We have discussed the variety of goals one might pursue in health and the need for a higher standard than just individual or collective man’s competing opinions in a prior essay.  By definition, the goals and the actions which move one toward them must have an end in view, an ultimate purpose which is necessarily based on beliefs in what is real and what is right.  This higher purpose will be further shaped by what we value, what we desire, and what we prioritize.  As Christians we should look back to God to direct us in each of these influences.  In a sense we should think His thoughts after Him (Colossian 2:3 and Johann Kepler) and value His values (Matthew 22:36-40 and the 2 greatest commandments).  We can learn what God values in health by reading and studying His Word. First, we can look at the specific words used to convey God’s views of health and how each convey different emphases.  Second, we can look at a few explicit instructions concerning health in the bible.  Third, we can look at God’s interactions with mankind in regard to how God acted towards man regarding health.  Finally, we can compare and contrast these systematically with how other Biblical truths come together.

First, several words from the Old and the New Testament comprise a Biblical etymological study.  In the Old Testament, we consider the terms shalom and raphe. With the next essay, we consider hugianio, therapeou, iamoai, and sozo in the New Testament.

We start with the Old Testament’s word for health, shalom.  From the Brown-Driver Briggs Bible dictionary, we read the definition, “Completeness, safety/soundness, Peace/quiet/tranquility”.  This term is most often used of “peace” in different settings, always indicating a completeness.  In Genesis 43:27-28 Joseph as a leader in Egypt asks his brothers if their father is “shalom”.  This is more than just being alive, but if he is living in “peace”.  In Numbers 6:26, Aaron’s blessing upon the people includes having God’s face shining upon them, having God’s grace upon them, God’s lifting His countenance upon them, and concludes with giving them “peace” indicated by this word “shalom”.  In Psalm 35:27, in calling upon righteous judgment upon how others are treating him, David pronounces “Great is the lord, who delights in the shalom of his servant!”  The servant’s life was meant to be at “peace” in its completeness when under the blessing of God.  Elsewhere in Psalm 38:3, a lack of shalom meant that David’s flesh was affected by God’s indignation towards him.  David’s bones suffered due to sin.  Spiritual health and physical health and emotional health were all interdependent and included within this “complete” sense of shalom.

In the Old Testament, we also read of “raphe” which generally referred to healing.  The Brown-Driver-Briggs dictionary defines the term as:

1) to heal, make healthful; 1a) (Qal) to heal; 1a1) of God; 1a2) healer, physician (of men); 1a3) of               hurts of nations involving restored favour (figuratively); 1a4) of individual distresses (figuratively)

1b) (Niphal) to be healed; 1b1) literal (of persons); 1b2) of water, pottery; 1b3) of national hurts               (figuratively); 1b4) of personal distress (figuratively)

1c) (Piel) to heal; 1c1) literal; 1c2) of national defects or hurts (figuratively)

1d) (Hithpael) in order to get healed (infinitive)

With the term used at least 60 times depending on one’s Bible translation, several examples demonstrate how it was used literally and primarily of physical health yet also connected to spiritual health. In Exodus 15:26, God is called Jehovah Raphe, the one who heals after He removes the bitterness of the waters of Marah for the Israelites to drink.  Soon afterwards, it includes a promise to not put any of the diseases of the Egyptians upon the Hebrews.  Elsewhere in Hosea 6:1, the prophet calls out for the Jews to return to the Lord which includes the promise that though God had torn them, he might “heal” or “raphe” them if they returned to Him.  Their breaking of the covenant was the reason for the curse from God’s hand.  Given that the text mentions “revive us” and “struck us down” it likely included physical effects of the covenant breaking and subsequent healing of these physical afflictions as a result of the spiritual restoration.  Psalm 103:3 unequivocally addresses physical illness with “who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases” yet draws together physical and spiritual health. Jeremiah 17:14 then serves as an example from the prophets where Jeremiah is praying for healing with echoes of “save me”.  Physical and spiritual health are connected within these verses as verse 16 returns to the physical sense of health with Jeremiah saying “I have not desired the day of sickness”.  With a further review of the other verses where raphe is found, the physical aspect of health is more often in view, yet frequently the spiritual health of the one being healed is connected to the physical.

