Introduction to Biblical Health and Healing

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Introduction to Biblical Health and Healing

• Patrick Pun, MD
• Creating Christian Culture
• CGS Grad and Career 2003

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Acknowledgements

• A Sure Foundation Health Care Bible Study by
  Patrick Pulliam, MD www.thesmi.org
• Summer Medical Institute 2000, 2002, 2003

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Biblical Health and Healing

• Take one snake and pass it down.....

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Overview

• I. The Current State of Healthcare
• II. The god of this Age and health care
• III. A Biblical Understanding of Health
• IV. Creating Christian Culture in Healthcare

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The Current State of Healthcare

• Access, rising costs, uninsured, malpractice
• The patient/provider relationship suffers
• The attitudes and expectations of patients and
  providers about medicine and health

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Something has gone wrong in the practice of
medicine, and we all know it. It is ironic that
in this era, dominated by technical prowess and
rapid biomedical advances, patient and physician
each feels increasingly rejected by the other.
Clearly, one root of the problem lies in the
patient-doctor relationship. High technology
tends to dehumanize care, and third-party
regulations, paperwork, and malpractice threats
distract the doctor. Nevertheless, the
responsibility for dissatisfaction with modern
medical care lies not only with the patient and
the system but also with the physician.
Richard Gorlin, M.D.
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Access is a symbol the real issue is us.
John Ring, M.D. (President of the
AMA, 1991)
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Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no
physician there? Why then is there no healing
for the wound of my people? Jeremiah
822
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The god of this age Naturalism

• Worldview Basic assumptions about the reality
  and nature of all things
• To understand the culture of medicine today, we
  need to look beyond the matrix to see operating
  system, fundamental beliefs

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The Operating System Naturalism

• A world without God, without Creator

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The Operating System Naturalism

• A world without God, without Creator
• Therefore, man has become the measure of all
  things. Nothing else that matters

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The Operating System Naturalism

• A world without God, without Creator
• Therefore, man has become the measure of all
  things. Nothing else that matters
• Reductionistic since we are rational beings, we
  try to understand the universe by reducing
  everything to its basic principles.

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Naturalism

• Naturalism is a worldview based on the idea
  that the final reality is impersonal matter or
  energy shaped into its present form by impersonal
  chance. Humanism is the placing of Man at the
  center of all things and making him the measure
  of all things. Man begins with himself, with
  no knowledge except what he himself can discover
  and no standards outside himself. In this view
  Man is the measure of all things, as the
  Enlightenment expressed it.
• Francis Schaeffer

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Implications of Naturalism

• Science and technology can understand and solve
  all of mans problems
• People no longer seen as purposeful, spiritual
  beings we are reduced to biologic machines

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Implications of Naturalism in Health Care

• Goal is to make humans work better as
  biological entities
• Method is through research, understanding of
  disease and cure, further development of science
  and technology

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Problems of Naturalism

• Mr. K is a 46 yo man with severe alcoholic
• liver disease. Over the past 2 months, he has
• been hospitalized 3 times in the the intensive
• care unit for life threatening GI bleeding
• secondary to his continued heavy alcohol
• abuse. He requires all of the resources of the
• ICU and barely survives each time. He is told
• that if he continues drinking, he will not live
• 2 months. He says that he has tried to quit
• many times in the past, and knows that
• alcohol will likely kill him. When asked if he
  has anything to live for, he is unsure.

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Problems of Naturalism

• Mr. P is a 65 yo with gastric cancer which was
  treated with chemotherapy 4 years ago and now
  deemed miraculously disease free. Yet on
  repeated outpatient office visits, he refuses to
  take his prescribed blood pressure medications
  and he has taken up smoking. When asked why he is
  seemingly unconcerned about his health , he says
  I dont have anything to live for.

