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13: Abraham Kuyper's Anti-Revolutionary Party

Or, Historical Marrow for Bewildered Bones

March 7, 2021 • Sean Higgins

Selected Scriptures
Series: Centers and Circumferences #13

# Introduction

I have always believed in the value of naming things well. When we arrived in Marysville in 2001, the name of the youth ministry was "GY" - Grace Youth. I thought we could do better. A website I really liked at the time was called *antithesis.com* (which, for what it’s worth, is where I read “What Would Jesus Drink?” that convicted me about my lack of drinking wine. Not only that, but anthesis turned out to be a major emphasis in Kuyper’s life though I had never heard of him at that point). The antithesis is the opposite, the contrast with something else. At the time I decided that I didn’t want to focus on the negative, to act as if someone else could claim the center, the thesis, to which we had to respond. Did we really want to be known for what we were against?

Over the last year we've heard a new push. We are being exhorted with a modern demand (actually with *many* demands, but there’s one in particular). We are told that it's bad to be just not a racist, we are told we must be *anti-racist*. Part of what they mean is that we need to spend more time proactively thinking about how wrong it is, not just dealing with it when it comes up.

I don't agree with what "they" mean by anti-racist, but I'm beginning to think there is a lesson for Christians here, a lesson that Abraham Kuyper helps with.

I first gave a biographical message about Kuyper at a TECY retreat in 2014, and then shared that biography at an evening service later that year called “[All Thumbs](https://subsplash.com/trinityevangelchurch/lb/mi/+yzm3qfh).”

There is real importance in biographies, and history. God’s Word itself makes a certain sort of biography *necessary* for obedience:

> Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. (Hebrews 13:7)

When I started paying more attention to biographies I remember hearing John Piper talk about how he had an instructor who encouraged his students to select one theologian and make that man his mission to know. I haven’t written it down, but I have a tentative goal of reading everything Kuyper ever wrote that gets translated into English. I’ve been reading 5 minutes most days for a few years of something by Kuyper. I’m not even close to finishing what’s been translated, and I’m less close to finishing appreciating what he did.


# Kuyper’s Profile

He was born in 1837 in Holland, the first son of Jan Fredrick and Henriette Kuyper. (For some world history context, Charles Spurgeon was born three years earlier, Mark Twain two years before, John D. Rockefeller two years after, and Claude Monet three years after.)

"Bram" was a preacher's kid, but his pastor-dad did not committed whole-heartedly to orthodoxy. Jan's liberal faith and ministry were typical of the time and Abraham grew up despising the church.

> In the years of my youth the Church aroused my aversion more than my affection. … I felt repulsed rather than attracted. … [T]he deceit, the hypocrisy, the unspiritual routine that sap the lifeblood of our whole ecclesiastical fellowship were most lamentably prevalent. ("Confidentiality", 46)

The Kuyper family moved to the city of Leiden largely for the grade school that "followed the traditional classical curriculum of immersing students in the humanities and languages" (Bratt), though a recent Wikipedia edit says he was homeschooled. He entered the University of Leiden when he was 18 years old to study theology of the anti-supernatural strain.

He graduated when he was 21, started doctoral work, had his first (of three) nervous breakdown in 1961, and then graduated with his doctorate when he was 25. What sort of job did he pursue? A pastorate. But his was an intellectual "faith," a ministry of scholarly sentences and sentimentality until he came to the little town of Beesd.

During his schooling at Leiden he met Johanna Hendrika Schaay whom he married in 1863 when he was 26. Throughout their multi-year courtship he felt like Jo was not educated enough, so he kept sending her books to help her be more cultured.

In the summer of 1863, newly married and newly bestowed as Doctor of Theology, he moved to Beesd. I'm not sure how large the congregation in Beesd was, but there was a minority group in the church who disliked Kuyper from the start and kept their distance from him. The rest of the members told Kuyper not to worry about "them," but he felt like he needed to serve them. So he started visiting them and, strangely, he said that he found himself wanting to listen rather than speak. These were people who believed the Bible was God's Word and that Christ was Savior and Lord. Kuyper wrote as part of his testimony:

> I observed that they were not intent on winning my sympathy but on the triumph of their cause. They knew of no compromise or concession, and more and more I found myself confronted with a painful choice: either sharply resist them or unconditionally join them in a principled recognition of "full sovereign grace" — as they called it— without leaving room for even the tiniest safety valves in which I sought refuge. Well, dear brother, I did not oppose them and I still thank God that I made that choice. Their unremitting perseverance has become the blessing of my heart, the rise of the morning star for my life. ("Confidentiality", 56)

As a pastor he finally got *saved*! After his regeneration and reeducation in Reformation theology, it “left him with a daunting personal agenda. Where should he begin? What should he *not* do?” (Bratt, 59).

