Physicians deal mainly with sick numerators, persons who have presented their bodies a living sacrifice for us -- our community is the sick. There have been efforts within medicine to deal with the whole community, and public health medicine is its best expression, but for most practicing physicians, the community is more or less out of reach. As far as sickness is concerned churches deal with denominators -- both the sick and the well within the community of faith. The Church also deals with the “fields white unto harvest,” the pagans, both sick and the well in those fields. While medicine has incorrectly restricted itself to empirical, evidential data, it has also drawn its data too often from numerators only. The Church has the opportunity to see these sick numerators in the illuminating context of their spiritual denominators -- how sickness relates to spiritual condition. Furthermore, medicine has cut off revelational data -- input from the Bible. Pastoral counseling can restore this missing feature of revelation to its powerful role in maintaining and regaining health.
Excerpts from Physician and Pastor: Co-Laborers
No comments:
Post a Comment