Faith Embodied, Stephen Ko. Zondervan Reflective (ISBN: 9780310151692), 2024.

Summary: Bringing physical and spiritual health together, a physician/pastor connects senses and bodily functions with our worship of God.

“Most of us treat our bodies as separate entities from our spirits, related in only minor ways–if at all.”

Stephen Ko opens his book with this observation. And he is qualified to do so. He is a physician who has worked as a pediatrician as well as a public health officer. And he is the senior pastor of New York Chinese Alliance Church, the largest Chinese Alliance in New York City. He’s seen the separation in his own life, divorcing devotions and exercise. We watch questionable material on Netflix and then say our nighttime prayers. We offer our lives as spiritual sacrifices in worship and then gorge on an unhealthy lunch.

Ko wants us to bring the two together. This involves making incarnational health choices and understanding how our embodied life is often an object lesson in living healthy spiritual lives. The book reflects this intention. First, Ko considers the wonder of our five senses of sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing, what can go wrong with each of these senses, and how they connect to our spiritual lives. For example, our sense of smell can detect both perfume and poison. When we lose it, food tastes off. Fragrance, such as the burning of incense, are often a part of worship. Likewise, our lives are a fragrance of God and an aroma to the world.

Second, Ko considers five bodily functions: breathing, movement, creative endeavors, rest, and our hearts and their link to love. Similarly, he explores the wonders of our bodies in all these functions and ways these link to our spiritual lives. He writes about breathing as life and ways we use our breath in prayer and our voice to advocate for the vulnerable. He observes how essential movement is to our health, and how it fits us for spiritual service over the long run. And fundamental to the Great Commission is going!

Each chapter includes questions for personal or group reflection as well as references. The strength of this book is that it views our bodies as integral to spiritual life. The are neither irrelevant, nor evil distractions. My observation is that God’s people do not pay attention to physical health, except in our prayers for the ill. At the same time, others do follow the health guidance Ko offers and still suffer, sometimes chronic pain, and at others, acutely. Despite all, they get sick, sometimes desperately so. I recognize this is a large subject, perhaps beyond the scope of this work, But Ko might have acknowledged this, and perhaps touched on what it means to live an embodied life of faith under these circumstances.

Our bodies are not mere vehicles to convey our minds or souls around. Ko, as physician and pastor, brings together physical and spiritual health. He offers both precepts and examples for living fully toward God in our bodies. In so doing, we anticipate our resurrection hope, in which we will more fully than ever embody our worship and love for God.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.