Quotes

“…not merely a doctor”

“The doctor has so objectified himself that he never faces up to himself and his own life at all.”

“Somewhere in Pembrokshire a tombstone is said to bear the inscription, ‘John Jones, born a man, died a grocer.’ There are many whom I have had the privilege of meeting whose tombstone might well bear the grim epitath: ‘…. born a man, died a doctor’! The greatest danger which confronts the medical man is that he may become lost in his profession.”

D Martyn Lloyd Jones, in “Healing and the Scriptures.”

Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones was a brilliant British physician and an outstanding preacher, and offers great medical wisdom and spiritual insight. This book was published in 1982 but still contains “a masterful view of the Christian physician’s calling, and of the dimensions of ministry to the whole man.” (Quote from J.I.Packer).

How often our identity is tied up with being medical professionals. Lloyd Jones challenges us to view success not merely as the accumulation of medical knowlege, reputatation and material wealth, but fruitfulness for Christ and His kingdom. The foundation of our identity must be in God, not ourselves; we are creatures made in the image of God and created for fellowship with God — all of which is only possible through the salvation obtained by Jesus at the cross.

Dr. Lloyd Jones says to us, “I beseech you not to allow the profession to make you forget yourself, that you are a man, and not merely a doctor.”  And to bring the vocabulary in the 21st century, we’d say, “you are a man or a woman, not merely a doctor!”

Zeal without Burnout: Seven keys to a lifelong ministry of sustainable sacrifice

Quotes from this helpful little book by Christopher Ash and Alistair Begg:

  • “God so often allows his ministers to come to an end of themselves in order that they might begin to be more useful to his service.
  • And it is worth remembering that none of us thinks we are on the path to burnout until we are nearly burnt out; it is precisely those of us who are sure we are safe, who are most in danger. we need to heed Paul’s warning: so, if you think you are standing firm, be careful you don’t fall!
  • The problem is that we do not sacrifice alone. It may sound heroic, even romantic, to burn out for Jesus. The reality is that others are implicated in our crashes.
  • Perhaps the expression, “sustainable sacrifice” gets to the heart of the idea — the sort of self-giving that God enables us to go on giving day after day.
  • The trouble with being strong and healthy is that you and I begin to believe that we are something other than dust into which God has temporarily breathed the breath of life. Because I can walk, think, talk and act, I begin to believe that I am immortal — and that I will always be able to walk, think, talk and act. But I won’t.
  • Good sleep is a gracious gift of God.
  • The sleepless nights were caused by an addiction to adrenalin that was beginning to have a negative effect in other ways —
  • “We doctors in the treatment of nervous diseases, are compelled to provide periods of rest. Some of these periods are, I think, only Sundays in arrears.” Sir James Brown, The Times, 30 April 1991
  • God needs no day off. But I am not God, and I do.
  • Most people crack up because they try to do what God never intended them to do. They destroy themselves by sinful ambition, just as much as the drunkard and the drug addict. Ambition drives them on.
  • Some of us in a world of social media have a great many Facebook friends, but very few, if any, deep friendships.
  • Think about the kinds of things that drain you and the sorts of things that energize you. Try, so far as it lies in your power, to put in the diary sufficient of the things that energize you to keep you emotional, physical, intellectual, relational batteries topped up.
  • To neglect sleep, Sabbaths, friendships and inward renewal is not heroism but hubris. It is to claim that I am a level or two above normal members of the human race.
  • Gospel ministry is ministry in a messed up world. And there is grace in the disruption, for it humbles me. it shows me afresh my total dependence on God.
  • If joy is to motivate us to gospel work, then joy must be rooted in something outside the fruits of our work, something that cannot be touched by the vagaries and frustrations of this life under the sun.

"Every Good Endeavor"

“Christians’ disengagement from popular culture usually carries over into dualism at work. “Dualism” is a term used to describe a separating wall between the sacred and the secular. it is a direct result of a thin view of sin, common grace, and God’s providential purposes.

