HOSPITALS

HOSPITALS

Well, what do you think? Are hospitals good or bad. Thousands of people die in hospitals every day and many die as a direct result of medical mistakes. The NEJM Catalyst (Jan. 23, 2017) states: “Hospital medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. That’s 700 people per day.” If you are interested in focusing on the macabre you can find plenty of gruesome things going on in hospitals. Invariably someone is having an arm or leg sawed off while someone else is having a surgeon cut a hole in their head. While someone is having their stomach cut open, someone else is receiving poison in the form of chemotherapy.

Well, what about it? Are hospitals good or bad?

It is my opinion, in spite of all the medical mistakes being made, hospitals are good and most wouldn’t want to live anywhere that didn’t have hospitals. The reason for raising this question involves the way some people look at the Bible. They focus on some story they find objectionable, or some mall-practicing preacher, and jump to the conclusion that the Bible is bad. Why not do the same with hospitals? Why not enter the operating room where a patient dies during heart surgery and extrapolate that fact to condemn all hospitals. Yet, this is precisely what many critics do with respect to the Bible.

It is my opinion that when viewed as a whole, hospitals are wonderful and so is the Bible. Ask your atheist friends if they would like to live somewhere without hospitals? Then ask them the same question about churches. Most atheists would prefer to live in South Korea rather than North Korea. Why? The obvious answer is that South Korea is influenced by the Bible and North Korea is not!

The Bible is more than a few chapters from Leviticus or Deuteronomy, just as a hospital is more than an operating room. All 66 books of the Bible are one. The word “Bible” literally means “book”. Our Christian faith involves the whole Bible for it is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by “every” word that comes from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4). While there are false teachers who corrupt the Word of God, the Bible still produces good fruit. A tree is not best identified by the grain of its wood but by its fruit. This is why most atheists prefer not to live in North Korea. The “fruit” of atheism doesn’t taste all that good.

Following the First Council of Nicaeain A. D. 325 construction of a hospital in every cathedral town was begun. There was a separate section for lepers. Some hospitals maintained libraries and training programs. Thus in-patient medical care was an invention driven by Christian mercy and Byzantine innovation.

How many hospitals or leper colonies have you heard of that were founded by atheists?

Howard R. Russell, in his book, “A Lawyer’s Examination of the Bible” (pp. 191-192) quotes James Russell Lowell at the time he was Minister of State to England: “I will challenge such skeptics to find a place ten miles square on the globe, where a man can live in comfort, security, and decency, where he can find education for his children, reverence for infancy and old age, honor for womanhood or any sacred regard for human life, where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way, laying a foundation for such a condition of affairs. If they can find such a place, it will then be in order for them to emigrate thither and advocate their unbelief. Scoffers against religion are dependent upon the religion the discard for every privilege they enjoy as citizens of a Christian community.”

Charles Darwin echoes the same sentiment in his Journals of Research (pp. 414, 425) “They forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifices . . . infanticide . . .bloody wars, where conquerors spared neither women nor children — that all these have been abolished; and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by Christianity. In a voyager to forget these things is base ingratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have reached thus far. . . The lesson of the missionary is the enchanter’s wand. The house has been built, the windows framed, the fields plowed, and even the trees grafted by the New Zealander... ”

So the next time you hear someone criticize the Bible, just think about hospitals.