RECOVERING MEDICINE

                                                            Recovering Medicine

Have we Christians handed over medicine and medical science to the pagans? Have they (and many Christians) made an idol out of it? Have we made idols out of doctors? Could this be because as Christians we have been so fixated on the so-called “spiritual” that we have forgotten that we are soul-spirits with bodies, i.e., human beings? And as such, our bodies are as important as every other aspect of us. 

Just because some foolishly make idols of our modern medical industry and aspects thereof does not mean that it should be excluded from the transforming power of the world-changing Gospel.

In Christian anthropology, What is man? Well, in short, We are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psa. 139:14). This refers to the whole man, not just our bodies. No aspect of man, body or soul or spirit, is less important than any other aspect. We are a soul-spirit with a body.

Plato and Gnosticism view the body as unimportant, even evil, along with the rest of material creation, something to be escaped from. However, Christians should look out for the wellbeing, not just of souls, but the whole man (who is a soul-spirit with a body). However, much of Christianity has spiritualised the Gospel, by which I mean that they have made it all about getting souls into heaven rather than the whole man, i.e., body, soul, and spirit, being redeemed, renewed, and restored to live on the planet Earth.

The resurrected Jesus is our paradigm. “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:26). He, body and soul and spirit, is returning to Earth.

We mustn’t make an idol out of medicine, which is to obsess about our body and, to a certain extent, our soul (psych/mind) while ignoring the disconnect of our spirit from God. We are spiritually dead until the Holy Spirit working with the Word in our heart makes us spiritually alive. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

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Jesus saves the whole man, not just an aspect. Some have made an idol out of the visible/material aspect of man; beauty, physique, yes, even over-all health and wellbeing, as if that’s what life is all about. However, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever” (WSC 1).

The whole man (body and soul and spirit) was made in the image and likeness of God. E.g., “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23).

Says Abraham Kuyper,

Christendom, it must be confessed, did not escape this error. A dualistic conception of regeneration was the cause of the rupture between the life of nature and the life of grace. It has, on account of its too intense contemplation of celestial things, neglected to give due attention to the world of God’s creation. It has, on account of its exclusive love of things eternal, been backward in the fulfilment of its temporal duties. It has neglected the care of the body because it cared too exclusively for the soul. And this one-sided, inharmonious conception in the course of time has led more than one sect to a mystic worshipping of Christ alone, to the exclusion of God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

Christ was conceived exclusively as the Savior, and His cosmological significance was lost out of sight. This dualism, however, is countenanced nowhere by the Holy Scriptures. When John is describing the Savior, he first tells us that Christ is the “eternal Word, by whom all things are made, and who is the life of men.” Paul also testifies that “all things were created by Christ and consist by Him;” and further, that the object of the work of redemption is not limited to the salvation of individual sinners, but extends itself to the redemption of the world, and to the organic reunion of all things in heaven and on earth under Christ as their original head. Christ Himself does not speak only of the regeneration of the earth, but also of a regeneration of the cosmos (Matt. 19:28).

Paul declares: “The whole creation groaneth waiting for the bursting forth of the glory of the children of God.” And when John on Patmos listened to the hymns of the Cherubim and the Redeemed, all honor, praise and thanks were given to God. “Who created the heaven and the earth.” The Apocalypse returns to the starting-point of Gen. 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” In keeping with this, the final outcome of the future, foreshadowed in the Holy Scriptures, is not the merely spiritual existence of saved souls, but the restoration of the entire cosmos, when God will be all in all under the renewed heaven and the renewed earth. Now this wide, comprehensible, cosmical meaning of the gospel has been apprehended again by Calvin, apprehended not as a result of a dialectical process, but of the deep impressions of God’s majesty, which had moulded his personal life.[1]

As Christians, let us never forget that we believe in, as per The Apostles’ Creed, “The Resurrection of the body.” Therefore, since we will be resurrected body, soul, and spirit, (yes, every aspect of our humanity, apart from our sin, will be raised again), let us with the Gospel recapture every area of medicine. Why? Because, whereas much of Christianity neglects this, modern medicine treats every aspect of fallen man. How so? Because our body, soul and spirit are interconnected because this is who and what we are. For Christ to the glory of God.

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[1] Abraham Kuyper, Christianity as a Life-System, The Witness of a World-View,( Christian Studies Center, United States, 1980), 60-61. Also, Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, (Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Massachusetts, 2008), 105-6.

 

FOREIGN & NATIVE

                                                                    Foreign & Native

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    ‘I believe in the Resurrection of the body’ (Apostles’ Creed) means that Christians believe that even though they die yet shall they live. This was illustrated when the dead contents in Lazarus’s tomb became alive again. Jesus, beforehand, had said to Martha, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11:25). However, some Christian have forgotten about the resurrection of their bodies and now believe they are foreigners rather than natives of the planet earth!

