Ministry of Healing — The Main Point
What is the main point in “The Ministry of Healing”?
(Warning: Spoiler alert!)
I believe the main point is:
If I really see Jesus and keep watching, listening and walking through the day with Him, that is, to experience Him, I get all the power I need to restore me, my life, my church and even the world.
Short version: You can win.
That’s it… In my opinion anyway.
Reading Challenge
One of the top requests from the SHINE survey was:
I'm Interested in joining an on-line reading club to Learn the: Principles of Health Ministry — Ministry of Healing.
So the plan is to read a chapter a week, at most 3 or 4 pages a day. I will ask some questions here on this blog about the reading, and you are invited to share your ideas in the comment section below each post. The major reason I chose to blog on this site is because it makes commenting and highlighting so easy. It also allows others to do posts on the same subject (in our case “The Ministry of Healing”), so if you want to do a week of blogging, just let me know.
If you have turned up here and want to follow the readings through the book your will need the Index to “The Ministry of Healing” readings.
Background
Before we start reading next week, here is some relevant background.
First I want to give you an example of “the main point”.
Just now I picked chapter 21, “Hygiene among the Israelites”, at random, but it could have been any chapter in the book. Sure enough, on page 283 there it was:
Had the Israelites obeyed the instruction they received, and profited by their advantages, they would have been the world’s object lesson of health and prosperity. If as a people they had lived according to God’s plan, they would have been preserved from the diseases that afflicted other nations. Above any other people they would have possessed physical strength and vigor of intellect. They would have been the mightiest nation on the earth. God said: “Thou shalt be blessed above all people.” Deuteronomy 7:14.
Power for the Gospel
“The Ministry of Healing” has something to say to health ministers. Even though this isn't from the book, the following quote summarises the idea.
Search heaven and earth, and there is no truth revealed more powerful than that which is made manifest in works of mercy to those who need our sympathy and aid. This is the truth as it is in Jesus. When those who profess the name of Christ shall practice the principles of the golden rule, the same power will attend the gospel as in apostolic times. Mount of Blessing p. 137
That is worth re-reading, it is the most powerful truth in the universe.
This truth is the reason God gave health ministry to the Adventist church. It is our job to empower the church. To make it personal; you have, within your reach, every thing you need to rehabilitate your church, your world and beyond.
You wouldn't want that would you?
Right now, there is not a lot of power around. As a church we are busy preaching and teaching. We have lots of people praying and lots of Bible study going on. But ministers are tired and members are disheartened by the slow progress. Not that there is anything wrong with what we are doing, it just isn't going anywhere fast. There is a lack of power.
“Works of mercy” are needed. (Cue: that’s where you come in)
Let me give an example from this week when I spoke to Danuta (hello Danuta, I enjoyed the chat — hope you don’t mind me using your story). Danuta is doing health ministry, as well as all the other parts of ministry, out west in our conference. For many years she has been an active literature evangelist and I'm sure she has some great stories from those years.
This week, she told me about the CHIP programs she is running for the indigenous adults and the kids. She teared-up as she talked about all the people whose lives had been improved, how, amazingly, the whole thing has just grown and people are coming to the new church and she is getting support from all sorts of unexpected places.
In a word, I think she was talking about new “power” in ministry.
The Greatest Evil
“The Ministry of Healing” was published in 1905. Dr Kellogg had just left the church the year before and Mrs White warned of the greatest evil that could come on the church,
I want to tell you that when the gospel ministers and the medical missionary workers are not united, there is placed on our churches the worst evil that can be placed there. Manuscript 46, 1904
Why is this such a great evil? I believe it is because, without the health ministry, the gospel has no power.
Actually the whole of Manuscript 46 is a good read if you want to find out what the problem really was with Kellogg (he was searching for power from new spiritual sources) and how Mrs White dealt with it and other threats of “higher spirituality”, with the emphasis on “spiritual”.
There are several chapters in Ministry of Healing on this topic.
However the main market for the book wasn't church members or health workers, even though we can learn a lot from it.
The book was for the general public. It was sold to raise money for the new sanitariums being built.
As you read “The Ministry of Healing” this time, keep in the back of your mind the questions, “What would the average person outside the church make of this?” “What is Mrs White trying to achieve by putting this part in?”
As the church was busily building new sanitariums, E.W. Farnsworth, working in England, sent a letter to Willie and Mrs White questioning the wisdom of “depending on sanitariums for healing the sick” (Ellen G. White biography vol. 5, p386). Basically he was saying we should be praying for healing miracles instead. I think you will find her reply, Letter 63, 1905, enlightening. She spells out why miracles of healing aren't so common and, importantly for us as we read “The Ministry of Healing” what it was exactly that the patients were to get at the sanitariums.
I think that this book has the same purpose as the sanitariums for the public. Basically that is; education in how to live. Not a detailed prescriptive education but a broad-brushstroke picture of how a good life is lived.
Challenge
So here’s the challenge for this week; read the quotes above and follow the links (underlined text) and in the comments at the end of this post tell me what you think about these questions:
- Do you agree with my main point?
- What is the main purpose of sanitariums? Do you think “The Ministry of Healing” have the same purpose? Could our health ministry have the same purpose?
I'm looking forward to your comments.
We will start reading the book next week, so dig out that old copy. If you have to buy one, get a version with room for notes. You will need it. (It is the marginalia that makes books valuable).