Between shalom and raphe with their references, the Old Testament view of health presents God as one who cares for whole person health including the physical aspects.  The Old Testament views the complete health of shalom as including physical health along with spiritual and emotional health.  When raphe or healing occurred, the focus was usually on the physical yet the spiritual health of the one receiving healing was interdependent.  These words and their Scriptural references help us understand how God viewed the health of man and what God valued.  While spiritual health across the Old Testament was clearly God’s primary emphasis, the physical health was not ignored, but instead frequently provided for both in a pre-emptive sense of God’s giving initial health and in a responsive sense of restoring health after disease had occurred.

Next in this Docsy Series… “Part 2:  New Testament Word Study Regarding God’s View of Man’s Health”

Truths in health make a significant difference on where we land on the health spectrum only when we apply them.  This may seem obvious but with each of us searching for optimal health amongst the plethora of divergent ideas from claiming to be true, we need to consider our own systematic application of the truth upon our health and well-being decisions. 

Understanding truth requires understanding its primary source or secondary sources.  Having assumed in the previous essay that truth exists and recognized that the functioning of life requires a basis of truth, we turn our attention to identifying the primary source from which truth comes.  As Christians we recognize that God designed and created all things (Genesis).  Any true knowledge that reflects this reality must have come from God.  Even scientific truth reflecting scientific reality is simply thinking God’s thoughts after Him.  Any truth has already been in the mind of God before we even existed in reality.  Besides the order of the physical world, neither did the order of what is good nor is right, what we label ethics, come into being on its own.  God, as designer and creator was and is the potter with the clay creating both the physical world and truth behind the physical reality.  Thus, beyond what physically is, God is the source of truth for what should be.  God is the ultimate source of truth for physical and ethical reality.

In attempting to understand its source, the world often treats truth as an abstract reality separate from the reality in which we all live.  These attempts look to man or mankind as the source of truth rather than to God. Philosophers may handle it carelessly as if they own the rights to it or at least to an understanding of it.  Some unbelievers marvel that it even exists in the first place.  Some unbelievers scoff at it as a figment of other’s imagination.  Some unbelievers loathe the idea of truth’s existence as it is viewed as an obstacle to the life they want to pursue. Some even practically worship it as the creator of all we see in some gnostic or pantheistic manner.  Truth viewed in isolation from reality can be deified, demonized, or dismissed.

As God’s creation and possession, we cannot disrespectfully play with truth nor irreverently attempt to tear it apart.  As God’s possession to share with His creatures, we cannot ignore its reality nor worship it as the ultimate force of nature.   The reality of our finite lives and the unavoidable need for a creator, despite modern man’s attempt to argue otherwise, means it must come from someone other than itself or from the physical reality it describes.  With this recognition we can seek it in God with humility and with hope.  We can honor it as his possession without worshipping it.  We can respect and honor truth rather than constantly fight against it.

Approaching truth as the act of thinking God’s thoughts after Him in the way that Christians in science of past days, we cannot create new truth that did not exist prior in God.  We cannot create new truth that did not already exist in God.  Even the heresies and errors of man are primarily copies of prior errors.  We can only hope to uncover truth that God already formed and knew.  Then, seeing all truth as coming from Him, we can seek it from the correct source.

By knowing Him, we can better understand what truth is.  We know Him by His revelation in His word, the Bible.  Knowing He is a God of order and unchangeableness, we can look for consistency and order in creation rather than randomness or changing rules of nature.  Knowing he created us in His image, we can look to our reason and senses as means of not only receiving the facts of sensory input, but also assimilating and synthesizing them to reflect His truth.  In His image we should not be surprises that we can find pleasure not only in the beauty of what we observe and experience upon the earth, but in the goodness behind, within, and underneath what we observe or may experience.

