A Passive Teacher

A father tells his four year old to go into the house. The four year old hesitates, then trundles off in another direction. The father does nothing. Mistake not. Learning has just taken place, and the learning is contrary to good health. Multiplied episodes of that sort have far more to do with the ultimate health of that child than eating meals laden with cholesterol or devoid of fiber.


Excerpt from "Pharmacy and Medical Interventions"

The Parents' Job

Habits for life may be established early, for good or for bad. Are your church's parents abandoning their responsibility? Don't trust the schools to do the parents’ job. “A paternalistic state has no room for fathers.” (David Chilton) Neither leave part of it up to physicians. The orthodox practice in medicine now, including, of all things family medicine, is to hold what dependent young people say to their doctors confidential from their parents! This tenet has it that the value of that confidentiality with a doctor exceeds in health value the value of having informed parents. Explain not that parents often do not care. Of course, many do not. For those outside the church, the physician will not be able to make much of a parent. For those inside the church, the chore for such children begins with holding the parents accountable for their responsibilities.


Excerpts from Physician and Pastor: Co-Laborers

Pursue Wisdom

Prov. 9:10 - 11 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For by me your days will be multiplied, And years of life will be added to you."

Do not send young people off to college to pursue a degree if they do not have the beginning of wisdom. Is a fool in possession of a degree and much data more useful than one without?

Giving Away Years

Prov. 5:7-13 "Therefore hear me now, my children, And do not depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way far from her, And do not go near the door of her house, Lest you give your honor to others, And your years to the cruel one; Lest aliens be filled with your wealth, And your labors go to the house of a foreigner; And you mourn at last, When your flesh and your body are consumed, And say; 'How I have hated instruction, And my heart despised reproof! I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!"'

It is a mark of our departure from the authority of Scripture that we think we need "evidence" such as that provided by "medical research" to tell people to be sexually pure.

Healthy Parenting

Pastors and teachers who teach God's law are promoting preventive medicine when they teach what are now called “parenting” skills from Scripture. The number of medical contacts resulting from unbiblical parent-child relationships is large, including: preventable accidents, drug abuse, venereal disease, functional abdominal pain, tension headaches, illegitimate pregnancy and more. Small children whose parents, for example, tolerate “sass” or disobedience, as in a church nursery, can be provided with inexpensive, powerful health maintenance without any physician involvement whatsoever. Nouthetic counselors can admonish the parents on the fifth commandment and its applicability in the present life and in the life to come.


Excerpts from Physician and Pastor: Co-Laborers

Healthy Memorization

Prov. 3:1, 2 "My son, do not forget my law, But let your heart keep my commands; For length of days and long life And peace they will add to you."

Why has catechizing and memorization fallen onto such hard times? When we do memorize, do we choose those passages that are more of a "pick-me-up" for momentary use and discard than deeper study?

Unhealthy Day Care

[T]he widespread use of group day care facilities needs to be challenged. While it seems reasonable that a family may delegate at times portions of its child care duties to others, the family retains the responsibility for what occurs. Day care just cannot be as healthy as a biblical family. A toddler enrolled in day care can expect to be bitten by another child within an average of 73 days. While siblings within homes also bite one another, the toddler at home is not going to be surrounded by 20 other toddlers who are in the prime "biting age." One mother just cannot give birth to that many children in a short period of time. It requires collecting them from many households.

The risk of infectious disease in day care is two to four times greater than for children cared for at home. This includes gastrointestinal infections, which are also carried to other family members at home. Otitis media also is increased in day care children.

You would expect such information would impel reasonable people toward a view that small children, if possible, are better cared for in homes than in group day care, and that policies to support that end would be the best ones. Instead, as example of the narrow way medicine has of conceiving of problems and their solutions, listen to the "answer" of the researchers of a major review of illness and day care, persons at the Bush Institute for Child and Family Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "... government intervention is justified when a market fails to measure adequately the true costs or benefits of a given market transaction. ... It seems reasonable ... to recommend specific regulatory provisions ... regulations requiring parents to demonstrate that they have been following a schedule of health visits for their child, (such as that recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.)"

That government policies encouraging two-parent wage earner families built into the tax structure and otherwise is the problem is not even considered. That changing policies to reduce the demand for group day care is a better approach is ignored.


Excerpts from Physician and Pastor: Co-Laborers

The Health of the Family Structure

We [should] consider the power for health that intact families which have biblical authority structures possess. "Children in single-parent families are 20 percent to 40 percent more likely to suffer health problems." Pastoral counselors who work to sustain marriages are also very powerfully engaged in the physical health of the household. You are strengthening a locus of government which is far more powerful to maintain health than is medical care. Would we in medicine not dream to be able to reduce health problems by 20% to 40%? ...

Pastoral counseling which points out the family's primary responsibility to care for its own has health power.


Excerpts from Physician and Pastor: Co-Laborers