Sixty-two percent of all bankruptcies in the United States were tied to medical expenses in 2007. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance.1 You’ve come a long way baby. How is it that a profession which is supposed to save life has come to be such a financial burden?

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  In the thirteenth century 20,000 Albigensian (Cathar) natural healers sealed with their blood their commitment to follow in the self-denying footsteps of Jesus Christ and heed His admonition “heal the sick” (Luke 9:2). In the late twelfth century A.D. the early protestant Waldensian and Cathar (or Albigensian) religious movements began practicing medicine according to the dictates of their conscience. The Waldensians were especially noted for their desire to go from house to house, regardless to monetary remuneration, and spend days to even weeks at a time nursing the sick back to health. “They had much experience in medicine and surgery, and in these arts possessed amazing secrets, wonderful in their simplicity....”2
• The Roman Catholic Church re-established the pagan healing shrines and centered them on Roman Catholic saints. During this time the papal system flourished monetarily due to the fact that it had now established a system whereby it could exact even greater means from its servitors. Upon many hospital deathbeds, priests were able to exact entire inheritances from those going to their grave with guilty consciences. Historians today, reflecting upon the establishment of the hospital systems of the Papacy refer to them as “money spinners” or as we would call them today—profit-based. As we know, this leads to a multitude of other issues.
• In his Lateran Council of 1215, the Papal See saw to it that only doctors approved by the church could practice medicine.3
• Cathar (Albigensian) doctors quickly became known as the “best of doctors.” In response to this growing threat to its dominance in all matters concerning humanity, the Romish Church, at the directive of Pope Innocent III, carried out a massive assault on the Cathars and Waldensians. As a result twenty thousand Cathars were murdered and along with them the hopes of a large scale change for the better in the medical establishment.4

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”5

There are two different symbols sometimes employed to represent medicine. One is a rod with one snake wrapped around it called the rod of Asclepius; the second is a rod with wings at the top and two snakes wrapped around it, called the caduceus. “The caduceus is sometimes used as a symbol for medicine or physicians (instead of the rod of Asclepius) even though the symbol has no connection with Hippocrates and any association with healing arts is something of a stretch; its singularly inappropriate connotations of theft, commerce, deception and death have provided fodder for academic humor:”6

As a healthcare worker or physicians, am I exempt from self-sacrificing wages, after all I spent far more time in school? Doesn’t society owe me a debt of financial gratitude? Do I as a healthcare provider have a special professional immunity to the need for self-sacrifice?

A Professor in a Christian university tells of an encounter he had with one of his elementary education students who was soon to graduate. The student approached him with a big smile and proudly announced, there were 400 applications for the job I applied for and I got it. To which the professor replied, “what a waste!” “What a waste?”, the student looked stunned. “What a waste! You mean to tell me there were 400 other qualified applicants and you took the job? Let me take you to a little school in the mission field where if you don’t take the job nobody else will.” I’m happy to say that she turned down the job she had just been accepted for and went to the mission field.

Moses faced a similar life-shaking decision. As heir to the throne of pharaoh, he was literally in line to be the next god of Egypt. “Ye shall be as gods” was his option, the other option was poverty, following the will of God. Moses chose the later, “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.”7 Today Moses watches me write this article, today, Pharaoh is returning to dust. God willing, I want to join Moses.

Likewise, Paul was a gifted and highly educated man. His position even surpassed that of a physician who stands between patients and death; Paul could be seen as standing between people and their hope of eternal life. How much can you charge to bring somebody to eternal security? But Paul was very humble. He saw himself, not as a benefactor, but as a debtor to those less fortunate than himself, “‘I am debtor,’ Paul declares, ‘both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.’ Romans 1:14. So also are we. By all that has blessed our life above others, we are placed under obligation to every human being whom we might benefit.”8

Satan particularly hates those who go around the earth undoing the pain and suffering he is try to produce, says Roger J Morneau, a former spiritualist and author of the book, “A Trip Into the Supernatural”. Could it be that Satan has gained control of those he hates simply by playing upon their love of gain and extortion? Satan knows that, “Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”9

In the Old Testament the priests also functioned as physicians. For example: “And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying, When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy; then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests: And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh:”10 When the Priest and other religious personal began to commercialize their roles God could not keep silent about this evil: “The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.”11 God is the one that has promised to supply all my needs, why need I extort money from His children?

God’s goal is to bring a group of people to heaven who will in no way endanger the universe with another rebellion like Satan’s. “We are all to be tested here in this life to prove whether, if admitted to heaven, we shall repeat the same course that Satan pursued there....if men desire to be highly esteemed among men, if they are seeking for the highest positions, and demanding the highest remuneration they can obtain in this life, they will have just such characters in the future life. All heaven will pronounce them unfit for the kingdom, disqualified for any position of trust in the great work of God in the courts above.”12

There are certain professions where large gains are justifiable and there are other professions where they are not easily excused.

