In the Question Chair

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 27, 1901

In the Question Chair.

[Designed for the consideration of such questions as will be of interest and profit to the general reader. All correspondents should give their names and correct post-office address, that queries not replied to here may be answered by mail.]

825.—The Bible and Healing.

Does the Bible tell of cases where people who were sick ever called a physician who prescribed medicine for them? What did people do in olden times to obtain relief from sickness? and is it right, according to the Bible, to use medicine prescribed by an M. D. in case of sickness? I ask this question because the Christian Science people say that there is no such thing as using medicine, in the Bible.

A. G. N., Plainview, Neb.

ANSWER.—The Bible plainly brings to view attempts at healing by material agencies. But Christian Scientists would probably quibble over what is meant by the term “medicine.” We take it that anything that is used as an agent by which to attain the end desired, would come under the head “medicine.” When the Syrian captain, Naaman, sought unto Israel to be healed of his leprosy, the prophet told him to go and wash in the Jordan seven times. The water, in his case, was the “medicine” employed in his treatment. When Isaiah gave directions, and they laid a lump of figs as a plaister upon the boil of Hezekiah, and he recovered, that plaister was the “medicine” administered to him. Isa. 38: 1, 9, 21. When the Lord spat upon the ground, and made clay and anointed the eyes of the blind man, and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, and he should see, that anointing and that washing was the “medicine” for his healing. John 9: 6, 7.

Luke is called “the beloved physician.” Col. 4: 14. A physician’s business is that of ministering to the sick, and answering their calls for help. Luke had succeeded so well in this that he seems to have been greatly “beloved.” See also the words of Christ: “But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them: They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” Here is a plain statement from the Lord himself that they that are sick do need a physician. This applies in a physical as well as in a spiritual sense. The physician one employs should be one whose exhibitions of skill and experience and moral character show that he is entitled to confidence. Then his directions should be explicitly followed. No nurse or volunteer friend should take the responsibility of deviating therefrom. Mark speaks of a certain woman which “had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing better, but rather grew worse.” This was not very complimentary to the physicians; but it shows that such a profession was practiced, and people resorted to them with compensation for their services. The skillful physician aims to supply the proper conditions under which nature can go forward with her healing work. That condition cannot act detrimentally in any state; and no matter what we may consider to have been done for us, it is certainly right to supply rightful conditions so far as in our power.