After a while he was called to a larger church in Utrecht (1867), then to even larger Amsterdam (1870). As he labored to exhort the Christians to exert their influence in the city and throughout the nation, he realized that much work was needed inside the church.

In 1887 he helped start a new denomination of churches called the Doleerende Kerk, from a Latin term meaning sorrow, so "The Sorrowing Church." His book, _Our Worship_, is a manual for understanding the whys and whats of liturgy. Though he never said it in a single sentence, he believed that culture starts with worship because people are shaped into likeness of what or Who they worship; more than *homo sapiens*, “rational” men, we are *homo adorans*, a “worshipping” species. That book is one of the reasons why I can’t stop talking about the church as an *assembly*.

He had also realized that much work was needed *outside* the church. He knew that there is *no neutrality*, there is thesis and antithesis. In particular, a teacher necessarily starts his lesson plans believing that God is central or that man is central. Kuyper began to speak and write for the freedom and support of Christian grade schools. He worked to establish a base of support, then to establish government laws, and also to educate educators. He rallied parents and teachers at school convention meetings.

He also realized that Christians needed a place for further more training, a place for research. Christians needed a university. Every subject, not just theology, should be pursued for Christ: philosophy, law, literature, art, politics, medicine, science. So he helped to found the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880 with only eight students and five professors, himself included.

Before that, in 1871 he became the editor in chief of a once-weekly paper called De Heraut, "The Herald." But shortly after, he realized that this was not enough. So he founded and edited a daily newspaper, De Standaard, "The Standard," in 1872 in order to inform and rally the Christian public. He wrote his last article in December 1919, ending a 47 year career as a journalist.

Notably he was invited in 1898 by B.B. Warfield to give a series of lectures at Princeton University, which became _Lectures on Calvinism_ (and [here’s the link to a free audiobook version](http://trinityevangel.org/kuypers-lectures/) if you’re interested). It is reported that Warfield learned Dutch just so that he could read Kuyper.

But the thing I’d like to talk about for just a bit more relates to Kuyper’s life in politics.


# Kuyper’s Party - AntiRevolutionary

He arrived in Amsterdam (1870) as a pastor but within a short time people persuaded Abraham that he could and should use his leadership in the national government. He served in both the upper and lower houses of Dutch Parliament.

He was convinced that the government was a good sphere, as in a sphere established by God. He also believed that government worked best when it recognized God, submitting to His supremacy and His standards. Again, there is no neutrality. So the state should protect marriage and family, punish those who do evil, encourage Christian worship and morality, and support Christians educating the next generation.

Kuyper argued that government should be driven at the local level and that the federal government should be representative, not a bunch of detached so-called experts. Kuyper appreciated the United States in this regard. But the government of Holland was *not* like this; a change was needed. So Kuyper helped form and presided over the **Antirevolutionary Party**.

Think Kanye's "[Birthday Party](https://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2020/07/08/kanye-west-says-hes-done-with-trump-opens-up-about-white-house-bid-damaging-biden-and-everything-in-between/?sh=1e4a28b547aa)," but more serious.

The book is titled, _Our Program: A Christian Political Manifesto_. It was published as regular features in De Standaard from April 1878 to March 1879, collected into a book later in 1879.

An antirevolutionary stood opposed to the ideology embodied in the French Revolution of 1789 (less than a hundred years between).

Kuyper had a particular group in mind that were Revolutionaries, but a group prior to the rioters. He mentions a group multiple times called “The Encyclopediests” in multiple works, that I apparently just kept reading over.

The leading figures behind the enterprise were Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and contributors included Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire, sometimes known collectively as the Encyclopedists. They worked on this project in France especially between 1751 to 1756.

They sought to sever the ties between God and men, God's Word and men. They called for a new humanity to make a new world. Even in the 18th century that included hatred of the nuclear family, and it has metastasized to hatred of heterosexual marriage, the hatred of offspring (through abortion), and the hatred of gender.