It was my fortune and privilege to meet a Hungarian pharmaceutical research laboratory CEO as he toured our lifestyle center. He told of a pharmaceutical preparation that his company developed which, in one dose, could cure a prevalent European disease. They took the invention to the investors. The investor’s response? “Wow, that’s cool, but we won’t invest, that’s not a good business model.” The lifesaving preparation never made it to market.

“All heaven is looking on with intense interest to see what character medical missionary work will assume under supervision of human beings. Will men make merchandise of God's ordained plan for reaching the dark parts of the earth with a manifestation of His benevolence?...Is the enterprise of mercy through which in the past God has manifested His grace in rescuing the ignorant, the sick, and the sorrowing, to become a matter of selfish merchandise? Shall God's agency of blessing be used by those who profess to believe the truth, in buying and selling and getting gain?...My brother, use every advantage possible to secure the salvation of souls. Never forsake the true standard, even though to cling to it makes you a beggar.”13

Most ministers commit themselves to the gospel commission without regard to financial incentives, but what about the healthcare worker—the nurse, the physical therapist, the physician, the administrator? I am reminded of a medical school experience. “I’ve progressed to a more lucrative branch of the Lord’s vineyard”, a chuckle rippled through the class. A medical school classmate of mine was at the front of the lecture hall addressing the assembly of students. A minister in his former career, he had commanded the pulpit of one of the largest churches in the state, a most enviable success by most ministerial standards. “A more lucrative branch of the Lord’s vineyard”? Are we not told, “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.”14 Jesus did not become a medical missionary to better His social standing or improve His financial status. “It is just as consistent for the minister of the gospel to demand an excessive salary for visiting the sick, comforting the desponding, bringing peace and joy to the oppressed, as for the physician to make large charges for his professional visits.”15

“Christ has purchased us at an infinite cost, and today He lifts His hand, and calls our names as He did the name of Matthew as he sat at the receipt of custom. Jesus said, "Follow Me" (Matthew 9:9). Matthew left all,--all his gains,--and followed his Lord. He did not wait and stipulate a certain sum reaching the amount he had received in his former occupation, before he would render service, but without a question, he arose and followed Jesus.”16

Jesus was the ultimate minister and the Great Physician, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”17

My great-grandfather, Dr. Earl Warner, was a Godly physician during horse and buggy days out in the Midwest of America. Grandmother tells of how he would deliver the third, fourth and fifth baby from a farm family and still have not received any remuneration for the first child. A retired pastor once told me of how my grandfather had taught him to preach; that when he came to the church district my grandfather had 40 people ready to join the church. What has happened to medical care since those days?

Really, if I want to be truly successful in the medical missionary work, self-sacrifice, like Christ practiced, is crucial. “In ministering to the sick, more than in any merely secular business, success depends on the spirit of consecration and self-sacrifice with which the work is done.”18

“Here is $10, I counted it myself.” A young mother placed a handful of money on my receptionist’s counter at my clinic. As she left I asked my secretary about the incident. “She is so faithful, she comes here every week and pays $10 on her bill.” She was a young mother with a bony anomaly and had undergone a very expensive medical diagnostic workup, which calmed everyone’s fears that is could be a worse disease, but left her with an outrageous medical debt. I was mortified, I said, “We are not here to do this to these people, please cancel her debt.”

The Biblical account is clear, “And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,”19 This is a business in which there are no medical outcome guarantees, and yet, there’s also no mercy to the debtor. The only one at risk seems to be the patient.

Not far distant from the emergency department at the medical school where I attended stood full- size statues of the good Samaritan—a call to remember that benevolent work done for the man caught among robbers. But in the emergency department financially underprivileged patients often experienced far less than Good Samaritan arrangements. Not all passed the “wallet biopsy”. “Someone has not spent enough time meditating out in front of the statues stationed in front of the administration building”, I thought. “What they desire is a method of forgetting God which shall pass as a method of remembering Him.”20

“Do something that has procedures, it pays better.” A friend of mine was trying to decide on his residency specialty and called on a Christian doctor to learn his specialty recommendation. This doctor was an internist who had taken up doing colonoscopies and was building a financial empire. “It is not right for a physician to make an extravagant outlay of means, and then charge exorbitant prices for performing small operations. God looks at all these matters in their true light.”21 And why do procedures pay so well? Because people feel they have to have them. This is reminiscent of Zacchaeus in the Bible, a tax collector, who padded his pockets with tax excess which people were obliged to pay. In business language we would refer to this practice as gouging or profiteering. People often look at a physician as standing between them and death. “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.”22 Am I justified if I exploit this fear of death to my own financial advantage? “The money physicians generally take from rich and poor, is in many cases too large for the services rendered and is reckoned no more or less than dishonest gain, by the God of Heaven; yet they demand these exorbitant prices for their professional aid, simply because they can do it; for when suffering, people must have help.”23

“CEO’s income as a multiple of the average workers wage.” I was on a flight and had picked up a copy of the newspaper, USA Today, and glanced at the headline. According to the article, twenty years earlier CEOs made 56 times the average employ wage, at the time of the article’s writing that number had risen to 526. I have to ask myself, as a physician, how many times more than the average person is my income, and why? Do I put my pants on differently then they do?

