A farmers son, who was about to begin his studies at medical
school said, "Dad, when I get to be a doctor, I think I'll specialize in
obstetrics." The old man shook his head and responded, "Likely
you'll be just wasting your time son. Chances are, soon as you begin
making money at it, somebody else'll find a cure for it." Ignorance
can be the basis for a lot of humor. A pastor was once visiting an
elderly woman in a nursing home, and as he talked to her he noticed
a dish of peanuts on the stand by her bed. As he talked, he helped
himself to the peanuts. After a while he noticed he had eaten a good
share of them and he apologized. The old woman said it was all
right because she didn't like peanuts anyway. The pastor was
surprised and asked, "Why then do you have them sitting here on
your stand?" She replied, "I just like to suck the chocolate off
them." Ignorance can be bliss,
but revelation can be gross.
Ignorance can be funny, but it is no fun when people risk their
own health and that of others out of ignorance. Ignorance is
probably the number one enemy of health in this world. Medical
missions has been a major part of the churches mission to the world
because pagan darkness leads people into so many practices that
destroy them body, mind, and soul. The Christian world has
compassion for the whole man, and so with the light of the Gospel
goes the light of the knowledge to bring good health. In our advance
Western culture we have overcome most of the problems of pagan
ignorance, but ignorance is still alive and well.
Back in 1928 women were working for the US Radium
Corporation painting radium on various articles like luminous clock
dials. They were instructed to moisten the brush in their mouth.
They became ill, and one even reported that her hair glowed in the
dark. Their health was damaged by ignorance, and we all know of
the modern problem with asbestos and chemicals of all kinds. There
is no way to know just how devastating human ignorance is to the
health of human lives. What we don't know is hurting us all the
time. But what we do know is helping us constantly to overcome the
ignorance that hurts us, and experience the health God intends for
us to have.
Feeling good is a good feeling and a feeling that God's Word says
is good. Here in the shortest book of the New Testament, with only
219 Greek words, and one of these words is health. It is the same
word Dr. Luke uses in Luke 5:31 where he quotes Jesus saying,
"These that are whole need not a physician." To be whole is to be
healthy, and when you are healthy you don't need the doctor. The
implication is that when you are not whole or healthy you do need
the doctor. Jesus, therefore, puts His stamp of approval on the
ambivalent feelings we have toward doctors. The poet put it-
When I am well and feeling fine,
And not a pain or ache is mine,
I brand the Doc the King of ills,
And laugh at all his sugar pills.
There is no merit, I contend,
In any dose you recommend.
Your punk advise is but a joke,
Designed to keep the people broke.
But when I'm sick and full of aches,
And get the shivers and the shakes,
Or when my stomach starts to rock,
I call upon my friend the Doc.
I praise him then and think him great,
And take his doses by the crate,
Until I'm fully cured--and then,
I tell him he is a joke again.
We are glad they are there, but we hope and pray we don't need
them, , for not needing them means we are feeling fine, and this is
the way we should want to feel. It is the way John wants his friend
Gaius to feel, and in wanting that he shows us-
I. THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS HEALTH.
It is an attitude of admiration. It is the ideal state of life, and is
the state in which God created Adam and Eve, and the state of the
risen and glorified humanity of Jesus. It is the state of perfect health
that is the goal of God for man. It is perfectly natural then that
John would pray for his friend to enjoy good health. That is the one
goal of life that all men have in common. Feeling fine is a fine
feeling, and nobody doesn't like feeling fine. Adam was made so
healthy that even after the fall he lived to the age of 930. His son
Seth lived to 912, and five generations later Methuselah lived to 969
and Noah to 950. Then came a sudden change, for Noah's son Shem
lived only to 600 and his grandson only to 438. Two generations
later it was down to 239, and by the time of David people lived
under 100 years old, where it has been for 3000 years. It took
centuries of human folly, sin, and pollution to destroy the health of
man's body. It is one of God's greatest gifts.
Ben Johnson wrote, "Oh health! Health! The blessing of the
rich! The riches of the poor! Who can buy thee at too dear a rate
since there is no enjoying the world without thee." God's will is that
we be healthy, for health is essential, not only for fun, play, and all
the pleasures of life that God desires us to enjoy, but it is also
essential for our service to Him. Jesus by His many miracles of
healing demonstrated that sickness is an enemy, and that health is
our friend.
John shows a concern for his friends health right from the start.