As Christians we may be foreigners to this fallen world but still natives. After all, even Christians are earthlings, and as such, when we are dead and in our graves, Jesus will open our graves (and urns!), making alive the dead contents therein. Along with our bodies, we will be resurrected.

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The LORD promised Abraham and his fellow believing descendants the world. ‘For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith’ (Rom. 4:13). ‘Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham’ (Gal. 3:7-9).

It becomes even more clear that we are not foreign but native to Earth where Jesus quotes Psalm 37:11 in one of His Beatitudes, ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’ (Matt. 5:5). Again, inheriting the earth means that we Christians are heirs because, along with Abraham, we belong to Christ. ‘And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise’ (Gal. 3:29). In other words, we are natives of earth because the man Christ Jesus is a native. This is where some Christians begin to neglect our belief in ‘the Resurrection of the body.’

‘As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man’ (1 Cor. 15:48-49). The error is in thinking that, as to His humanity, Jesus is not made of the same stuff as Adam, i.e., the dust of this earth, and that Jesus was not resurrected with the same body with which He died on the cross. However, the dead contents of Jesus’s tomb became the alive Jesus when His departed soul was reunited with His body on day three. Others complicate things even more by believing that Jesus’s divinity absorbed His humanity after the resurrection of His body. In this we end up with the popular but unbiblical belief that, when we die, we spend eternity sitting on clouds with halos on our heads while strumming harps!

We are not foreign but native to earth which the Father has gifted to His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, for a job well done! ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein’ (Psa. 24:1).

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        'For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death’ (1 Cor. 15:21-26). 

CHRISTMAS CROSSWORDS

                                                     CHRISTMAS CROSSWORDS

The old man sat alone in his dingy rest-home room contemplating what had just happened. He’d created a scene at the family Christmas dinner. As an unbeliever he couldn’t go along with all their ‘Jesus talk.’ Maybe the glass of wine had gone to his head, but he had told them what he really thought! He’d seen and experienced too much evil for there to be any God. And so he had been taken home early, to sit alone with his thoughts. One of his grandchildren had given him a small present. As he sat there in his misery, he tore off the wrapper: Christmas Crosswords. He let out a gasp of exasperation as he cried out, which only reminded him what had really annoyed him at the dinner table. They’d been discussing Jesus taking His first and last breaths – something to do with the Christmas sermon they had heard at church that morning. The message had been From Manger to Cross. Jesus breathed His first breath in a stable and was gently placed in a manger. He breathed His last after being nailed to a cross. ‘He did it all for the salvation of sinners’ they said. ‘Bunkum!’ and it all went downhill after that.

He loved his kids and grandkids, so, he felt the tingle of remorse enter his heart. He cracked open the little book, was it about Jesus’s seven words on the cross? Was it to do with Christmas things? He started with the easy ones. ‘Animal feeding trough.’ He wrote manger. The word stable intersected on the downward. But what was this at 3 down? The clue was cancelled. ‘Whatever can that be?’ So, he went for a couple of easier ones on the horizontal and wrote in cross and sins. ‘Yes!’ he thought, second letter ‘o’ and fifth letter ‘i’. Forgiven! Cross, sins, forgiven. His breathing became laboured. ‘I hope my family can forgive me. I’m such an old fool.’ Then he looked again at what he’d written. ‘There’s the cross. There’re my sins.’ It was then that the word forgiven came crashing home to him. ‘I am a sinner who needs forgiveness for my sins!’ He paused as his heart started racing. His breathing became erratic. He remembered that what had annoyed him most at the Christmas dinner was the conversation about Jesus on the cross. ‘Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last.’ He had joked about Jesus’s ‘cross words’ from the cross. ‘Wouldn’t you be angry too if you were nailed to a cross?’ No one laughed as he continued to mock Jesus. The reality was that he had no clue why Jesus was born, and even less of a clue what He was doing on that cross. So, like those who surrounded Christ on the cross, he mocked Him. But not now. Something had come over him. He began calling out with a loud voice…

At the funeral those who had gathered were reminded of what the nurse had heard coming from the old man’s room which had drawn her attention. ‘He was calling out these words, “Lord Jesus, save me! I’m a sinner in need of Your forgiveness! Please forgive me!” Sadly, he’d breathed his last before they had got to him. “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (1 Thess. 4:13-14). The nurse said that he had died clutching a little book to his chest, Christmas Crosswords.’ The grandson who had gifted the book asked if he could say a couple of words. ‘This was our best Christmas ever! Yes, we’re all sad that the Lord took granddad away. But that was the day he got saved. Praise God!’

