Top Posts of 2012

Here's a rundown of our top 5 posts of 2012:

1) Not surprisingly, our number one spot belongs to Obamacare: Problems and Hope.

2) Portrait Unveiled

3) Needlessly Inflated Medical Costs

4) More Insurance Is Not the Answer

5) Contentment

Marriage as Preventive Medicine

While much disputed, there are indications that marriage, per se, is protective [of health], not merely that people with poor health habits or pre-existing health problems are less likely to become or remain married. Do ministers who preach God's word on marriage regard their sermons as preventive medicine? Do they advocate marriage for those who do not have the gift of celibacy? If not, why not? Parents who demonstrate a good marriage and promote marriage before their children are practicing preventive medicine. Are they aware of this? They should be told by their pastor and their physician. The potency of the marriage-health connection exceeds many preventive medicine tactics the medical profession uses. Keeping of the seventh commandment in its fullness would eliminate all venereal disease within a generation. The medical profession offers the material solution of the condom. It is ludicrous in comparison.


Excerpt from "How Would God Have Us Practice Preventive Medicine?"

Improperly Isolating Medicine

A young man I have known for several years came to the Emergency Room. A professing Christian, he has a quick, hot temper. I had noted it before but never mentioned it. This night he had received the worst of it in a fight which included a knife in the other fellow's hand. I sewed him up with nylon monofilament. I still did not address the temper. I was acting in faith that my nylon stitches would help the knife cut mend. I introduce the nylon into his flesh but abstain from introducing applicable scripture to his spirit for spiritual healing and the physical health consequences which could result. Thus I practice 1 Tim. 4:8 backwards; it comes out something like this: "For godliness is of some value, but physical treatments -- that is where the real power is!" I certainly believe that the Holy Spirit acting through the Word can mend the young man's quick temper which led to the knife fight. I know that he is under the oversight of a church, but I didn't refer him to them for their help in dealing with the real root of his "medical" problem. When I practice this way, I practice as though I believe medicine is a secular art, isolated from a person's spirit.


Excerpt from "How Would God Have Us Practice Preventive Medicine?"

Consider Spiritual Causes for Medical Problems

Christian physicians routinely bypass obvious ungodly behavior which has possible adverse health consequences in their patients -- a quick temper, unforgiven sin, unconfessed guilt, etc. We don't even think of these as health issues, or, we put them aside as “not in our field.” After all, we weren't called to preach. I have kept problem lists on my patients for years, diligently noting down Congestive Heart Failure and such. Never have I entered "Quarrelsomeness" on one, despite the fact that I have treated many patients whose quarrelsomeness earned them injury.

There are practical reasons for not writing "spiritual" problems in the medical record. The record exists partly to communicate with other physicians, and some would not understand. There is no code, for instance, for "gossip" in the International Classification of Health Problems in Primary Care (ICHPPC). Insurers would refuse to honor their contracts with patients who submitted a claim with such a "diagnosis" on it, not to mention that patients wouldn't take kindly to it. We can excuse ourselves for not writing it, but we have a serious problem if, as Bible-believing Christians, we can't even think of it as a health maintenance issue, or that it is remediable.

As for not being called to preach, check yourself out, if you are a physician. Chances are you have a spiel on some practice that damages health -- obesity, smoking, failure to use seat belts, etc. It is not our reluctance to preach that holds us back but our habit of sticking to the material aspects of the world for our subject matter. This insistence on addressing only physical issues has been inculcated in us by the humanist worldview. In a biblical worldview the material aspects of our being are important but not ascendant over the spiritual aspects. We are commanded by Jesus to disciple others. He has not exempted our medical practices, and we should not allow our unconscious adoption of a humanist value to prohibit us from wise use of opportunities to make a spiritual connection for our patients to consider.


Excerpt from "How Would God Have Us Practice Preventive Medicine?"

Godliness and Physical Exercise

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.” Note that godliness not only has promise for the life to come, but also for the present life. The thrust of the verse is not to point to the virtue of physical exercise or all that it may imply, but to use it as a contrast to something which is really valuable -- godliness. An application of the verse today might be as follows: a pretraining stress ECG for a middle-aged man is of some value, but if you really want value now (physically) and in the hereafter, be exercised in godliness.

Medicine can certainly teach us something about body maintenance, yet it is godliness that has the most to do with the maintenance. Somehow, things have gotten turned around. Christians routinely seek physicians' advice on health maintenance while remaining heedless of ungodliness in their lives. Christian physicians routinely bypass obvious ungodly behavior which has possible adverse health consequences in their patients -- a quick temper, unforgiven sin, unconfessed guilt, etc. We don't even think of these as health issues, or, we put them aside as “not in our field.”


Excerpt from "How Would God Have Us Practice Preventive Medicine?"

South Carolina Citrus

Those of you who remember Dr. Terrell know of his love of tropical plants and his uncanny ability to get them to grow outside of their normal zone. In case you were the recipient of some of his juicy, South Carolina oranges, try this delicious recipe:


ORANGE WALNUT BREAD
Makes 1 loaf  

2 1/2 c. flour
1 1/4 c. sugar
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 c. butter, melted
2/3 c. freshly squeezed orange juice
2 T. orange extract*
1 c. coarsely chopped walnuts (or pecans)

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Combine eggs, melted butter, orange juice, orange peel, and water; add all at once to flour mixture. Stir quickly until dry ingredients are moistened.  Stir in nuts. Turn into greased and floured 9x5x3" loaf pan.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until done. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack. Slice and serve with butter.

* Or freshly grated orange peel. Dr. Terrell's oranges have a very thin peel which makes grating it for zest very difficult, so extract was substituted.