So an *antirevolutionary* stood against Enlightenment, rationalism, modernism, secularism, humanism. He stood against willy-nilly feelings and topsy-turvy riots. He stood against paganism, and anti-Christian worldviews. These necessarily have moral and political implications, again, as seen in the idea-makers/marketers that led to the Revolution.

An antirevolutionary stood for submission to God, not independence from God (contra the cry of the French Revolution: “No God, No masters"). There is **no neutrality** (Kuyper called it "the fungus of _neutrality_" (310)). He saw the sacred in all of life and God as the *only absolute authority*, the one in whom total sovereignty resides. Then that personal faith and worship must be linked to broader work. So the positive name for his party is the "Christian-historical” party.

> “If ‘Christian’ therefore stands opposite ‘humanity,’ the addition ‘historical’ indicates that our situation cannot be created by us at will. It is the product of a past that, independent of our will and apart from our input, is fashioned by Him in whom we live and move and have our being." (278)

> "We are therefore at heart a __militant__ party, unhappy with the status quo and ready to critique it, fight it, and change.”

For what it’s worth, Kuyper has entire sections on contagious diseases and epidemics (around page 246-247), opposed to mandatory vaccination, the "government should keep its hands off our bodies" and referred to it as a "form of tyranny hidden in these vaccination certificates.”

> "And if we succeed sooner or later in having a free Christian university for gathering a circle of intelligent law students around professors in antirevolutionary statecraft, then perhaps, by God’s grace, a future generation may be in a position to rely on a group of solid statesmen to inject the marrow of the antirevolutionary confession into the dry bones of our currently lifeless political institutions." (374)

He was eventually elected to the position now called Prime Minister, an office he held for one term from 1901-1905.

On his Wikipedia page I count 7 significant losses for political offices, not to mention his patience with how many times his policies were rejected.

He had his problems. He and Jo had 8 kids, and I’m not convinced he did right by them. As the saying goes, he worked like an Arminian, and his three nervous breakdowns required significant time for recuperation. He did get distracted for a while by a kind of mystic pietism that taught the possibility of Christian perfection in this life, though he turned away from that after a while.


# Marrow for Our Bewildered Bones

But for his weaknesses, we could use more of his titanic immunity against the virus of man-centeredness.

Consider the coronavirus and our culture. Listen to this description of the virus itself:

> "corona connects to a specific receptor on its victim's membranes to inject its genetic material. The cell, __ignorant of what's happening__, executes the new instructions, which are pretty simple: Copy and Reassemble. It fills up with more and more copies of the original virus until it reaches a critical point and receives one final order: Self-destruct."

Isn’t this a perfect medical metaphor for our cultural destruction? Not just in lungs, but in legislators; ignorant self-destruction is happening. As Christians, we see the virus affecting lungs, we see it affecting our political leaders, but we must not let it infect our hope.

A virus cannot survive without a host, and it prefers a *weak* one. A physical virus will die, but the cultural virus will eat the culture until there is no more. Changing analogies, the fire of envy will not die out, it must be opposed.

It may not be enough to be *pro*-reformation. You must be that *and anti-Revolutionary*.

## If you would be an AntiRevolutionary:

1. Mediate on God’s Word night and day. Psalm 1, *contra* the fools and scoffers and *for* the hard times . CHAZ are like chaff that the wind drives away. As a politician, Kuyper spoke regularly about “School with the Bible." You must know and submit to God’s Word.
2. Make your calling and election sure. 2 Peter 1:10-11. Submit to the truth of God’s sovereignty.
3. Be a man (“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” 1 Corinthians 16:13). Or be a woman (Proverbs 31). Be an image-bearer of God, male or female. Look, if you can’t identify your gender, you aren’t going to have much luck figuring out anything else. You must know how to submit to God’s will.
4. Read history and literature. They will make you healthy in mind, immune to the rot. You need to have more history in your head than as far back as you can scroll in Instagram. “Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set. (Proverbs 22:28, see also Proverbs 23:10) Know where you’re at. You must know God to learn from God’s providence. (By the way, *biography* is good *twice*, once for content of the example and again in the practice of seeing historical examples.)
5. *Rejoice* when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven (Matthew 5:11-12). Don't be surprised when others mock you for not joining them in their sin (1 Peter 4:3-4). Be prepared even for them to *claim* that you are the revolutionaries, turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6).
6. Let thanksgiving fill the place. Gratitude is the antithesis to immorality and impurity and lawlessness and covetousness. (Ephesians 5:3-5). Thanksgiving is the ultimate anti-Marxist, anti-envy activity.

