Is it Okay for Christians to do Yoga?

should Christians do yoga we are finally gonna answer this question today on the beat hey my friend welcome back to the beat my name is Alan Parr thank you so much for tuning in if this is your first time here it's a pleasure if you want a free ebook click the link in the description box below if you enjoy this video consider subscribing hit that little Bell notification so you won't miss a beat okay so today we've got another one of those questions that is really controversial that is not clearly spelled out in the scriptures and if you've tracked with me for any length of time you already kind of know the format in terms of how I answer these types of questions so I'm gonna give you five things that I really want you to consider in terms of whether you should or should not take part in yoga and then at the end of the video I'll tell you where I'm leaning in terms of one way or the other and then I want to encourage you to allow the Holy Spirit to lead you one way or another now without going into too much detail the concept of yoga has its roots or origins in the Hindu religion as a matter of fact the word yoga is a Sanskrit word which basically means Union which is the idea in their religion to unify this is the purpose of yoga to unify the body mind and spirit and so the idea behind yoga is to create some sort of Nirvana or some sort of peaceful feeling or tranquility to de-stress or to relax or it also has proven medical benefits as well so the question though remains in spite of all of those benefits and everything that I just mentioned should Christians be involved with anything that has its roots in the Hindu religion so here are five things that I want to encourage you to consider consideration number one am I being legalistic about this and what I mean here is this Christians who basically just come straight out the gate and they don't even consider both sides of the argument and they just say no Christians should not be doing yoga that is a very legalistic perspective and I'm going to show you the Hat as they go through this video but basically anytime we take our own ideas our own opinions our own experiences our own philosophies and elevate them to a place where they are on the same authority as Scripture even though the scripture is silent on this issue and we make up rules and laws and regulations and speak where the Bible has not spoken my friend that is legalism and we need to guard against that because Jesus himself could be condemns legalism notice it says here in mark 7 verse 7 their worship speaking of these Pharisees is a farce now notice for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God so this was what was going on in Jesus's day they were taking man-made ideas that were not in the scriptures and elevating them saying these are the commands of God so be careful if you're one of those Christians who are just saying nope you shouldn't be doing it under any circumstance be careful that you're not being legalistic okay so the second thing that I want you to consider is what is my motivation behind my desire to participate in yoga and what I mean here is this oftentimes we are guilty of allowing the world to steal certain Christian practices that God says are good and be and because they deem it as evil then we say then we can't do it because the world has has created this idea that it is evil let me give an example meditation some people say no no Christians shouldn't meditate we shouldn't meditate but the Bible actually encouraged us encourages us and commands us in many instances to meditate notice that Joshua 1:8 says study this book of instruction continually meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do so the question is not so much am i doing yoga the question is am i meditating on some sort of Eastern religious false God am i meditating on something like that or am I on god am i meditating on the scriptures am i meditating on God's goodness am i remember izing scripture is my mind focus on the right things as a Christian now let's also go to the stretching issue now if you are stretching your body purposely to try to put it in some sort of posture that would emulate or appeal to some sort of or give homage to some sort of Hindu god they have about 330 million different gods then that's one thing but if you were just simply stretching your body because it helps your flexibility and helps you relax and de-stress as you it helps you get ready to compete athletically or whatever and you have no idea in your mind that your body is taking on certain postures or anything like that my friend how in the world can you say it's wrong for somebody to stretch your body right there's nothing in the scriptures that says thou shalt not stretch we need to be careful about this legalistic perspective in terms of making things law that the Bible does not speak on now with all of that being said the third thing I want you to consider is this is there anything going on in this yoga class that mimics the Eastern Hindu religions or anything related to a New Age religion so in other words if you're going to this class at your gym and they're talking about channeling your inner self they want you to empty your mind which the Bible says you shouldn't empty your mind if I besides you'd have a sober mind you should have an alert mind but that's a whole nother story if they're talking about I'm chanting or they want you to get in touch with your self consciousness or speak good things into your life vibes good energy all that New Age stuff you need to run steer clear from that a Christian should not be in any way connected to that type of yoga or that type of activity or whatever you want to call it because that has its roots in in demonic has demonic roots attached to it which the way you need to think about that because oftentimes if we get involved in these type of activities it can open up the gateway for the enemy to bring