It was a common way to greet people in the ancient world, and it
still is today. We meet people all the time and ask them, "How are
you?" We do not want a medical report, but it is still an expression
that shows an interest in how people feel. Hello is the same thing. It
comes from the old Saxon word from which we get words like hale
and whole which are terms for health. Hello then is an abbreviation
for how are you. So all through history it has been a friends role to
be concerned about health.
Jesus did not exalt health to the level of life's highest goal. There
were plenty of healthy Pharisees and Saducees. Nine of the ten
lepers He healed did not even come back to thank Him. They did
not get the best Jesus had to give by receiving their health back.
Health was far from the ultimate value of life. Locke was wrong
when he said, "A sound mind in a sound body, is a short but full
description of a happy state in this world." He left out the third leg
of the tripod which was number one with Jesus, and that is a healthy
relationship to God.
Jesus had compassion on those who had sick bodies and minds.
He healed them as a demonstration of God's power and love, but his
goal was always that men see that the kingdom of God had come,
and to get into a right relationship to God. Healing was a sign of
God's love. It was a step in the right direction, but healing and
health were only temporal values, and unless they led to repentance,
and to surrender to God, they fell short of the goal of an eternal
relationship with the heavenly Father. Good health only lasts a
lifetime, but one's relationship to God is forever. Health is good but
not the best thing there is. Sickness is bad, but it cannot rob man of
the best. One can lose health and still have an eternal relationship
with the Father.
The ideal, of course, is to get it all together and enjoy wholeness
on all levels of body, mind, and soul. Those who achieve the third
level of soundness of soul, because of their trust in Jesus as Savior,
will achieve the other two for all eternity. But those who strive only
for level one and two and neglect the third, will have their health
only for a short while, but lose total health forever. John is happy
that Gaius is in good health even as all goes well with his soul, and
he goes on to delight in his soul health, which is demonstrated by his
walking in truth and being faithful in love.
Paul also stresses the relative value of bodily care as compared to
the absolute value of soul care. He recognizes the good is less than
the best. In I Tim. 4:8 he writes, "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." In other words, do not
exalt health and body above health of soul. The Christian with a
weak body in time will have just as perfect of body in eternity as
those who have good bodies now, but the Christian who neglects his
soul will not be as well off for eternity as the mature Christian who
is always growing in grace and in knowledge. The differences in
heaven will not be based on the physical, for all will be equally like
Christ in their glorified bodies. The difference will be in the degree
to which they expanded their souls by developing their gifts and
exercising them in a life of service.
This leads to the conclusion that the very healthy Christian who
does not use his health for the glory of God is no match for the sick
Christian who does use his sick body for the glory of God. It is
possible to have a sick body and mind, and a healthy soul. The wise
choice is always to go for the healthy soul, for that is a choice that is
always open by the grace of God. You may not have the choice to be
healthy in body and mind. When the choice is there, the Christian is
to always chose health on every level. It is always right and wise as
long as by doing so one does not damage his relationship to God.
All of this is to say, the Christian attitude is that health is a
precious value on all levels. The Christian is to always be pro-health
in prevention, education, and in ministries of health care. Some
great Christians have made grave mistakes in this area. Timothy
Dwight was born in 1752 and he became a great preacher and the
president of Yale. He felt that he did not have to obey the laws of
health like lesser men. He allowed himself only four hours of sleep a
day. He had no exercise and no fun. He was a brilliant man, but
also very foolish. He had a total collapse and almost lost his
eyesight. By being forced to rest and exercise properly he did
recover, but with scars and weakness the rest of his life. He fell for
the angelic fallacy which says, if you are spiritual enough you do not
need to obey physical laws.
One of the first things the Christian needs to do in developing a
proper attitude toward health is recognize his or her limitations.
Christians make most of their mistakes in the realm of health by
neglecting the reality of their limitations. They say God can do
anything, and then assume by this that this means they can do
anything. Jesus did not think that way. He recognized His human
limitations and sought to get away from the constant press of the
crowds. He needed rest and sleep or He would hurt His own health.
Jesus had a balance between labor and leisure. He got exhausted,
but He also got away, and one occasion He even slept in a great
storm. Jesus lived with the laws that limited his human body and
mind. To think we can neglect them is not being people of great
faith, but of great folly.