“Dualism leads some to think that if their work is to please Christ, it must be done overtly in his name. They feel they have to write and perform art that explicitly mentions Jesus, or teach religious subjects in a Christian school; or that they must work in an organization in which all people are professing Christians. Or they must let everyone know that they lead Bible studies in the office in the morning before work hours. This kind of dualism comes both from a failure to see the panoramic scope of common grace and the subtle depths of human sin.  People with this view cannot see that work done by non-Christians always contains some degree of God’s common grace as well as the distortions of sin. And they cannot see that work done by Christians, even if it overtly names the name of Jesus, is also significantly distorted by sin.

“The opposite dualistic approach, however, is even more prevalent — and based on our experience, even more difficult to dismantle. In this approach, Christians think of themselves as Christians only within church activity. Their Christian life is what they do on Sundays and weeknights, when they engage in spiritual activities The rest of the week they have no ability to think circumspectly about the underlying values they are consuming and living out. In their life and work “out in the world,” they uncritically accept and reenact all of their culture’s underlying values and idolatries of self, surface appearances, technique, personal freedom, materialism, and other features of expressive individualism. While the first form of dualism fails to grasp the importance of what we have in common with the world, this form fails to grasp the importance of what is distinctive about the Christian worldview — namely, that the gospel reframes all things, not just religious things.

“The integration of faith and work is the opposite of dualism. We should be willing to be very engaged with the cultural and vocational worlds of non-Christians. Our thick view of sin will remind us that even explicitly Christian work and culture will always have some idolatrous discourse within it. Our thick view of common grace will remind us that even explicitly non-Christian work and culture will always have some witness to God’s truth in it. Because Christians are never as good as their right beliefs should make them, we will adopt a stance of critical enjoyment of human culture and its expressions in every field of work. We will learn to recognize the half-truths and resist the idols; and we will learn to recognize and celebrate the glimpses of justice, wisdom, truth, and beauty we find around us in all aspects of life. Ultimately, a grasp of the gospel and of biblical teaching on cultural engagement should lead Christians to be the most appreciative of the hand of God behind the work of our colleagues and neighbors.”

"Every Good Endeavor"

“Christians’ disengagement from popular culture usually carries over into dualism at work. “Dualism” is a term used to describe a separating wall between the sacred and the secular. it is a direct result of a thin view of sin, common grace, and God’s providential purposes.

“Dualism leads some to think that if their work is to please Christ, it must be done overtly in his name. They feel they have to write and perform art that explicitly mentions Jesus, or teach religious subjects in a Christian school; or that they must work in an organization in which all people are professing Christians. Or they must let everyone know that they lead Bible studies in the office in the morning before work hours. This kind of dualism comes both from a failure to see the panoramic scope of common grace and the subtle depths of human sin.  People with this view cannot see that work done by non-Christians always contains some degree of God’s common grace as well as the distortions of sin. And they cannot see that work done by Christians, even if it overtly names the name of Jesus, is also significantly distorted by sin.

“The opposite dualistic approach, however, is even more prevalent — and based on our experience, even more difficult to dismantle. In this approach, Christians think of themselves as Christians only within church activity. Their Christian life is what they do on Sundays and weeknights, when they engage in spiritual activities The rest of the week they have no ability to think circumspectly about the underlying values they are consuming and living out. In their life and work “out in the world,” they uncritically accept and reenact all of their culture’s underlying values and idolatries of self, surface appearances, technique, personal freedom, materialism, and other features of expressive individualism. While the first form of dualism fails to grasp the importance of what we have in common with the world, this form fails to grasp the importance of what is distinctive about the Christian worldview — namely, that the gospel reframes all things, not just religious things.

“The integration of faith and work is the opposite of dualism. We should be willing to be very engaged with the cultural and vocational worlds of non-Christians. Our thick view of sin will remind us that even explicitly Christian work and culture will always have some idolatrous discourse within it. Our thick view of common grace will remind us that even explicitly non-Christian work and culture will always have some witness to God’s truth in it. Because Christians are never as good as their right beliefs should make them, we will adopt a stance of critical enjoyment of human culture and its expressions in every field of work. We will learn to recognize the half-truths and resist the idols; and we will learn to recognize and celebrate the glimpses of justice, wisdom, truth, and beauty we find around us in all aspects of life. Ultimately, a grasp of the gospel and of biblical teaching on cultural engagement should lead Christians to be the most appreciative of the hand of God behind the work of our colleagues and neighbors.”