us deeper into these type of new-age thoughts so let's say you go to the gym and you're thinking oh I'm just doing yoga it's no big deal I'm just gonna go and think about Jesus and bah bah bah bah bah right it's easy for the enemy to use that as a gateway to pull you deeper into other New Age practices and you may not even realize it's specifically depending upon how mature you are as a Christian so don't even open up your mind don't even open up your spirit don't even give the devil that window or that foothold in your life to make his way in to start influencing you with new-age thought now the fourth thing that you need to consider which is a super-important one and this is one I always say is could my participation with yoga cause a younger less mature Christian to stumble in their faith now I want to take you to a passage of Scripture that is super important that you can apply to just about any of these situations that are questionable and it says here in 1st Corinthians 8 but you must be careful so that your freedom does not cause others with a weaker conscience to stumble so basically what Paul is saying here is this even though you may have the freedom to go to the gym and go to some yoga class which I'm going to talk about in a second be careful that you do not utilize that freedom or abuse that freedom because there could be some other younger Christians that are looking up to you and they may actually fall and and get involved in something they shouldn't get so notice it says here for if others see you with your superior knowledge eating in the temple of an idol now let me break that down basically what was happening here is this to not go into too much detail in the city of Corinth there were some believers who believed that if food was sacrificed to an idol than evil spirits would then attach itself to that food and then by you putting that food in your mouth then those evil spirits are now since they were they were that food are now gonna get into your body and then there was another set of leaves that were like that is ridiculous that is absolutely ridiculous that that's even possible food is food it's for your stomach and there is no such thing as a false god or demon an idol anyway Paul says so how could you think that food could actually transfer an evil spirit he said that's ridiculous right but Paul says here won't they be encouraged to violate their conscience by eating food that has been offered to an idol so let me paraphrase them if someone sees you going to a yoga class won't they be more emboldened to violate their own conscience and go to a yoga class as well and they may not understand all the things that I'm saying in this video about just focusing on Christ memorizing Scripture all they see is you going into a yoga class so then they're gonna follow you into a yoga class thinking that well if this more mature Christian did it so therefore I can do it as well notice he says here so because of your superior knowledge a weak believer for whom Christ died will be destroyed and when you sin against other believers by encouraging them to do something they believe is wrong you are sinning against Christ so if what I eat causes another believer to sin I will never eat meat again as long as I live for I don't want to cause another believer to stumble in other words if me go into a yoga class publicly in front of everybody who knows I'm a believer is gonna cause a whole bunch of younger Christians to fall then you know what maybe I need to find another way of exercising stressing and a distressing and stretching now the fifth thing that I want to encourage you to consider is this is my personal conscience being convicted by this James 4:17 says remember it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it so if you go to this class and there's any part of you that is feeling uncomfortable by going to this class that my friend is the Holy Spirit trying to get your attention to probably tell you for you this is not a good idea and you would do yourself a favor listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit so where do I stand on this issue well basically I believe that the big idea that we need to ask ourselves here is what is my personal motivation for why I am doing this if I am going because I want to participate in some sort of Eastern religion or New Age thought then that is something you need to stay away from but if you are simply going to meditate and to de-stress and to relax and to stretch then my friend I don't see anything wrong with you doing all those things however I would be careful going to a yoga class and doing it and I would even be more careful in calling it yoga because yoga in and of itself has its roots once again in something demonic and so you can do all of those things you can stretch you can de-stress you can relax you can meditate you can do all those things but I would hesitate to call it yoga because of the negative connotations that are associated with yoga so I would love to hear your thoughts I know this is a controversial one please leave those in the comment section below if you found this video helpful in any way feel free to share it with a friend also if you haven't done so already I would love it if you would subscribe check out some other other videos on this channel thank you so much for watching I will see you next time on the beat

Channel: THE BEAT by Allen Parr

Views: 186,035

Rating: 4.757576 out of 5

Keywords: should christians do yoga, what does yoga mean, who invented yoga, what benefits do you get from doing yoga, yoga for christians, is it ok for christians to meditate, what are the eastern religions of hindu, what is new age religion, yoga and christianity, what are the main deities of hinduism, can a christian do yoga, what does the bible say about yoga, what religion does yoga come from, is yoga a cult, allen parr the beat

Id: RTqFPToNGQ0

Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019