The Great Physician II: Therapeuo / θεραπεύω

In the last few months I’ve slowly resuscitated this blog (God did) after a three-year hiatus. I have continued to study during this time I just haven’t written about it. For me it's all been praxis or what Westminster calls Practical Theology. Rubber meets the road stuff. There was no time. That is changing. My recent studies have centered around how the Mosaic Law and modern medicine relate. A superficial modern-day analysis would say they’re totally unrelated but examine just below the surface, dissecting it and there are much more intricate nuances. So much so that I have found the rabbit hole is ridiculously wide and deep. Under every stone I lifted was yet another stone...it was 'turtles all the way down'.

My original intent was to just do a study of the Greek word θεραπεύω or therapeuo. A word that means healer, to heal or restore health. It can also mean to give or do a service for someone or something. So, as is typical, like everything else that started out simple when it involved God and I, it mushroomed into a mountain instantly...my intent now is to hit on some of the mentions of disease, medicine, healing and of course, sin. Pray that I don't burnout like I did three years ago.

People of Old Testament times faced tremendous health issues. Health was at risk daily at in the midst of blowing dust, dirt, contaminated food, impure water, city and town sewage, refuse, and garbage. Not to mention pestilence like rats, flies, biting insects, parasites and varieties of microorganisms that could cause epidemics, infection, and death to many closely-huddled families, especially to those most vulnerable of all, infants.

Personal hygiene habits, the kinds of clothing worn, the patterns of cooking and preparing food, the table customs employed, and the methods used to clean cooking/eating utensils and implements often invited disease.

Although the time and place millennia ago render a diagnosis nearly impossible, undoubtedly afflictions such as typhoid, dysentery, malaria, leprosy, tuberculosis, smallpox, and bubonic plague made their appearance in biblical times.

The most common during and prior to the 1st century Middle East were probably diseases of the eye and ear like conjunctivitis. Senile blindness, or the result either of cataract, glaucoma or retinal/macular degeneration, is mentioned in the cases of Isaac (Genesis 27:1), Jacob (Genesis 48:10) and Eli (1 Samuel 4:15). There were also the many physical disabilities that were either congenital, the result of war or accident, and not infrequently as the outcome of polio/poliomyelitis.

A review of the healings of Christ exhibit them all. Matthew 9:27–30; Mark 8:22–25; John 9:1–7, Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Mark 7:31-37, Luke 5:17-26, John 5:1-16. It is then Jesus' miraculous healing of a blind man that we see the root of his infirmity (and all others). Jesus instructs him in the spiritual principle of overcoming sin in John 5:13-14. He instructs on sin because sin is the true root of his and everyone else's flawed condition. Jesus used the healing as an object lesson on sin.