Getting Coached Up with Compassion
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?”
When I was in Middle School, I had a basketball coach whom I truly respected. He had been a starting college player at Southern Methodist University. He was a great motivator. One of the statements he would regularly use was, “Your body is a temple of the Lord.” Then he would encourage us to get the right amount of sleep, eat well, and challenge us not to smoke or drink. He was so good at spiritualizing his rationale for why we should take good care of our bodies. It made a lot of sense to the young me, trying to find out who I was and what I wanted to stand for as a person.
Throughout the years, I’ve heard the “body as the Lord’s temple” argument used for both good and ill. I just described a way it motivated me in my youth to take good care of myself. I’ve also heard it used as a weapon to inflict pain. My mother was obese, so I have always been sensitive to the plight of those who struggle with their weight. It is incredible the cruelty individuals with a weight problem often must endure. People frequently believe that shaming is an effective way to motivate individuals to lose weight. Christian people used spiritualized cruelty to chastise and shame overweight people. One example of this spiritualized cruelty was to accuse an overweight person of not living up to the Scripture “that your body is a temple of the Lord,” insinuating that they are failing God by carrying extra weight.
What extraordinary guilt and pain. Not only does an overweight person struggle with the physical discomfort from excess weight, but the overweight person has to struggle with the murmurs and chides of the insensitive, but now, the person must somehow come to realize their weight is an offense to God Almighty. No wonder so many overweight individuals also struggle with a poor self-image, loneliness, and other emotional pain.
On Saturday, September 27, 2025, Florida A&M was hosting Alabama State in football. At halftime, the famous Alabama State “Honey Bees” dance team was performing. When the song was over, the Florida A&M announcer shared the sick joke, stating the dancers were “the new face of Ozempic.” The announcer judged the Honey Bees to be overweight. The President of Florida A&M apologized, but the horrible damage was done. The insulting Florida A&M announcer is just one painful example of shaming in our society.
Today, pray for those who struggle with their weight. Pray that our society will become more compassionate and respectful of all people. Pray that we will no longer view those who are considered overweight as, ironically, somehow less than. We should be coached up to affirm and accept other people’s bodies as blessed, without rude judgments or shaming. When we do that, all people will be better able to fulfill God’s call for their lives and do so with happiness and joy.