We are awake, but anti-woke. We are ready to submit to lawful authority, and not easy to command. We are against State monopoly on information, ideas, education, and media. We oppose media pressure and refuse to swallow dis-iniformation. We know that The Ministry of Truth is a lie, and we will not serve them.

We will be preppers, not mostly hoarding gallons of water and toilet paper, but of books and even more, if they burn our books, in our *memories*. We will not forget our identity, as image-bearers, as Christians, as Protestants, as Americans. Jesus is Lord. Jesus and Him crucified is our world-and-life-memory.

> "A nation, too, must __struggle__ for its existence. Its independence does not come free but has to be conquered or defended, and reconquered after losing it." (254)

Kuyper died in 1920 (two years after World War I), 101 years ago. The outcome of his way of life is worth considering, and *imitating* as we remember his teaching from the word of God that Jesus is Lord.

17: Lawful to Heal

June 6, 2021 • Sean Higgins

Selected Scriptures Series: Centers and Circumferences #17 # Introduction This is a very important message and, if the Lord does not return soon, containing much possible application for when I'm dead. I pray that many who hear it would sense a calling to the many ministry opportunities that the medical field allows, and that all who hear it would be thankful for God's good gifts to us in Western medicine. What’s to come in this message is some testimony, some principles, and some prescriptions. This is personal. I've torn ligaments in my knee, and another time had an avulsion fracture of the tibial tuberosity (the bump some people get below their kneecap) where the tendon ripped off and the bone broke, which is an extreme case of Osgood–Schlatter disease. I've had my tonsils out twice, sort of, once to cut out the tonsils and then again to get the blood clot that was so big in my throat that it was blocking my breathing. I've fractured vertebrae, had bone chipped from my hip to fuse two vertebrae (L2-3) together that are held in place with four large screws and two rods that connect the sets of screws. Because I have metal in my back, I had to have a Myelogram CT scan, which included a shot of contrast die into my spinal cord, but the needle hole didn't clot, leaking spinal fluid and making it so that my brain was resting on my skull, that required a blood patch about seven excruciating days later, and in between I was taking 8, 800mg tablets of ibuprofen a day, or, the equivalent of 32 Advil. I've had the top third of my stomach wrapped around my lower esophageal sphincter because of crazy acid reflux (Nissen fundoplication). I've had neck surgery to drill a hole (between C6-7) for a crushed nerve that caused permanent damage to one of the nerves running down into my right hand. I’ve broken my ring finger twice (ask Jonathan). I’ve had another back surgery to take out a piece of disk that was broken and pushing into my spine. I had a golf ball-ish sized cyst cut out of my chest in the doctor’s office, that turned out to be a rare kind of cancer, which required an actual surgery to remove larger margins of tissue, which resulted in fluid accumulation in my left pec, which required my doctor’s use of a large needle to suck the fluid out approximately half a dozen times. I lost half of my blood from an internal bleed, spending parts of five days in the hospital, and taking at least six months to recover from the anemia, for a bleed they never determined the cause of, and two pill cams died trying to take pictures of my digestive track. I've been in the emergency room with Costochondritis (inflammation of the cartilage near the breastbone that mimics a heart attack), twice with kidney stones, multiple times for spinal pain, and as recently as last Christmas day with chest pain. I have Spondylolisthesis (displacement rather than alignment of vertebra) at L4-5, and Gastroparesis (where things get stuck in my stomach too long). Ironically my only known allergy is to penicillin. And I am probably even a COVID survivor. I can’t remember the last day I wasn’t in some sort of pain, and I have it *way better than Mo*. And both of us would be dead were it not for Western medicine. It wasn't too long into our marriage when I realized that maybe I should have been a pharmacist, or at least studied that first. There are so many health, body, medical problems that we've had to deal with, let alone conversations with family and church family and friends with hurts, diagnosed and undiagnosed, that I wish I had knew a lot more about it. I'd have to be a pharmacist, though, not a doctor or nurse, because I get sick looking (and smelling) blood. Many of *you* also have many bodily ailments, and so the subject of medicine is to the point. # Good Health Is Good God did not make His image-bearers for disease or weakness or death. Sin brought broken souls and broken bodies. Yet God heals directly and mediately. He thinks health and healing are *good*. > Bless the LORD, O my soul, > and forget not all his benefits, > who forgives all your iniquity, > who heals all your diseases, > who redeems your life from the pit, > who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, > who satisfies you with good > so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. > (Psalm 103:2–5 ESV) Jesus healed, and many times He chose to heal on the Sabbath to show how *good* and *lawful* healing