What is Medical Ministry? Part 2

In part one I discussed how medical ministry is the combining of both physical and spiritual healing. When these two fields are combined, the whole of medical ministry is greater than medicine + ministry. Today I focus on what is the “medical” part of the term medical ministry.

First, an explanation of the field of medicine in the 1700s and 1800s.[1] Here are some of the common procedures performed then:

Bloodletting – the doctor removed blood by lancing or cutting into an artery. Some…withdrew up to four fifths of the boy’s total blod supply. Cupping was commonly used. Physicians applied leeches to infants and children whose arteries were too small to lance o cut into If they wanted to withdraw more blood, they employed larger numbers of leeches.

Vomiting – Early American medicine turned to emetics (zinc sulphate, mustard, apomorpine, ipecac, tartar emetic) to trigger vomiting.

Purging – Doctors resorted to chemical agents (such as mercury, antimony, magnesium sulfate [Epsom salts]) or herbs (podophyllum, colcoyth, jalap, croton oil) to empty the bowels.

A Doctor Visit

Now imagine you are a doctor in the 1800s. In the evening, someone knocks at your door. It’s a middle-aged man with dark hair. He has sweat on his brow and bags under his eyes. His mother has been sick for 2 weeks and continues to decline. You accompany him to his home bringing your doctor bag.

Entering the room of his mother, you see an elderly woman. She’s coughing and is having a difficult time breathing though she is laying down. Her short sentences are interrupted by her need to gasp for air.

You don’t have a thermometer so you place your palm on her forehead and note she is warm to the touch. You don’t have a stethoscope so you place your ear to her chest and hear a rattling. There’s a nearby hospital but it lacks the modern day accouterments we are so accustomed to today. In other words, we don’t have a way of testing her urine, blood or spinal fluid. No x-ray or CT scan is available. Antibiotics have not been invented yet.

Yet you see the desperation on the young man’s face.

“Doctor, do something!”

You look into your doctor bag to see the tools available – a lancet for bloodletting, a vomiting or purging agent.

Encouraging Others to Become Physicians

If medicine was in such bad shape, you would think Ellen White and perhaps others would discourage people from going into the field. While she certainly had her criticisms, Ellen White actually encouraged others to go into medicine.

“There is a way in which any doors will be opened to the missionary. Let him become intelligent in the care of the sick, as a nurse, or learn how to treat disease, AS A PHYSICIAN; and if he is imbued with the spirit of Christ, what a field of usefulness is opened before him!” Counsels on Health 33.

Medical Ministry Is…

If medicine back then could be so detrimental, why would she encourage people to go into medicine? That’s because despite its faults, Ellen White saw something aspirational about medicine – the relief of suffering. Medical ministry is the relief of suffering.

“The first and chief object of the gospel and all that pertains to it is to seek and to save that which is lost. The ministry of the gospel, whether by the minister or the physician, is to reach out to man a helping hand wherever it is needed. It is to minister to the sick and suffering physically as well as to the sin-sick soul.” Review and Herald, October 29, 1914.

The Bible speaks to how even small acts to relieve suffering are remembered for eternity. “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” Matthew 10:42

Not Only Relief of Suffering…

Nothing opens up the door to spiritual conversations and opportunities like the relief of suffering. Granted, it’s not a door that patients will open every time. Nonetheless, suffering has a way of heightening the spiritual senses. A patient who was previously closed off to spiritual things, may be more open should he find himself in a health crisis.

“When the suffering body has been relieved, and you have shown a lively interest in the afflicted, the heart is opened, and you can pour in the heavenly balm.” CH 34

Medical ministry is intentional about engaging patients about spiritual things. It concerns itself with meeting the needs of the body and soul.

An Agent of Change

Ellen White didn’t seek to develop any new field of medicine, but rather she sought to reform the field of medicine by treating the cause of disease, emphasizing prevention, recognizing the risks of drugs, emphasizing balance and dependence on God. In general she spoke highly of physicians. This is interesting because many in the naturopathic fields speak poorly of physicians – e.g. they’re too much into drugs; they’re too much into vaccines. Ellen White lifted physicians up and encouraged them.

What is Medical Ministry?

So far here’s the definition I’ve got:

Medical ministry is providing relief of suffering with the intent to bring spiritual healing.

How do you define medical ministry?

 

 

Read What is Medical Ministry? Part 3: The Role of Drugs

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] A Physician Explains Ellen White’s Counsel on Herbs, Drugs and Natural Remedies by Mervyn Hardinge