How has the gospel shaped Christian care for the sick? In this post, we will explore the efforts of early Christians. Later, we will expand the story beyond the church to the broader community from approximately 500 to 1500 AD. Finally, we’ll consider the contributions of Protestant medical mission efforts over the last two centuries
Christian medical historian Gary Ferngren helps us appreciate the lives of average people in the first few centuries. “In the cramped, unsanitary warrens of the typical Roman city, under the miserable cycle of plagues and famines, the sick found no public institutions dedicated to their care and little in the way of sympathy or help. Perhaps a family member would come to their aid, but sometimes even close relatives would leave their own to die.”
The Roman view of a person was utilitarian; if someone was not useful to society, he or she was not considered valuable. Ferngren tells us, “Compassion was not a well-developed virtue among the pagan Romans; mercy was discouraged, as it only helped those too weak to contribute to society.”
How different, then, was the compassion of Jesus! Roman Christians were encouraged by their leaders to visit the sick and help the poor. They had experienced the mercy of the Lord and wanted others to experience it also. Their actions demonstrated that Christ came to serve, not to be served, like the Roman gods. Ordinary people who had no medical training provided care for the sick. Christian care for the sick wasn’t driven by specialized professionals, but began as a church-based, diaconal ministry. Each congregation organized ministries of mercy.
Christ came to serve, not to be served, like the Roman gods.
It was not as if their work had no opposition! During the first three centuries after Christ, Christians experienced ten cycles of Roman persecution (increasingly severe). Yet, over this time, the church created the only organization in the Roman world that systematically cared for its destitute sick.
Most medical professionals in the Roman Empire were schooled in rational, Greek medicine. The medicine of that day, based on the humoral theories of Galen, was not particularly effective. Physicians served people with money and status. It has been argued that early Christians rejected secular medicine, depending instead on miraculous or spiritual healing. However, the evidence suggests that early Christians were not opposed to medicine; by and large, they accepted healing through natural means. Yes, they sought healing through prayer and anointing with oil, but they rejected purely “spiritual” approaches. For example, they rejected the belief that demons cause ordinary diseases.
Christian ministry to the sick was more a ministry of caring than a ministry of curing.
Christians were not opposed to the professional care of the day, but their motives and assumptions were different. Christian ministry to the sick was more a ministry of caring than a ministry of curing. It was based on love and care for the whole person, made in the image of God, not merely a soul that inhabited a body. Church Father Tertullian described how central our bodies are to salvation; he wrote of the flesh as the “pivot [hinge, fulcrum]” of salvation. In caring for the sick this way, the ministry of early Christians to the sick was unique in the classical world.
Christian ministry to the sick was shaped by their understanding of the gospel
Church fathers repeatedly emphasized that it is God who heals. In the fourth century, Bishop Ambrose cautions that one’s faith should be in God, not in medicine. The Apostle Paul does not tell us in Philippians how God healed Epaphroditus, his brother and fellow worker, who was “sick to the point of death” (Phil. 2:27). Paul tells us that God had mercy on him, in whatever way God chose to do it (natural or supernatural or some combination of them both). Whatever the means, Paul gives the glory to God. He also gives God glory when he chooses not to heal afflictions, like Paul’s thorn in the flesh.
“The flesh is the pivot [hinge, fulcrum] of salvation.” — Tertullian
Care for the sick flowed from Christ’s care for the whole person. It was not a separate ministry to the body; it would not have been considered a specialized medical ministry as we think of medicine today. Christians did not promise physical healing or miracles. However, neither was it considered a strictly spiritual ministry, as if by promise and prayer we could expect miracles, as some “Prosperity” gospel preachers do today. Early believers did not suggest that their care for the body was only the means to “real ministry” of care for the soul.
Tertullian said, “It is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another.’”
Historian Ferngren said that caring for the sick was “an important part, but only a part, of the general philanthropic outreach of the church, which included widows and orphans, aiding the poor, visiting those in prison, and extending hospitality to travelers.” The gospel challenged—and eventually changed—the approach to sickness in the classical world. And more than that, their care for the poor, widows, and orphans did much to prevent illness by promoting health.
“It is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents.”
Christian healthcare professionals today have the benefit of more technology and effective care. How do we utilize this knowledge without getting lost in caring for the body or soul alone? How do we care for the whole person and the whole community? One lesson we can learn from the early church is that a holistic approach emerged from the life of the entire church and the whole story of the gospel. Healthcare was a part of the overall ministry and mission of the body of Christ. This is important for us, as we don’t ordinarily consider the church when thinking about healthcare. Like the early believers, let us look beyond the narrow cultural confines of our day and continue to find creative ways to engage the entire church with the whole gospel for the needs of the entire world.
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