is. > And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him. He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. (Matthew 12:10–13) We have regular examples of praying for healing in Scripture (Genesis 20:17; Numbers 12:13; 2 Chronicles 30:20; Psalm 6:2); (we prayed for Jim 9 years ago today when he had a heart attack in London) our elders pray every week for those in the flock with physical problems. For a while at least, God gave some the spiritual gift of healing (1 Corinthians 12:28). God gives the promise of resurrected bodies that will not be subject to the same threats and breakdowns, no more perishable or dishonor or weakness in flesh (1 Corinthians 15:42-43). There have been miraculous healings, and there have been medical healings, all by God’s will. # Good Health Is Not the Ultimate Good (Even on Earth) Before getting too much further, let's also acknowledge that good health on earth is not the ultimate good, not even on earth, let alone for eternity. A man can live a thousand years twice over (Ecclesiastes 6:6), and it wouldn't matter how many successful surgeries he had or vitamin supplements he took, if he didn't fear God, he would not have *joy*. > If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. (Ecclesiastes 6:3 ESV) After that his eternity would be one of conscious, physical torment for his refusal to give God thanks for all his healthy years. # Causes and Correlations There are a number of reasons why medicines are needed; people get sick or injured, are weak and disabled. Many of those reasons came before and have nothing to do with Monsanto or Merck. A man could be stupid, and fail to be a steward of his body. A man could be be born with bad genetics. A man could be providentially chosen as an object lesson (Job 2:4-6, the man born blind in John 9:2-3). A man could be unintentionally hurt by someone else (e.g., Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 4:4), or maliciously attacked. A man could be exposed to contagion while trying to serve others who are sick. A man could need to learn sympathy, or need to learn comfort, so that he could care for others and comfort them (a broader application of 2 Corinthians 1:3-6). His body might be well-used/worn-out/old (Proverbs 20:29). And a man could have sinned, and brought the sickness on himself, which seems to be the connection in James 5:14, it is a consequence of unworthy participation of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:30, and even bones waste away when God’s conviction comes to a man who won’t confess his sin in Psalm 32:3-4. # It's Complicated We are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). I have not studied medicine much, and I have trouble remembering the doctor tells me about my own problems; I need my medical assistant, Mo, with me. But I do know that humans are more than bones and blood, and that the use of "flesh" in the New Testament has a number of references. There are bodily appetites/weaknesses along with spiritual appetites/temptations along with rational abilities/ignornances along with a will. Jesus said there was no direct sin that caused the man to be born blind. James said that the sick should call for the elders and not for their medical expertise, rather to deal with unconfessed sin that was ruining health. When you go to the doctor, or when you visit Google MD, do you throw in how angry you’ve been with your kids as related to your high blood pressure? Do you say that you are not sleeping because you are anxious, or did your anxiousness come because you can’t sleep? And then taking into account the medical http://industry...that is also complicated. For some it could be a full time job to track down the right physician and then pay that physician with cash, or insurance co-pay, or whatever. There are a lot of moving parts, certainly not everyone is motivated for the right reasons, and in fact, many are vocationally inconsistent with their (unseen and unacknowledged) worldview. # Survival of the Fittest The dominant worldview for many medical workers is based on “science,” and that science is based on the theory of evolution. But if they really believed in what they claimed to believe in, the only parts of the medical profession that would be appropriate would be for making the strong stronger. Wherever we want to start the blame for how much money people spend on medical things (and it is big business), the fact that there are so many people who require medical attention cannot be isolated from the gospel of Christ which results in mercy to the weak. Evolution does not care about compassion to the frail, the diseased, the damaged, or the disabled. *“Science” does not care about anyone.