Have you finished the Christmas crossword yet?

Excerpted from my Christmas with Christ book. See your local online Amazon to source a copy - Christmas with Christ : McKinlay, Neil Cullan: Amazon.com.au: Books

I HAVE PTSD (Review)

 I have PTSD – Reorienting after trauma by Curtis Solomon is a very helpful little book. It is written in three parts covering ten chapters – Part 1. You Are Not Alone. Part 2: Dealing with Your Past. Part 3:  Learning to Reorient Your Past, Present, and Future.

As we go through life, all of us suffer from various traumatic experiences. Therefore, everyone would benefit from reading this book. However, as alluded to in its title, the book deals with helping those who suffer from the condition now commonly known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The following are a couple of short quotes that may help you to get a feel for the book:

 “[M]any people, especially those in the first responder community, don’t experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder until they quit, retire, or switch career fields … I tell retiring police officers, firefighters, EMTs, and combat veterans to be on the lookout for things to start popping up as they slow down. It is helpful to prepare for change and not be caught off guard with it.” p. 4.

“…God can use your trauma to help others. To get a sense of what I mean, read 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 slowly:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

“Our suffering can be a catalyst that makes us turn to God for comfort, which we don’t tend to seek when everything in life feels just fine. And the comfort that he provides when we go to him doesn’t just help us to cope with a particular moment or situation. Rather, it prepares us to be able to pay it forward when we encounter others who suffer.” p. 114.

The book has a list of helpful resources, a many source endnotes, and a full bibliography.

 I Have PTSD constantly points the reader to the God of all comfort while explaining and applying in a remedial way what He says in His Word.

LOCAL WRITER MAKES GOOD!

                                                                Local Writer Makes Good!

I grew up in Jamestown and Tullichewan (Scotland).

I used to attend a Writer’s Class in the Alexandria Leisure Centre in the learly 70s. Who knew that it would set me in good stead to become a published author!

Though I no longer live locally, (now in Australia), I always seek to promote the Vale of Leven as a tourist destination.

Thistles and Gum Trees includes shorts stories such as The Vale of Leven, ‘Up the Hill’ at Tullichewan, and The Fall of Tullichewan Castle.

I was asked to write Jesus for the Layman by local well-known author Billy Scobie (a.k.a. Alexander Tait). This book was endorsed by my brother, Stuart McKinlay, who used to write for and edit the Lennox Herald and then the (Glasgow) Herald. Stuart features in both books. Well-known local musician, author, and presenter Paul Murdoch, had a big hand in the publication of Jesus for the Layman.

From the Wine Box, was a title suggested by my sister-in-law, who along with my wife, used to work in the Bonhill Chip Shop. It features some stories, such as Rally in the Valley (i.e., Vale of Leven) which are set locally.

See your local online Amazon if you are interested in any of these books.  Amazon.co.uk : neil Cullan McKinlay

FROM MASON TO MINISTER

From Mason to Minister - Through the Lattice, formerly out of print, is now availablle from Amazon for A$29.99. From Mason to Minister: Through the Lattice - McKinlay, Neil Cullan | 9798272207562 | Amazon.com.au | Books

It is my autobiography about how the Lord converted me while going through the degrees of Freemasonry.

"An adventurous, captivating and poetic memoir of the author's courageous and spiritual journey—from Scotland to Canada to Australia—in his quest to “find the Truth and know the living God.”


Neither an apologetic nor a polemic, he corrects much misinterpretation and misunderstanding of Freemasonry. We learn how inspiration from Masonic teachings about Solomon's Temple, the arch, and keystone led him to a deep study of the revelation from the Bible of the “stone the builders rejected” which is Christ.

Readers will be uplifted, inspired, and delighted as they follow along with him in the discovery of his calling to become a minister."

Watch a short video of my Christian Testimony.

AUSTRALIA - A HISTORY (Review)

As I migrant to Australia, I always enjoy learning about our wonderful country. Tony Abbott has done a great job of helping to add to our knowledge. As one might expect from a former Prime Minister of Australia, his book, Australia – A History – How an ancient land became a democracy, focusses much on the historical development of Australian politics.

In the Author’s Note, Tony Abbott writes, “I am not a professional historian and this is a personal account based on existing sources. My hope is that a history by someone who has tried to shape it, however briefly and imperfectly, could have an appeal that a more academic exercise might lack.” p. 5. The sources are well referenced with a plethora of endnotes for each chapter, the bibliography is well-stocked, and an A-Z index is included to help find where to look in the book for anything from Abbott government to Zeewijk (ship).

Ex-Prime Minister Abbott, thank you for doing the hard yards of research and for giving us a very readable presentation of what has gone into our nation’s becoming a great democracy!