Medicine

<<a health profession, or drugs etc used for treatment>>

God has given mankind knowledge, wisdom and skill to treat many common ailments and the medical profession continues to make significant advances. Clearly, accident injuries and detectable malfunctioning of the body requiring surgery to put things right and many helpful medications have been discovered through the centuries. However, instead of addressing the issues, the approach increasingly has been to use prescription drugs to mask the underlying root cause resulting in society being over-medicated with a detrimental effect on the human personality.

This does not solve the problem, but creates more. To a large degree, it is our responsibility to keep ourselves healthy; the types and quantities of food and liquids consumed, exercise, mental attitudes, occupational hazards, amount of rest, level of stress etc have an enormous effect on our health. Due to our lifestyles and diets many

A cheerful heart is good medicine – Proverbs 17:22

people are overloaded with toxins and deficient in essential vitamins and trace elements. Addressing these issues besides developing an attitude of faith, thanksgiving and forgiveness will do more to alleviate fear, depression, bitterness and a whole range of aliments than a concoction of medications. Its much cheaper too! God won’t do for us what we are capable of and should be doing for ourselves. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we should be good stewards of that entrusted to us (1 Cor 6:19,20).

Meanwhile, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) covers a vast range of traditional, natural or holistic practices and remedies that are outside the scope of mainstream medicine. When used with conventional treatment it is termed complementary while alternative if used instead of recognized practices. Some of these approaches and therapies attempting to bring healing are questionable, with their effectiveness unproven or impossible to prove while the recognized medical professions seek to use responsible scientific evaluations, yet no form of healing has a 100% success rate.

The Holistic approach seeks to address the mental, physical, emotional, social and spiritual state of a person to improve health, heal disease and maximize well-being. Each facet of a person must be attended to and treated for true heath to be attained. Rather than reliance on using drugs and surgery, holistic treatments that support the body’s natural healing attributes are used. These include nutrition, relaxation, stress management, spinal manipulation etc. We have the freedom in Christ, coupled with wisdom, discernment and prayer, to explore alternative treatments as long as they don’t contravene Biblical guidelines. Avoid life-energy therapies which are incompatible with Christianity. Do not delve into New Age practices such as transcendental meditation which draw on the wrong spirit realm and bring into bondage to superstitions and counterfeit religions.

While God will not heal through any practice that is contrary to His Word, we benefit by many medical procedures and cures invented by non-Christians. After seeking God’s mind through prayer we are free to follow our biblically informed convictions and preferences, exercising the freedom we have in Christ while being wise and discerning, and not forcing our convictions on others (1 Cor 6:12; 2 Cor 3:17; Gal 5:1).