* The actual worldview undergirding most modern medicine is *Christian*, even if not perfectly applied let alone appreciated. That isn’t understood by most of the people we deal with, but at beast Humanism only believes that *some* human beings are worth helping, worth fixing, worth keeping alive. As Christians we know that killing due to cost or other inconvenience is wrong, so abortion and euthanasia are *not* health care. Destroying human life is not lawful. The increase in transgender "medical" treatments is likewise unlawful; that is not healing, that is *damaging* and disfiguring what God has made, not causing it to work better. These, however, are at least consistent applications of trying to live without a God in the world. # First-Aid in the First-World This is an important principle to park on for a bit longer. For all the problems we have, we have it better than ever in human history. Never have more people been as healthy as they are or lived longer. Never have less people been dying of starvation and infections and injuries. Many arguments are over quality of life levels *after* survival; we are all alive to be complaining about how bad we feel. This is due to the effects of Christians living as Christians, and the implications of confessing and loving and following Jesus. Look at a world map, and note the nations that are considered first, second, and third world. By far the first-world countries, which are generally places with better medical care, are those where the gospel has been. Considered by direction, this is also the West, Western Civilization, which starts going west from Jerusalem, and that includes Western Medicine. Of course there are problems and perversions. There is abuse of the good, and men with power often hurt others with it (Ecclesiastes 8:9). But *we ought not be ungrateful.* Yes, physicians and hospital CEOs and presidents of drug companies may be greedy and get a god-complex. And other men are bitter and self-righteous in the name of God, and unpleasant for other reasons. # Hot Takes A hot take is a a quickly produced, strongly worded, and often deliberately provocative or sensational opinion or reaction. I am definitely not trying to give the final word here, but at least trying to show that Christians can pick up the ball. Here’s a sample. Vaccines are *amazing*, life-saving, God-glorifying! They also should not be mandated by the government, and certainly not marketed by those who change their minds more than their latex gloves. Vaccines have a history, so check it out. Some skepticism toward ones that don't have a history is correct. Infertility treatments are *amazing*, life-giving, God-glorifying! They also should be evaluated, and the hearts of the infertile couple should be honest; if “having a child no matter what” is the goal, such a child may be an idol, and that won’t work out well. Further down the road, I am in favor of epidurals for women who want them, in favor of C-sections for those who need them. Cloning technology is *amazing*, dangerous, possibly God-glorifying, and should not be used for making humans. Plants? Sure. Animals? Maybe. Babies? NO WAY. Narcotics are *amazing*, pain-easing, and God-glorifying! When taken appropriately, including not as an escape from reality, but as a help to fulfill responsibilities. I do not think that Kuyperians are only all-natural, or allowed homeopathy, or only alternative medicine, or only herbal medicine. # Paging Dr. Higgins As we have established, I am not a Dr. That is not going to stop me from giving some medical advice. First, your body is the Lord's. He gave it to you, warts and all, and expects You to serve Him with it (see Romans 12:1; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Medicine is also the Lord's. While some may treat medicine as a god, God is not threatened by His own creation. He enables doctors and nurses and big pharma every day to bless people. Every thumb's width of a pill bottle container with tamper-proof, child-proof packaging is His. Second, related, do your homework. And this is both more possible than ever (on your phone!), and the challenge these days are competing solutions, not lack of suggestions. Get a second opinion. Or a fifth. Third, give grace to one another. Grace may come in the form of speaking truth, as in, get to work. Grace from a doctor doesn't come by his lies, and if your friend is stuck in a self-serving falsehood, it might be good to talk about it. And also, imagine the bed-side manner of a good doctor, and imagine the work a good doctor would do to understand a patient's problems, asking questions and doing research and comparing with other cases he's seen. And if the Facebook post you read about how sugar is the reason your friend is falling apart fits, then, go for it. But perhaps you might consider that you are the thorn in the flesh. Fourth, especially for some of the younger, give thought to if/how you may be called to study and make the medical sphere better (even when I’m dead). And last, give thanks to God, for meds, for those who serve in the sphere of medical care, for those who prescribe meds, for not needing meds, for those who do need meds that have something to tell you when you get hurt later. What meds you take, or don’t take, isn’t a game to see who can feel superior to another rather than a reason to be thankful for another feeling better. # Conclusion Kuyperians really have the opportunity to please the Lord by caring for others, and that is different than trying to please the Lord by complaining. It may not be possible to heal someone, it is always possible to make them more miserable. Many of the hurting already feel lonely, sometimes unseen (like the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years). Until we receive our resurrected, glorified bodies we will be subject to sickness and pain and death. What great opportunities there are for *Christians* to continue learning about how God made our bodies to work, how our bodies and souls belong together, and how to help one another glorify God in sickness or in health.

16: Neighboring Duties

May 16, 2021 • Ryan Hall

Selected Scriptures Series: Centers and Circumferences #16

15: Kuyperianism and War

May 2, 2021 • Jonathan Sarr

Selected Scriptures Series: Centers and Circumferences #15