@FirstChurchofJerusalem
Today's Early Church Wisdom
“I shall not hesitate also to put into ordered form for you, along with the interpretations, everything I learned carefully in the past from the elders and noted down carefully, for the truth of which I vouch. For unlike most people, I took no pleasure in those who told many different stories, but only in those who taught the truth. Nor did I take pleasure in those who reported their memory of someone else’s commandments, but only in those who reported their memory of the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the Truth itself. And if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders arrived, I made enquiries about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and John the Elder, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.
~ Papias of Hierapolis (c. 60–130 AD) From the Preface to his lost ‘Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord’
This week's Psalm is Psalm 31 'My Rock, My Shield, My Song'

Healing of the Whole Person

Though health and healing may be facilitated by physical and psychological events, all health starts in the spirit. For complete health is only found in a living, personal and experiential relationship with God. Such health is found nowhere else. It is not found in gyms, nor hospitals, nor diets, nor friends, nor wealth, nor success, nor in any other place, for although God may use any one of these things to bless us, they are not the Source of our healing but merely the channels of that blessing. And He can heal us without any of these! An adequate understanding of health acknowledges all the dimensions of human personhood, as well as the temporary constraints on health posed by our present state of corruption. Absolute healing requires that we must ultimately be perfected by God in spirit, cognition, motivation, emotion, body, behaviour, and context. At the resurrection, we arrive at perfect health, but our healing journey begins now, as we walk through this life of suffering and pain, side by side with our Saviour, who loves us and will surely provide abundant amazing grace for all we will face in life! Praise God, who is concerned not merely to heal part of us, but who heals the whole person!