Though we seek after a comprehensive and exhaustive understanding of truth, we also recognize that our ability to perceive and to understand are limited.  There are things we cannot sense.  In the physical world, microscopic processes continuously carry on life which we cannot truly observe directly even with the technological tools we have available.  Also in the physical world, at the other end of the size scale, we gaze upward upon astronomical realities we cannot comprehensively understand due to the sheer vastness of the data required.  In the spiritual world, we are even more limited in our understanding.  All around us spiritual reality touches our lives yet we rarely recognize these influences in their fullness.  It is even said that this spiritual reality will outlast the physical reality in which we currently live (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Depths of wisdom and insight exist which neither a single human nor a collective humanity can process.  On one hand this is simply facing the limit of a created and finite human mind that can hold only so much in active thought at one time or can only remember so many interrelationships of reality simultaneously.  On the other, the Fall of Adam marred man’s reasoning (Romans 1:21) such that even what lies within one’s physical limits may become distorted and lose an accurate reflection of reality.

We come humbly to recognizing the need to look to God as the source of truth.  Having recognized that our means of perception is limited, our means of reasoning is both limited and marred despite being in God’s image (to be explored in future essays), and recognizing that God intends for us to grow in knowledge and wisdom, we humbly seek God to reveal both physical and spiritual truth that we might live both “wholly” and “holy” not only as individuals before God, but collectively as His children before His face.

Next in this series… Truth: What does it have to do with health?

Oddly, although a definition of truth would seem something most would agree upon, many opinions arise from challenges to the nature of truth.  Society debates whether there is one truth for all or many truths.  Society debates whether truth changes or not.  Society debates over who determines truth.  Some even doubt whether truth exists or at least whether we can know truth though it exists.  With different opinions come significant downstream ramifications.  If there are more truths than one, how can we know which is true for us?  If truth changes, can we be certain of the future.  If someone does control truth, must we submit to them or create our own truth?  If there is no truth, what is the point of life?  A correct definition of truth requires one to answer these foundational questions.

Understanding truth is critically important for many reasons.  Living and acting in contradiction to truth will produce unexpected consequences.  Inaccurate views of gravity will lead to injury and death.  Inaccurate views of health can lead to illness and death. Inaccurate views of the nature of reality can lead to spiritual death.  In coming essays, we will touch on each of these.  Ultimately, the current point to remember is that believing something contrary to reality does not alter that reality. In contrast, knowing truth has the hope of making life more rewarding and less dangerous.

We may define truth as that knowledge which comports with or describes what is real, that which exists in reality.  Given our finite minds, this truth comes primary in parts and pieces rather than an understanding of the whole.  While such portions are not an exhaustive description of reality, they serve as an accurate depiction of the part being described.  Simultaneously it must be consistent with the whole without contradicting interconnected portions of reality.

Building upon this definition of truth, we must consider if we can know truth and how we acquire it, a process called epistemology.  We are dependent on our senses to provide correct input.  We are dependent on our minds to interpret that sensory input correctly.  To know beyond the physical world, into the spiritual, we are dependent on revelation.  Epistemology considers how our senses, our minds or reason, and revelation from God informs us and what these three methods of obtaining truth can tell us.

If the existence of truth or the ability to discover it is doubted, then little more can be gained from our senses or our reasoning.  In contrast, knowledge and wisdom begin with an acknowledgement that truth exists.  Biblically, it begins with a fear of God, or a recognition of His being as well as Jesus’ self-affirmation that He is the truth.  Fighting against acceptance of reality’s existence and against truth leads to irrational beliefs if not a denial of one’s own existence.  But if both truth and the ability to know truth are accepted, truth’s details can be worked out over time.  We will approach truth and the whole of this series assuming that truth exists, and we can know it at least in part as doing otherwise leads to irrationality.

