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Teaching and Healing
91
left Luke at Philippi, in Macedonia. Here he continued to labor for
several years, both as a physician and as a teacher of the gospel. In
his work as a physician he ministered to the sick, and then prayed
for the healing power of God to rest upon the afflicted ones. Thus
the way was opened for the gospel message. Luke’s success as a
physician gained for him many opportunities for preaching Christ
among the heathen. It is the divine plan that we shall work as the
disciples worked. Physical healing is bound up with the gospel
commission. In the work of the gospel, teaching and healing are
never to be separated.
The work of the disciples was to spread a knowledge of the
gospel. To them was committed the work of proclaiming to all the
world the good news that Christ brought to men. That work they
accomplished for the people of their time. To every nation under
heaven the gospel was carried in a single generation.
The giving of the gospel to the world is the work that God has
committed to those who bear His name. For earth’s sin and misery
the gospel is the only antidote. To make known to all mankind the
message of the grace of God is the first work of those who know its
healing power.
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because
the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto
the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of
the prison to them that are bound;”
Isaiah 61:1
.
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When Christ sent forth the disciples with the gospel message,
faith in God and His word had well-nigh departed from the world.
Among the Jewish people, who professed to have a knowledge of
Jehovah, His word had been set aside for tradition and human specu-
lation. Selfish ambition, love of ostentation, greed of gain, absorbed
men’s thoughts. As reverence for God departed, so also departed
compassion toward men. Selfishness was the ruling principle, and
Satan worked his will in the misery and degradation of mankind.
Satanic agencies took possession of men. The bodies of human
beings, made for the dwelling place of God, became the habitation
of demons. The senses, the nerves, the organs of men were worked