Why does God care about medicine?

 

Come to think of it, why don’t we raise this question more often? Is there a more central question to any discussion of Christian faith and the healthcare profession?

 

Evangelical Christianity has never had difficulty understanding how a Christian healthcare professional might be able to speak a message of the truth and hope found in the salvation offered by Jesus in the context of a hurting patient or her family. Our theological framework makes it easy to understand why God would care about medicine that leads to evangelism.

 

Without diminishing the value of evangelism at all, this is not a sufficient paradigm for a Christian physician. If that’s all there is, why would I treat a Christian patient? Why would I treat a patient with severe developmental disabilities who cannot acknowledge acceptance of a Christian message? Why would I be engaged in population health or prevention?

 

I want to ask about the medicine itself: The ability to take a history and physical and find out what’s wrong; the relief of physical suffering; the regaining of function and the prolonging of life; the continuing education credits; the clinical research and the development of protocols; the management of personnel; and even the electronic medical records. All the trappings that come together to create the medical profession. Why does God care about it?

 

Every Christian healthcare professional must ask this question and find some kind of internal answer to motivate the work we do. In the course of completing our work, many of us sense the intrinsic value of caregiving, but we may find it rather hard to articulate to someone else what that value is. Within the scope of the Christian worldview, within the scope of what we believe as Christians about God’s eternal purposes, what is the point? How do we understand our efforts at terrestrial healing in a world where everyone dies? Where does healthcare fit?

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Asking this question in medical school, my study of the Bible revealed to me the centrality of the message of God’s kingdom in the proclamation of Jesus. Mark 1:15 records the first words of Jesus in that gospel: “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

 

What good news? I would be tempted to answer that with an announcement of salvation from sin, except Jesus hasn’t yet said anything else in Mark other than these words. The good news is the news Jesus just announced—the kingdom of God has come near. This good news is the primary message Jesus announced.

 

This revelation rang so central that I immediately asked, “What then is the kingdom of God?” Fortunately for us all, Jesus spends an inordinate amount of time unfolding this question. His parables often start with, “The kingdom of God is like….” His miracles show us glimpses of what life is like in His kingdom. To rush a summary that is better answered by reading all four gospels, I propose the kingdom of God is “all of life under the rule of the king.” Kings don’t rule over an idea, or a club of common interests, or just a certain slice of society. Kings rule over everything in the kingdom. That the kingdom of God is near is good news precisely because the king is so good.

 

With this understanding of the good news of the kingdom of God, we can return to medicine (or any other profession or domain of society, for that matter) and ask as Christians: “What does this domain look like when God rules?” Because God is surely the king of all of life, the answers to this question give us a foundation for professional calling. To start off a necessary ongoing conversation, here are three implications of understanding medicine through the lens of the kingdom of God.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Medicine in God’s kingdom seeks effective healing. By one count, 26 out of Jesus’ 37 recorded miracles were healings of physical disease. Why? Numerous ways exist to demonstrate power, but Jesus habitually healed, because His miracles are glimpses of the kingdom of God. Obviously, all of those healed people died again, but the healings are a foretaste of how, in the fullness of God’s kingdom, “…There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain…” (Revelation 21:4).

 

What about us? The healthcare profession is far from miraculous, and our world will still be dying after our best efforts. Yet, effective medicine can give a glimpse of the type of restorative healing God will bring to fulfillment in His kingdom. The efforts of Christian healthcare professionals to bring about healing proclaim to the world something about the kingdom of God that was important enough to Jesus to prioritize most of His miracles on: in God’s kingdom, we are made whole again.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Second, medicine in God’s kingdom seeks justice. Our best example of what life looks like when God is the king is found in Jesus, and Jesus gives us a powerful vision of justice in God’s kingdom. He made a point of prioritizing the poor and the meek, saying they are indeed among the blessed in His kingdom. He sought out the company of many people who were despised in the eyes of society, rather than show a preference for relationships with those in positions of honor and power. Repeatedly, He tells us the last will be first. In Jesus, we see that when God’s kingdom is near, the injustice of the world is unacceptable. To the extent we work to bring God’s rule to bear on the domain of healthcare, injustice will be challenged in Jesus’ name.

 

At present, access to the potential healing capacity of medicine is incredibly unevenly distributed, both domestically and especially globally. The reasons for this uneven distribution are complex, and the solutions to remedy it will be equally so. Nevertheless, Christians in healthcare must be united that this injustice reflects the kingdom of the world, not the kingdom of our Savior. We cannot believe that someone who is viewed by the world as “the last” will really and truly be “the first” in God’s kingdom and still accept that she be treated as the last by what our profession has to offer. When God is ruling, “…good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Matthew 11:5b).

 

As Christians, we also understand God’s justice does not stop at modern political borders. God’s kingdom is not just “from sea to shining sea,” but rather “…the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3b), and His kingdom is composed of “…every nation, tribe, people and language…” (Revelation 7:9). Many of the greatest healthcare inequities existing today are across the globe. Millions of lives are ravaged by problems which medicine can help but which medicine is not yet sufficiently helping. These lives are a combination of those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ and those who need to hear and see that Christ has conquered death. When Christian healthcare professionals seek to care about those who are far away, they give the world a powerful image of what it looks like to follow One who seeks us out when we are suffering far from Him.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Finally, medicine in God’s kingdom will transform us. Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a man who must forgive because he has himself been forgiven infinitely more than he has been wronged. Jesus proclaims that life in God’s kingdom is marked by humility, repentance and sanctification. All these qualities do not naturally characterize us. It is indeed very good news that we will not stay the same in God’s kingdom.

 

Just like our imperfect healings and our imperfect striving for justice, after all our earthly sanctification, we may still look more like the old man than like the new creature God promised to make us. But in the same way, the work of the Holy Spirit in us is real, and the transformation God brings about in us provides a glimpse of what is coming in the fullness of His kingdom.

 

What does this mean for healthcare? The practice of healthcare in God’s kingdom—compassionate, sacrificial healthcare that seeks to really believe that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Jesus the King—this medicine will break us. Whatever victories and joys we may find, they will surely be accompanied by trials and disappointments and the big old mess which is God’s work in this broken world. The mess doesn’t necessarily mean we are doing it wrong, any more than the trials of Jesus’ life did. However, the mess will bow our proud heads and lead us to admit that we do not have what we need for this endeavor in our own strength. The mess of medicine will remind us there is only one King who is not us, and in that way, God’s kingdom will come in our hearts even as we work to make it known to the world.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Why does God care about medicine? Because in His power, God is making all things new. Like countless other domains of life, God calls us to imagine what medicine looks like when His rule is brought to bear in this arena. Effective healing, just caregiving and transformation of our own hearts as we care for others are only three characteristics that must mark Christian healthcare. How these three play out and what other characteristics should be added to the list should be an ongoing conversation for Christian healthcare professionals.

 

Get Involved

Eric McLaughlin, MD, is a plenary speaker at the 2025 CMDA National Convention on May 1-4 in St. Charles, Missouri. He will also be speaking during a breakout session in a new track focusing on healthcare missions. To learn more and register for the event, visit natcon.cmda.org.

 

About The Author

Eric McLaughlin, MD, is a family medicine missionary physician with Serge and a medical school professor for Hope Africa University in Burundi. Along with his wife Rachel (also a physician), he has lived in East Africa for 15 years. He is the author of Promises in the Dark: Walking with Those in Need Without Losing Heart. Eric and Rachel have the distinction of having three kids born on three different continents. His stories, reflections and eight albums of his music can be found at his team website wordanddeedafrica.com.