I HAVE overcome my initial embarrassment at putting our plain, wholesome food before guests. True, not all visitors are equally polite. There was the pig breeder given breakfast at our place when his home was flooded who was openly skeptical of our chances of surviving with out his products. Yet has not the Lord instructed us that "those who entertain visitors, should have wholesome, nutritious food, from fruits, grains, and vegetables, prepared in a simple, tasteful manner"? 1
Our health work is the right arm of the message.2 Does this mean merely that following health principles makes us strong to obey and witness? This alone would make it worth while. But our health work is also the "entering wedge." 3 Surely, then, it must be something more direct, more integral, more dynamic—a gospel warhead.
I feel as if I were attending a post-mortem when dish after dish is dissected verbally at Sabbath lunch. Do we fulfill our function as the salt of the earth by discussing at length the supposed virtues of garlic or some other dietary minutia?
Christ said simply, "I am the bread of life." We could turn the meal conversation to Christ if we had only bread to offer our guests. Elaborate preparations only detract from the main issue: "But one thing is needful," Jesus told Martha. It was intended that in the loaves and fishes there be nothing to attract attention except to Jesus as the Source of life.
I never drink grape juice but that my heart is filled with thoughts of Jesus' death and anticipation of the new earth, making them easy topics of conversation. It seems that instinctively before we drink grape juice the children pray, "Thank You for this lovely grape juice, and thank You for dying for us." Was Jesus thinking of these things when He said, "This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me"?
However, will we drive in only that corner of the health-reform wedge that is labeled "diet"? Not only food and drink but nature's other remedies are simple but forceful Biblical metaphors of salvation. What is easier to believe than a truth that expresses itself through our physical senses?
For example, my neighbor asked if I had any cure for arthritis. With the help of Physical Therapy in Nursing Care I applied some natural treatments, pointing also to trust in God, who would take away the tensions that had undoubtedly aggravated her condition. She has continued the treatments for herself for a week now, is pleased with the results, and has developed some confidence in Seventh-day Adventists. What is the next step?
If I tell her that God is strengthening her to serve and obey Him, may she not think He is a selfish God? Or shall I explain that as the heat of the sun soothes away her pain, so the warmth of God's love provides a new life for her from which all pain is removed forever. "The Sun of righteousness [shall] arise with healing in His wings."
When we encourage house-ridden wives or office-bound executives to take more advantage of fresh air, would it be too naive for us to apply the same simile our Lord used for the sophisticated Nicodemus?
In using hydrotherapy to promote or restore beauty, health, and vigor (perhaps to today's youth with its sex-directed search for personal satisfaction), why not make the same application the Saviour made to the woman at the well?
"There are many ways of practicing the healing art, but there is only one way that Heaven approves. God's remedies are the simple agencies of nature." * Scripture uses this way of healing to demonstrate that man can be restored by maintaining a right relationship to the laws of God — spiritually as well as physically. For "the laws of nature are the laws of God — as truly divine as are the precepts of the Decalogue." 5
The physical — "God has pledged Himself to keep this human machinery in healthful action if the human agent will obey His laws and cooperate with God." 6
The spiritual — "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." 7
The Word of God is rich in parallels like that. Is there here a vision we have barely glimpsed; a simple, effective, scriptural method of healing the soul while restoring the body?
There is no need for the soul to starve. Salvation is as free as the air, as gentle as the dew, as refreshing as the rain, as soothing as sleep, as invigorating as exercise, as vital as the green herb, as warm as the sunshine. It is as simple to trust in God as for a baby to fall asleep in its mother's arms.
"Soon there will be no work done in ministerial lines but medical missionary work."8
"Medical missionary work is not to take the place of the preaching of the gospel, but is to be bound up with it." 9
"The medical missionary work is the gospel in illustration." 10
REFERENCES
1.Counsels on Diet Foods, p. 88.
2. Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 327.
3. Counsels on Health, pp. 495, 535.
4. Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 443.
5. Education p. 196.
6. Medical Ministry, p. 533.
7. Rev. 22:14.
8. Counsels on Health, p. 533.
9. Ibid., p. 528.
10. Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 241.