Some of the great Christians of history have fallen prey to what
Dr. Bob Smith called the angelic fallacy. It is the delusion that we
do not have to live on the level of the laws of nature that determine
health. We can live like angels who have no such limitations. Many
Christians have lost physical and mental health by thinking they can
neglect a good nights sleep. F. W. Robertson, a great English preacher
who made the two point sermon famous, was a victim of
the angelic fallacy. He burned the candle at both ends. He thought
he could labor for the Lord without rest or exercise. It does work
for awhile, and so people think they are getting by with it. This
supports their delusion and they feel invincible. But then it caught
up with him, and he was plunged into a pit of depression. This
threw a fear into him and he tried to change. He began to walk and
take time to relax, but it was too late. He was an old man in his 30's,
and at 36 his candle went out. One of the best minds for exalting the
Word of God, but he only lived half a life because he neglected his
health.
A soldier may lose his health, and even his life, in the service of
his country, and a soldier of the cross may do the same for the
kingdom of God, but when God's will does not call for such a
sacrifice, to give it up because of faulty judgment or preventable
ignorance, is not pleasing to God nor beneficial to man. The
Christian ideal is exemplified by John Wesley. He preached 42,000
sermons and wrote 200 works, and started a movement that will last
until Jesus comes again. He ate well and exercised regularly. He
never missed a good sleep a day of his life. His excellent health
enabled him to preach twice a day even in his 80's. Had he broken
his health we might never have heard of Wesley or Methodism. He
labored hard, but he also balanced his life with rest.
Every person has a breaking point just as does every fuse. You
cannot say I'll trust the Lord and plug in the washer, dryer, toaster,
iron, and electric heater in the same socket. You may trust the
Lord, but obviously the Lord can't trust you to use common sense.
Burn out comes to Christians when they overload their system. It is
not necessarily that they are doing too much, or doing the same
thing for too long. The problem is lack of balance. The heart of the
matter can be seen in the heart itself. This wonder that we all carry
around with us is designed as a perfect balance of work and rest. It
beats an average of 72 times every minute of your life. You might
think that is a good illustration of a workaholic, but not so. It rests a
total of 8 hours a day. The upper part works first, and then the
lower part, and then the whole heart takes a rest. It rests one third
of the time, and that balance of labor and rest makes it the wonder it
is.
Health is a matter of balance of labor and rest. Add to this a
balanced diet of a variety of foods. Variety is the spice of life, and
that is why God gave us such a variety of foods. The greater your
variety in foods, the more likelihood you have in getting all that your
body needs. People who eat only a few of the same things, and do
only a few of the same things are risking their health. Health is
promoted by variety in activities as well as food. The life of constant
new discoveries will be the healthiest life for body, mind, and soul.
Health includes having old treasures and new pleasures.
None of this is to imply that unhealthy Christians have no role in
God's plan. Sick Christians have changed the course of history
many times. Kagawa of Japan had TB in both lungs, plus heart and
liver trouble. He once saw a doctor who wrote out a death
certificate instead of a prescription. This frail little man, always on
his last leg, built one thousand churches, wrote 60 books, and
became one the worlds most influential evangelist and theologian.
Don't knock the sick saints, for God uses them often for His glory.
Jesus was the Great Physician, but we sometimes fail to see He
also entered into the feelings of the patient, and felt the need for care
and healing. After His temptation the angels came to minister to
Him. He needed to be nursed and comforted back to strength and
health. He became so exhausted sometimes that He had to get away
from the crowds to rest. On one occasion He was so tired He slept
even as the ship was being tossed by the storm. He loved to slip
away to the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus to find refreshment
and rest. He needed the comfort of companionship as
He struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane.
We do not know if Jesus ever had any childhood diseases, or
whether He ever got the flu, or a stomach ache and headache. But
Jesus did identify with the sickness of humanity when He said in
Matt. 25:35-36, "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I
was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger
and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was
sick and you looked after me, I was imprisoned and you came to visit
me." When the righteous ask, "When did we ever see you in these
states?" He said, "As you have done it unto the least of these my
brethren you have done it unto me." Jesus is saying that healing
and caring for the sick is a ministry to Him. When you bring
healing and health to the body of Christ, the church, you bring
health to Him.
This picture exults healing to the highest level of spirituality, for
it is a ministering to Jesus Himself, and that is why Jesus can use it
as a gauge for judgment. The person who does not care about the
physical needs of others does not care about them at all, and this
means there is no true love or spirituality. If you love people's souls,
but not their bodies, Jesus is saying your love is a fiction of fantasy
that will vanish as evidence in the court of judgment. You love the
whole man, or you do not love the man at all.
