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Healthy Activities
In the
Beginning On September 3, 1908, Henry Clay Rockwell delivered a discourse entitled “Spiritual Culture, or the Development of Spiritual Strength” at a Put-In-Bay, Ohio, Bible Student convention. A synopsis can be found in Reprints page 4245, and a transcript appeared in the 1908 Convention Reports. Rockwell was on the editorial committee of the Watch Tower when Pastor Russell died in 1916, but left the Society in 1917 and became one of this Institute’s founding directors and a member of The Herald’s editorial committee in 1918. His 1908 discourse inspired this issue. The many things we can do to keep ourselves physically healthy have counterparts for spiritual health as well. The article “Eating and Drinking” considers where we get our nourishment since it has such a great effect on our health. “Walking with God” shows how the verb “walk” is often used in the Bible to describe following God. Consecrated Christians today walk in the narrow way leading to life; the world will walk on a highway in the kingdom. Although physical activity has an important impact on health, “Resting” is also important. That is true in our spiritual lives as well. As we are told in Hebrews, there remains a rest for the people of God, a rest the ancient Israelites never experienced. “Learning” is as important to the brain as physical exercise is to the body. We are in the school of Christ to learn about God. “Cheerfulness” may not be considered a choice, but it is. Just as stress has a deleterious effect on health, a cheerful outlook improves it. “Bathing” describes our need to be continually cleansed from sin, something that requires us to first acknowledge our sin. One event in David’s life provides an instructive example for us. The article “Sunlight” describes how both God and Jesus are “sun like,” and that our objective should be to become like them. We end with “Exercising Our Senses,” a meditation on how we develop our senses as we grow from babes in Christ into full-grown maturity. May we all continue doing those things that make us spiritually healthy. |