it means to be embodied. Yet we often reduce the Christian life to something that lives in our heart and mind, disconnected from the body. Earley draws on insights from neuroscience and places them within a distinctly Christian framework. He walks through everyday areas of life such as breathing, rest, exercise, sex, worship, eating & drinking, showing how physical habits function as “spiritual liturgies” that either push our hearts toward God or away from Him.
While he emphasizes that these habits can lead us toward a healthy and holy life, he is careful to root them in grace rather than self-sufficiency or legalism. The chapter titles offer a clear guide to the book’s content, and the summaries at the end of each chapter reinforce a key paradigm: we are not to ignore the body or idolize the body, but to image God through it. Each chapter pairs a spiritual practice with a physical one, helping the reader live within that tension.
This is both a why and a how book, offering a biblical vision of the body alongside practical ways to live it out.
My Take
The brokenness of our bodies is easy to see, perhaps more in my 40s than in earlier years. From general aches and pains to illness and death, we feel how our bodies carry discomfort and limitation. And when the casket is lowered into the ground, we’re reminded that dust returns to dust.
When we face pain, limitation, and the finality of our bodies, it can be tempting to neglect them or grow apathetic toward them. At times, we may not even be sure what we believe about the body at all. We begin to reason that our soul will live forever, so we give more attention and conviction to the spiritual parts of life, especially in the context of the church.
In my work as a counsellor, I regularly sit with those who struggle with anxiety. While I often lean into cognitive strategies, I know we are not only thinkers. We are emotional, relational, and physical. A holistic approach to care includes learning to think differently, but it also means understanding our emotions, our relationships, and our bodies. Practices like exercise and breathing are not just physical; they are ways we tend to our emotional health as well.
In my assessments, I ask clients about their physical health just as I ask about their spiritual practices. There is often a look of surprise. What could physical health have to do with a mental health crisis?
How we care for our body matters. When we neglect it, it will make itself known.
In my own life, I’m learning how Canadian winters affect my mood. I walk less outdoors and have fewer opportunities for sunlight. I’ve also seen how deep breathing steadies my anxiety as a nurse when a trauma or cardiac arrest requires urgent intervention.
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30)
This book helps us think about the body as part of how we glorify God and serve others.
There is a real risk of overemphasizing the body, becoming consumed with workouts, step counts, or tracking macros. The culture around us will pull us in one direction or another. But when we see our habits as tools for spiritual formation, not the source of our salvation, they become helps toward a godly life rather than objects of our worship. The tension between grace and legalism remains, and it requires discernment.
In the end, this book calls us back to faithfulness. Not a faith that lives only in our thoughts or intentions, but one that takes shape in the rhythms of our everyday lives. The way we breathe, move, rest, and care for our bodies becomes part of how we love God and serve others. We won’t do this perfectly, and we don’t need to. By grace, we’re invited to pay attention to our habits and to bring even the smallest parts of our lives under the lordship of Christ.
Where in your daily rhythms might your body be revealing something about your soul, and what is one small practice you could begin to bring that area before the Lord?
My Recommendation
This book will be of interest to you if you want to lean into understanding a theology of the body and how to implement practices to glorify God through it.
Also, an interesting note is that there’s a bible study with streaming video sessions that you could use for personal study or with a small group. Seems worth checking out and would be a good topic to discuss with others.
Quick Stats
# of Pages: 272
Level of Difficulty: Easy
My Rating: 5 stars
From the Author
I think it's fun to hear from the author as they share about their book. So take a minute to listen!
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Scriptures About Body & Soul
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt. 10:28)
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess 5:23)
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (Matt 16:26)
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 Cor 6:19-20)
Want More Books?
*I was able to grab this title when it was available on Kindle Unlimited!
**And a big thanks to a fellow reader who recommended it to me!
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