Signs of Ill-health
Janie and I have recently purchased Fitbit watches for ourselves. They tell us far more than the time. Janie can tell her blood pressure, her heart rate and blood gases. I was chatting to a GP who said that these could be a mixed blessing because they were not always accurate and they sometimes provoked anxiety in patients who thought they had a serious medical condition when it was simply a malfunction of the sensor or they had misunderstood the data.
I occasionally shop in Holland and Barrett in Falkirk High Street. The shelves are stocked with a whole variety of medicines and treatments for a wide variety of ailments. Some of these supplements and medicines are very expensive. Any yet, this shop has survived in Falkirk when Marks and Spencer, Wilko and Debenhams have closed their doors. That is because we take our health seriously. A few months ago I had to take Janie to the Emergency Department at Forth Valley General Hospital and there was a waiting time of 5 hours to see a doctor. This was a great improvement on the last time when some people had been sitting in the waiting room all day.
Sadly, as a nation we ignore our spiritual health. Maybe the root problem with our nation is the neglect of spiritual health. That might help to explain why our prisons are overcrowded and we have witnessed rioting in streets in England. Although the swift implementation of justice has seemed to stop the disorder, the problems of disillusionment and malaise affect many of our towns and cities. There were signs of ill-health in the church at Ephesus where Timothy was serving the Lord. They can be summed up as follows:
• Puffed up with conceit and lacking in understanding
• Unhealthy craving for controversy and senseless quarrels about words
• Envy, slander and evil suspicions
• Constant friction
• Resistance to the truth
Here is the passage from Paul's letter to Timothy:
3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5 and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. [1 Timothy 6: 3 - 5 ESV]
Paul assessed that these false teachers were motivated by financial incentives. I have covered this in previous Dayshare blogs. Today, I want to focus, not on the symptoms of this condition, but on the root cause which Paul tells us is their refusal to 'agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ.' This word translated as 'sound' is at the heart of the issue. It is the Greek word which comes from the word HUGIAINO meaning to be in good health. There is also an adjective HUGIES from which we get our English word, 'hygiene.' The King James Version translates this as 'wholesome.' In the Gospels, there are references to making sick people 'whole.'
Then he (Jesus) said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. [Matthew 12:13 ESV] The word sound is translated as 'whole'. Previously, this man's hand was withered which means that it was shrunken and paralysed. He would find it difficult to earn a living or do ordinary everyday tasks to look after himself. This man was healed by a word from Jesus which resulted in his deformed hand being completely restored (a divine intervention).
Later on in Matthew's Gospel we discover that there were large crowds bringing people with a variety of ailments to Jesus so that he would heal them
30 Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. 31 The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel. [Matthew 15:30-31 ESV]. The phrase 'the crippled made well' uses this same word HUGIAINO - which is translated in the King James Version as 'the maimed to be whole'.
Sadly, these teachers in Ephesus were not interested in the health-giving Word of God. They had built up a stock of distractions which seemed to indicate their spirituality but, in reality, they were ignorant of the Word of God. Their whole spiritual life was maimed or deformed because of their refusal to seek healing and restoration from the Word of God.
Is there something lacking in our spiritual lives? Are we not functioning properly as believers because there is a lack of healing from the Word of God? Are we too obsessed with controversy and different interpretations of Scripture? Are we into gossip and slander in a big way? Do we revel in maligning the character of other Christians?
These are some of the challenges which are hitting me as I look at these verses.
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