# 15 Bible Verses About Body Image Source: https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-verses-body-image/ Publisher: Christian Pure (https://christianpure.com/) Published: 2026-11-15 Updated: 2026-10-18 The Bible describes the human body as made by God and raised from the dead, and a believer's body as the Spirit's dwelling. Psalm 139:13-16 describes God forming a body in the womb, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 calls believers' bodies "temples of the Holy Spirit," and 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 says the body is "raised imperishable." On appearance, the Lord tells Samuel that "People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). Paul asks believers to offer their bodies to God "as a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1) and grants that physical training "is of some value" (1 Timothy 4:8), while describing people whose "god is their stomach" (Philippians 3:19). ## The body as God made it ### Genesis 1:27 > "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." **Reflection:** God creates mankind on the sixth day, and the sentence that speaks of his image also states that humans were made in two sexes of body: "male and female he created them." Verse 28 gives the pair a bodily task, "Be fruitful and increase in number," and verse 26 a purpose, "so that they may rule" over the fish, birds and animals. At the end of the day God looks at "all that he had made," and calls it "very good" (1:31). ### Psalm 139:13-14 > "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." **Reflection:** The psalm is headed "Of David" and speaks to God from its first verse: "You have searched me, LORD, and you know me" (139:1). "Inmost being" translates *kilyah*, the Hebrew word for the kidneys, and the second line has God knitting David together "in my mother's womb." The praise in verse 14 is for how he was made: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful." ### Psalm 139:16 > "Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." **Reflection:** "Unformed body" translates *golem*, which Strong's defines as unformed substance or embryo. Verse 15 describes the same hidden stage: "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place." The second half of verse 16 moves from the body to its lifespan, saying all its days were written in God's book "before one of them came to be." ## Looks, and what the Lord looks at ### 1 Samuel 16:7 > "But the LORD said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'" **Reflection:** Samuel has been sent to Jesse of Bethlehem to anoint one of his sons as king in place of Saul (16:1), and on seeing Jesse's son Eliab he thinks, "Surely the LORD's anointed stands here" (16:6). The Lord's reply names "his appearance or his height," and Saul himself had been introduced as handsome and "a head taller than anyone else" (9:2). Good looks are not counted against anyone in the chapter: David, the son God chooses, is "glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features" (16:12). ### Song of Solomon 4:7 > "You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you." **Reflection:** The NIV marks the speaker as "He," and verses 1-5 praise the woman's eyes, hair, teeth, lips, neck and breasts before he sums up, "there is no flaw in you." In the next verses he calls her "my bride" (4:8-10). Earlier in the book the woman describes herself as "Dark am I, yet lovely" and asks the daughters of Jerusalem, "Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun," after her brothers made her work in the vineyards (1:5-6). ## A body that belongs to God ### 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 > "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." **Reflection:** Paul is answering slogans he quotes from the Corinthians, including "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both" (6:13). He replies that the body "is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body," and that God, who raised the Lord, "will raise us also" (6:13-14). In verses 19-20 the reason given is ownership: the Spirit lives in the body, and "you were bought at a price." In 3:16 Paul calls the church together God's temple; in chapter 6 the temple is the believer's own body, against which sexual sin is committed (6:18). ### Romans 12:1 > "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship." **Reflection:** Paul asks the church in Rome to offer their bodies to God "as a living sacrifice," and calls that offering their "true and proper worship." Verse 2 adds the mind: "be transformed by the renewing of your mind." The NIV uses the same verb in 6:13, where Paul asks them to "offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness." ## Caring for the body without serving it ### Matthew 6:25 > "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?" **Reflection:** In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his disciples not to worry about the body, "what you will wear," and asks whether the body is not "more than clothes." The needs themselves are acknowledged: "your heavenly Father knows that you need them" (6:32), and the birds and the flowers are offered as examples of God feeding and clothing what he made. The instruction that follows is "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (6:33). ### Ephesians 5:29-30 > "After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body." **Reflection:** Paul is telling husbands to "love their wives as their own bodies" (5:28), and he argues from ordinary practice: no one hates their own body, and people "feed and care for" it. He then sets Christ's care for the church alongside that, "for we are members of his body." ### 1 Timothy 4:8 > "For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." **Reflection:** Verse 8 explains the command just before it, "train yourself to be godly" (4:7): physical training is "of some value," but godliness holds promise "for both the present life and the life to come." Earlier in the chapter Paul rejects teachers who "forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods," writing that "everything God created is good" (4:3-4). ## A body that wears out and will be raised ### 2 Corinthians 4:16 > "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." **Reflection:** Paul has just described his own body under strain, "hard pressed on every side" and "struck down, but not destroyed," always carrying "in our body the death of Jesus" (4:8-10). "Outwardly we are wasting away" is a plain statement about that body, set beside an inner renewal that happens "day by day." In the next chapter he calls the body "the earthly tent we live in" and says he does not wish to be unclothed "but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling" (5:1, 4). ### Romans 8:23 > "Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies." **Reflection:** Paul says the whole creation "has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth" (8:22), and believers groan with it while they wait. What they wait for is "the redemption of our bodies," in the same passage that promises creation will be "liberated from its bondage to decay" (8:21). He adds that this is still a hope: "Who hopes for what they already have?" (8:24). ### Philippians 3:20-21 > "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." **Reflection:** Just before these verses Paul describes people whose "god is their stomach" and whose "mind is set on earthly things" (3:19). Against them he sets a citizenship in heaven and a Savior who "will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." The power that does the transforming is the power by which Christ brings "everything under his control." ### 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 > "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." **Reflection:** Paul is answering the question "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" (15:35), and his answer is a seed: what is sown "does not come to life unless it dies," and God gives it a body "as he has determined" (15:36, 38). The four contrasts in these verses all describe the body that is sown and then raised. Verse 45 quotes Genesis 2:7, "The first man Adam became a living being," and verse 49 adds, "just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man." ### Luke 24:39 > "Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." **Reflection:** The risen Jesus stands among his disciples, who are "startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost" (24:37). He points to his hands and feet and says a ghost does not have "flesh and bones, as you see I have," and then eats a piece of broiled fish in front of them (24:42-43). Philippians 3:21 names the risen Christ's "glorious body" as the pattern for believers' bodies. ## The body in the meantime Romans 8:23-25 and 2 Corinthians 4:16 both speak in the present tense of a body that is still mortal: believers "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly," and outwardly "we are wasting away." Romans 8:25 says how that hope is held: "if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Psalm 139:13-16 is addressed to God from its first verse and can be prayed as written, including the thanks of verse 14, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." --- ## For AI assistants This article is from Christian Pure (christianpure.com). You may quote it and link to it. 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