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The Problems of Naturalism

• Is this a solely biological problem?
• More than biological machines
• More to this world than reductionistic principles
• More to this life than being disease free

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The Problems of Naturalism

• And yet purpose remains an inescapable element
  in human life. Human beings do entertain
  purposes and set out to achieve them. The
  immense achievements of modern science themselves
  are, very obviously, the outcome of the
  purposeful efforts of hundreds of thousands of
  men and women dedicated to the achievement of
  something that is valuable a true understanding
  of how things are. A strange fissure thus runs
  right through the consciousness of modern Western
  man. The ideal that he seeks would eliminate all
  ideals. With dedicated zeal he purposes to
  explain the world as something that is without
  purpose. We all engage in purposeful activity,
  and we judge ourselves and others in terms of
  success in achieving the purposes that we set
  before ourselves. Yet we accept as the final
  product of this purposeful activity a picture of
  the world from which purpose has been
  eliminated. Leslie Newbigin

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Response to Naturalism Existentialism

• Existentialism arose to address the emptiness of
  Naturalism

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Response to Naturalism Existentialism

• Existentialism arose to address the emptiness of
  Naturalism
• Existentialism is the idea that we need to create
  our own meaning out of life

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Response to Naturalism Existentialism

• Existentialism arose to address the emptiness of
  Naturalism
• Existentialism is the idea that we need to create
  our own meaning out of life
• Gave birth to New age movement grasp for
  spiritual meaning

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Alternative Medicine

• Homeopathy, magnets, crystals, psychic surgery

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Alternative Medicine

• Homeopathy, magnets, crystals, psychic surgery
• No basis in science or rational thought
• Can be dangerous!

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Biblical Perspectives on Health

• Normal Anatomy and Physiology Gen 1-2
• Physically No death or disease
• Socially Perfect relationship with nature and
  others
• Spiritually perfect union and relationship with
  God

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Biblical Perspectives on Health

• Results of sin multilateral disease
• Spiritual Man separated from the glory of God
• Physical man and creation subject to disease.
  Rom 820-22

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Biblical Perspectives on Health

• For the creation was subjected to frustration,
  not by its own choice, but by the will of the one
  who subjected it, in hope that the creation
  itself will be liberated from its bondage to
  decay and brought into the glorious freedom of
  the children of God.

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Biblical Perspectives on Health

• Social Man now at odds with creation and others

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Biblical Perspectives on Health

• Mans fundamental disease is separation from God
• Physical death is a direct result of the Fall
  but it is also a reminder of the reality of our
  spiritual death
• Psalm 383-8

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Because of your wrath there is no health in my
body my bones have no soundness because of my
sin. My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden
too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are
loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed
down and brought very low all day long I go
about mourning. My back is filled with searing
pain there is no health in my body. I am feeble
and utterly crushed I groan in anguish of heart.
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Biblical Perspectives on Healing

• God is the source of all healing.
• If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord
  your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you
  pay attention to his commands and keep all his
  decrees, I will not bring on you any of the
  diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the
  Lord, who heals you Ex 1526
• See now that I myself am He! There is no god
  besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I
  have wounded and I will heal, and no one can
  deliver out of my hand. Deut 3239

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Biblical Perspectives on Healing

• God plan is to bring us from death to life
• When the perishable has been clothed with the
  imperishable, and the mortal with immortality,
  then the saying that is written will come true
  Death has been swallowed up in victory.... The
  sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is
  the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the
  victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. I Cor
  1554-57

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Biblical Perspectives on Healing

• Gods ultimate plan is to restore unity and
  redeem all aspects of our humanity

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Shalom Biblical Health

• Physical wellness Gen 4327-28
• He asked them how they were, and then he said,
  How is your aged father you told me about? Is
  he still living?

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Shalom Biblical Health

• Peace and social vindication Ps 3527
• May those who delight in my vindication shout
  for joy and gladness may they always say, The
  Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being
  of his servant

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Shalom Biblical Health

• Presence of the Lord Ez 3726
• I will make a covenant of peace with them it
  will be an everlasting covenant of peace with
  them it will be an everlasting covenant. I will
  establish them and increase their numbers, and I
  will put my sanctuary among them forever.

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Naturalistic vs. Biblical Medicine
Naturalistic Biblical Goal Disease
free Shalom Source of Disease Pathogens Separati
on from God Source of healing Medicine/technology
Redemption
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Creating Christian Culture in Healthcare

• Avoid Dualism
• Begin to see the spiritual root of physical
  illness
• Practice a shalom view of health

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Creating Christian Culture

• Address spiritual, social roots of illness
• Show mercy and grace
• Address physical needs

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Questions to ponder

• On what basis do you judge someone as being
  healthy or sick?
• Have you seen direct links between physical and
  spiritual illness?
• What is an area of your life that you need the
  shalom of Christ?
• In what ways can you encourage shalom in the
  world you live in?