The question often comes up, “Should a Christian go to a physician for a physical issue or depend wholly upon God?” While, I can’t speak for anyone out there, this is a decision you need to make on your own through prayer and the counsel of mature Christian friends, I will give a few things to think about here.
First, I’d like to relate a personal experience that has some bearing on the issue. I experienced a heart attack last June. I couldn’t catch my breath. My wife, and later my sister-in-law, recognized what was happening and rushed me to the local hospital emergency room, where doctors inserted two stents. My life was saved.
In the past nearly eleven months, I have grown in my walk with God and taught people several things: how to study the Bible for themselves, apologetics, basics of the faith, and such. Yesterday, after I taught a short Bible study at a local nursing home, a woman came to me and said the message was for her specifically, that it pointed out a need in her life she needed to correct. We praised God together.
The reason I bring these things up is that God had more for me to do. We don’t know what would have happened if my wife had dropped to her knees and prayed for me rather than taking me to the hospital. We do know, however, that God blessed her actions instead. My thinking is more toward the idea that God uses physicians, but mine is not the only view.
Some additional things to think about are more Biblically centered:
- Paul calls Luke “the beloved physician.” Paul lists very few people with their occupations. One is Erastus (Rom 6:23), as the city treasurer, a very prestigious position indeed. Zenas (Titus 3:13) as a lawyer. We’re not sure if he was a Roman legal expert or a Jewish expert in the Mosaic law. Either plays an important role. So, the few and the significant are listed by Paul in his letters.
- Paul tells Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach problems (1 Tim. 5:23). This would suggest turning to a remedy, a medication, for a physical ailment rather than waiting for a miracle. We might think, “this is just a simple thing,” but isn’t everything a simple thing to an omnipotent God?
- Look at Mark 2:17 (ESV), And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Though the context is the need for sinners to come to Him, still Jesus speaks of the need of the sick for a physician. Is this an endorsement of private medicine? You decide.
- Isa. 38:21 (ESV) Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.” Here Isaiah used a combination of God’s promise Hezekiah would recover and a physical remedy to accomplish his healing.
In addition, God tells us to pray for the sick
- James 5:14-15 (ESV) Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
God is the ultimate Healer:
- Ps. 103:2-3 (ESV) Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,
Why is this important?
I don’t see where either going to a physician or not going to a physician is commanded. God leaves many things up to our own choice, including the clothes we wear, what sort of car we drive, and where we go on vacation. Perhaps going to a doctor is a matter of free will. One person told me, “I will always pray first. That prayer may be in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, but I’ll pray before the doctors go to work.”
My conclusion? I’m going to pray for God to strengthen the hands and minds of the physician. If God wants to take me, nothing will keep me alive. If He wants me to live, I see nothing that keeps me from seeking medical help.
If the need isn’t immediate, though, I would ask the elders of the church to pray for me as well as family and friends. If I don’t improve, the next step is to see if God wants to use a physician.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 