Medical Missionary
Work

What is Medical Missionary Work?

`To be a medical missionary means to be a laborer together with God.' (WM120)

`Medical missionary work brings humanity the gospel of release from suffering. It is the pioneer work of the gospel. It is the gospel practiced, the compassion of Christ revealed. Of this work there is a great need, and the world is open for it. God grant that the importance of medical missionary work shall be understood and that new fields may be immediately entered.' (WM119)

`Medical missionary work is the pioneer work. It is to be connected with the gospel ministry. It is the gospel in practice, the gospel practically carried out. I have been made so sorry to see that our people have not taken hold of this work as they should.' (GC Bulletin, April 12, 1901)

`Christ took a personal interest in men and women while He lived on this earth. Wherever He went He was a medical missionary.' (WM162)

`The phrase ``medical missionary work'' is employed by the author to include professional services of consecrated doctors and nurses, and . . . its significance also reaches far beyond these bounds to include all acts of mercy and disinterested kindness.' (Compilers, WM10)

The Object of Medical Missionary Work

`The object of medical missionary work is to point sin-sick men and women to the man of Calvary, who taketh away the sin of the world.' (MH144)

Who Should Carry Out This Work

`God wants the ministers and the church members to take a decided, active interest in the medical missionary work.' (6T301)

Medical Missionary Work and the Ministry

`I want to tell you that when the gospel ministers and the medical missionary workers are not united, there is placed on our churches the worst evil that can be placed there. Our medical missionaries ought to be interested in the work of our conferences, and our conference workers ought to be as much interested in the work of our medical missionaries.' (MM241)

`Special light has been given me that you are in danger of losing sight of the work for this time. You are erecting barriers to separate your work, and those you are educating, from the church. This must not be. Those who are receiving instruction in medical missionary lines should be led to realize that their education is to fit them to do better work in connection with the ministers of God.' (8T159)

`Do not, I beg of you, instill into the minds of the students ideas that will cause them to lose confidence in God's appointed ministers. . . . Temptations will come to you to think that in order to carry forward the medical missionary work you must stand aloof from the church organization or church discipline. To stand thus would place you on an unsound footing. The work done for those who come to you for instruction is not complete unless they are educated to work in connection with the church.' (8T161)

Medical Missionary Work and the Gospel

`The Holy Spirit never has, and never will in the future, divorce the medical missionary work from the gospel ministry. They cannot be divorced. Bound up with Jesus Christ, the ministry of the Word and the healing of the sick are one.' (Series B7, p.63)

`The gospel and the medical missionary work are to advance together. The gospel is to be bound up with the principles of true health reform.' (6T379)

Medical Missionary Work and Evangelism

`The medical missionary work is the arm of the body, and God wants us to take a decided interest in this work. . . . The body which treats indifferently the right hand, refusing its aid, is able to accomplish nothing . . . ' (MM237/8)

The Importance of Medical Missionary Work

`The mighty energies of the Holy Spirit, with all its quickening, recuperative, transforming powers must be applied to the palsy-stricken souls. I see no way that we can do this work other than to engage in medical missionary work.' (Letter 130, 1897)

`Henceforth medical missionary work is to be carried forward with an earnestness with which it has never yet been carried. This work is the door through which the truth is to find entrance to the large cities, and sanitariums are to be established in many places.' (CH392)

`The medical missionary work is the right hand of the gospel. It is necessary to the advancement of the cause of God, as through it men and women are led to see the importance of right habits of living.' (7T59)

The Work to be Done

`To make plain natural law and urge the obedience of it is the work that accompanies the third angel's message, to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord.' (MM289)

`More attention should be given to training and educating missionaries with a special reference to work in the cities. Each company of workers should be under the direction of a competent leader, and it should ever be kept before them that they are to be missionaries in the highest sense of the term. Such systematic labor, wisely conducted, would produce blessed results.' (MM301)

`The grace of God is always reformatory. Every human being is in a school, where he is to learn to give up hurtful practices, and to obtain a knowledge of what he can do for himself.' (MM226)

The Call

`Every city is to be entered by workers trained to do medical missionary work.' (7T59)

`In every large city there should be corps of organized, well-disciplined workers; not merely one or two, but scores should be set to work. But the perplexing question is yet unsolved, how they will be sustained.' (MM300/301)

The Organization

`To those who have been engaged in this work I would say: Continue to work with tact and ability. Arouse your associates to work under some name whereby they may be organized to co-operate in harmonious action. Get the young men and women in the churches to work. Combine medical missionary work with the gospel.' (6T267)

The Future

`I wish to tell you that soon there will be no work done in ministerial lines but medical missionary work.' (WM139)

`We shall see the medical missionary work broadening and deepening at every point in its progress, because of the inflowing of hundreds and thousands of streams, until the whole earth is covered as the waters cover the sea.' (MM317)

The Promise

`When the cities are worked as God would have them, the result will be the setting in operation of a mighty movement such as we have not yet witnessed.' (MM304)