How did the JDUBS feel about physical fitness?

asilentone

How did they feel about physical fitness? Did they say anything to discourage physical fitness?

Yeah they use some scripture about bodily training being beneficial for some things, but blah blah blah.....That time is better spent in field circus. They also use that scripture to discourage young ones from joining teams sports.

Alpaca

Neither fiscal fitness nor physical fitness are things that a "mature Christian" should be pursing.

The advice was that walking in the ministry was the best exercise you could get.

Hope4Others

Now would you really want to rub shoulders with the "World" at the gym?

Cheers!

hope4others

VoidEater

Do not glory in the physical body. Satan uses it as a trap and a snare, building your body will only lead you to obsessing over physical attraction, which will lead to sexual misconduct.

digderidoo

When i was a teenager there were many of my witness peers going to the gym. A few were into body building, maybe its just different in my area. The elders saw it as a recreational thing for the young ones to do, instead of going out partying.

Paul

Finally-Free

They counseled me for being overweight, so I joined a fitness club. Then they counseled me for that.

W

AudeSapere

To pay too much attention to your body could be tantamount to idolization.

If you spend too much time in a gym you are spending time with bad worldly associatiates and it all takes too much time away from personal study and the field ministry.

I got out of most of my gym classes in high school due to a questionable medical diagnosis. Even when I was cleared medically, my parents used it to keep me away from the worldy kids with a note from a witness doctor.

-Aude.

undercover

Well, as in anything else, physical fitness pursuits should be kept to moderate amounts and should not take any time away from spiritual pursuits. That's the official line.

Reading between the lines...they don't want anyone having any interests in anything that would take them away from using their time to serve the Watchtower Society. It doesn't matter if it's physical activity, movies, books, feeding the poor, volunterring at the hospital...they want you peddling their literature and studying the same so as to stay brainwashed and not develop any outside interests.

An elder once told me that we shouldn't have any outside hobbies...that being a Witness was our hobby, our career, our life...and anything and everything else was a waste of time. He even chided people for taking vacations when they could have been using that time to aux. pioneer.

primitivegenius

yeah thats what i always got. ohhhhhhhh myyyyyyy godddddddd if you were to work out.. thats time you would be robbing from jehovah, that you should be spending in his field circus. and lets not forget if you hang out at a gym you will be around hotties of all shapes and sizes...... so doubless you will fall into temptation and be practiceing porneia at every opportunity.

then they had the bodily training scripture to prove its written in stone.

so i was a fat single lonely f***** for along time............ now i walk every day and when this fracking places gym opens back up............. ill just be mildly chubby lol.