We continue with an understanding that truth is accurate knowledge about reality gained through our senses, through our minds or reason, and through revelation to cover physical and spiritual reality.  Truth exists, is knowable to some extent, and does not change in its fundamental nature.  Without going into a major proof at these assertions, we will assume them to be true for the time being until it becomes necessary to dive deeper into proving them.

Next in the series…. The Source of Truth.

              Welcome to the “Doc-sy” series, as in OrthoDOXY (right doctrine), where you will find short essays aimed at truth, especially truths pertaining to whole person health.  These essays arise from the life of a “Doc” practicing medicine while also leading my own family through a crazy world.  These endeavors exceed the capacity for this one post to cover or to even introduce adequately.  For this reason, several essays following this brief introduction will address several foundational concepts or principles before continuing with regular installments regarding truths of whole person health from a Biblical perspective.  Today, I will share a short clip of my personal journey in pursuing truth, my perception of the problems we face today regarding truth, and a brief overview of what is coming in this series. 

              While other essays will provide more insight into the life that led me to write these installments, a quick self-introduction is in order.  The truths or “Doc-sies” that I hope to share with you in the coming weeks and months have been shaped by over 50 years on this earth directly and indirectly experiencing life in a fallen world.  I have witnessed the need and practice of such “docsy” truths for the better and for the worse with chronically ill patients asking hard questions about physical and spiritual health.  I have lived the need in endeavoring to raise 6 children alongside an amazing wife in a world gone crazy. I have witnessed through the stories of my patients’ lives how these principles and “doc-sy” truths work themselves out.  I have worked to care for my own body’s health and the health of my family as well as my patients applying whole person truth.  I have shaped my own spiritual life and counseled the spiritual life of others using God’s Word.  I have walked through dark nights of the soul with loved ones.  During these times I have not only seen the fruits of Biblical views of health and life but also the adverse effects of having bad views of health and life.  Now I want to offer light for those following their own health journey’s so they can avoid missteps which I struggled with or watched others struggle through.

              We, meaning our once more Christian society, came to this need for a reappraisal of what whole person health means to a Christian for many reasons.  On one hand, we in society forgot the source of truth.  God and His Word has been pushed to the wayside by the modern world as a source for truth.  In forgetting God, we also forgot the means of knowing truth through His Word and through reason or logic.  Instead, we have pursued autonomy from God, moving from rationalization to irrationalization.  We disliked God’s truth so we sought truth outside of God.  When the crises and storms of life hit, much anxiety and fear came with them as we lost a foundation on which to stand.  We have been looking in all the wrong places and been too pragmatic as well as short-sighted. 

              Truth about health encompasses more than can be even outlined in this introductory essay.  At the very least the series will address and discuss: (the fancy theological terms are in parentheses for those interested)

• What is truth as well as its source? (metaphysics)
• What is man? (ontology and anthropology)
• What is man’s telos or purpose? (teleology)
• How does man know anything?  (epistemology)
• What is man’s measure for right and wrong, good and bad, success and failure? (ethics)
• How does man understand physical and spiritual health and the relationship between them?

              These essays offer much more to come in upcoming installments.  I will start with several foundations on which the following floors can be built week by week.  On each floor we will work through filling in the rooms one or two at a time.  Sometimes we will step back to look at the big picture, sometimes we will hone in on the details.  Over time, I hope to develop a full-orbed Biblical view of health while dispelling the half-truths, misconceptions and flat-out deceits in regard to true whole person health and true medicine.

              I hope to point us back to God.  By pointing to the Bible and to the reality of reason which comes to us as part of the image of God in Man, I hope an emphasis on “doc-sy” as in Orthodoxy will lead to orthopraxy or right practice in life.  This orthodoxy and orthopraxy has a hope to restore healthier more abundant whole person health in body and spirit, individually and relationally.

Next in this series… What is truth?