We need to recognize that secondary things are still vital because
the primary things depend on the secondary for their fulfillment. It
is like the first commandment of loving God with all your being, and
loving your neighbor as yourself. So the love of others is secondary
to the love of God, but since you cannot really love God with all
your being if you do not love you neighbor, the secondary is
essential to the fulfillment of the primary. In a race the primary goal
is to win. It would be foolish to say my primary goal is to get my
shoe laces tied. But the fact is, if I don't get the shoes tied right, it is
not likely I will win the race. Lesser values and secondary objectives
are still essential when the primary goal depends upon them. The
secondary, therefore, is often part of the primary, and what this
paradox means is that anything in life that is an aid to the highest
value is itself a part of the highest value.
Health of body is a vital factor in health of soul, and the
fulfillment of God's will for our life. Therefore, even though it is
secondary to health of soul, it is a part of having a healthy soul, and
so it is of prime importance. There is no excuse for neglecting a
value because it cannot be exulted to the highest value. Nobody will
claim that the bolt in the bottom of your oil pan is the most
important part of your car. But leave it out and drive that car, and
soon all of the most important parts will not be worth anything, for
this secondary part is vital to the functioning of the primary parts.
Secondary does not mean unimportant, and so it is with health. It
may not be life's ultimate goal to be healthy of body, but it is,
nevertheless, a Christian obligation to do all he can to protect the
health of his body. The Bible makes it clear that health is important.
Prov. 3:8 says, "This will bring health to your body and
nourishment to your bones." Prov. 4:22 says, "For they are life to
those who find them and health to a man's whole body." Prov.
15:30 says, "A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news
gives health to the bones."
What John is expressing in this letter to his friend Gaius is that
the Christian attitude is one of respect for the total man. Holistic
medicine is thought to be new, but the fact is, modern man is just
getting back to the future. Plato centuries before Christ said, "This
is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body that
physicians separate the soul from the body." Modern man is
discovering that this has been a great error. Leonard Shattuck
wrote, "Sometimes it is more important to know what kind of a
fellah has a germ than what kind of a germ has a fellah." What kind
of a fellah one is not only determines his own health, but the health
of others in his environment. Health is not only a personal matter
and a spiritual matter, it is also a social matter. Your health, or the
lack of it, can help or hinder the health of others. John expresses
joy because his friend is in good health. When someone you love
feels good, you feel good because of it. Health has a contagious
influence.
On the other hand, there is Diotrephes who is a pain in the body
of Christ. His pride and soul sickness is not confined to his own
hide, but spreads into the body and causes the whole body to suffer.
His unloving spirit infects the whole body, and other Christians have
to endure pain because he is ill. The sick Christian seldom suffers
alone, but makes other Christian sick also. The sick person may not
even suffer as much as those he infects. A person like Diotrephes
who is so arrogant in his abuse of power may actually enjoy their
role and feel fine while they are hurting others. The bacteria that
makes you sick does not feel sick itself. It feels great while making
you sick.
John Sanford in Healing And Wholeness tells about how Richard
Speck had no feelings about the eight nurses he killed. He writes,
"Obviously the illness in this man is not something he experiences as
his personal pain....but is to be seen in those on whom his illness is
inflicted." None of us want to be linked with illness like this, but all
of us have this problem to some degree. None of us is in perfect
health of the total man. Sin has infected us all, and we fall short of
the glory of God. The result is a world full of psychological Typhoid
Marys. I am referring to people who are not aware of it, because
they don't feel ill themselves, but who by their attitudes and spirit
make others feel ill. That is why healing is of the very essence of the
Christian life.
C. L. Marshall in his book Dynamics of Health and Disease
arrives at an interesting conclusion. "A person can be ill and well
simultaneously....Millions of Americans whose blood pressure is too
high or whose blood sugar is abnormally elevated function without
any difficulty whatever.....Health and disease are not opposites-both
may coexist in the same person." This leads to the paradox of the
danger of feeling fine. Your feelings may not reflect the true state of
your health. You can't go by how you feel, but need the judgment of
others. Diotrephes probably felt fine, but he was sick and needed to
listen to John and other Christians if he was to get well. The
question is not only do you feel fine, but do others feel fine about
you.
Why do we come to church and sit on furniture no where near as
comfortable as what we have at home? We come to experience
healing. The healing of truth from God's Word that enlightens our
ignorance so we can better know God. The healing of His
forgiveness, and the healing of fellowship, and the healing of
belonging, and the healing of music are all a part of why we come.
Everything we do aids the health of body, mind and soul. It all ties
in to the two great commandments of loving God with your whole
being and your neighbor as yourself. Fulfillment of these great loves
demands that the Christian aim for, labor for, and pray for a body,
mind, and soul that work in harmony so that one of the primary
feelings you feel in life is the feeling of feeling fine.