I had an occasion to require the services of a lawyer or solicitor. The gentleman told me his rate, $400 per hour. Just to make sure I did not have a heart attack on the spot, he shared with me that all the other lawyers in town charge $500 per hour. Who sets the standard? Who is enticing whom? If the world sins 10 times a day am I safe in sinning only twice? “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen,”24

We were between classes and one of my classmates, the son of a physician, took the lectern to entertain the class. According to his anecdote, a young medical graduate came home to take over his father’s medical practice. A young hot shot with all the latest and greatest, he boasted to his father of his recent success. “You know that woman, dad, with the skin condition you have been treating for 20 years, I cured her!” to which the father was said to have replied, “you fool, that lady put you through medical school.” “The exorbitant price charged by physicians in this country [Australia], when called upon to attend suffering humanity is robbery, fraud. God gave physicians their wisdom and skill. It is not man who saves life; it is the Great Restorer. But poor men are often charged for services they never received.”25 “The medical profession in general carries a heavy stock of unjust exactions; but shall we copy their sin? We are reformers. We are supposed to be pursuing a course that will represent the character of perfect humanity, the pure, elevated character of Christ.”26 “Many good and merciful acts have been done by practicing physicians, but I was shown that as a general thing the medical profession has become a den of thieves. In connection with the cause of God the work of the Christian physician is to be beautified by the presence of Christ; for He would cooperate with the physician who professes His name. But when men become extortioners, all He can do is to drive them from His courts.”27

Am I doing unto my fellow men as I would have them do unto me? “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”28

They said it was a privilege when you went off to university to obtain an education for your health care career? Yes, it was a privilege, but, it was an even greater responsibility. For to whom much is given, much! much! will be required.29 God blesses with wisdom and skill. I am accountable to Him for my use of these gifts. He made me, He called me, He equipped me, He is sending me, and woe unto me if I waste it all on myself! “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”30

Yes, but as a medical person I study hard, work hard, and sometimes keep late hours! How much can someone pay me to entice me to overwork, destroy my own health and lose heaven? “Why should the Christian physician, who is believing, expecting, looking, waiting, and longing for the coming and kingdom of Christ, when sickness and death will no longer have power over the saints, expect more pay for his services than the Christian editor or the Christian minister? He may say that his work is more wearing. That is yet to be proved. Let him work as he can endure it, and not violate the laws of life which he teaches to his patients. There are no good reasons why he should overwork and receive large pay for it, more than the minister or the editor.”31

The question I have to face is, am I a consumer or a producer? Consumers draw on the resources of the universe during their lifetime leaving behind a negative balance when they’re gone. Producers add to the value of the universe during the their lifetime. How is this earth better off for my having been here? The universe was definitely better off for Jesus having spent time among us. He lived a life of unselfishness; He was the Giver of all. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”32

God’s forewarning is, “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”33 “God will require a return from men in proportion as they set a value upon themselves and their services, for they will be judged according to their deeds, and by no less a standard than they themselves have established....When they demand exorbitant prices for their services, God, the judge of all earth, will hold them to the measure of their own overrated estimation, and require of them to the full extent of the value they put upon themselves....As they judge of their worth from a money point of view, God will judge of their works, comparing their services with their valuation of them.”34

If I strive with all my might to accumulate wealth and possessions here in this life, I will be granted the unenviable privilege of doing so, but Jesus warns, “Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”35 I want more than just a reward in this life; I am working for eternity. God has called us to a mission of mercy to the sick and suffering and the most prized remuneration He has for us is eternal life. “Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?”36 As regards the merit of our work we are only, “unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”37 God does not promise us a life of ease here on earth, or a certain salary.

“And this is why I am so glad that I get to work with you medical students given the fact that you have not made financial acquisitions the focus of your careers.” My PhD teacher, renown for exposing fraud in health care, was finishing up his lecture on some fraudulent practitioners and comparing us to what he had just described. The class erupted in raucous laughter. The speaker reeled backwards as if an explosion had hit him. In a startled voice he stammered, “I never thought I would get a reaction like that out of a medical school class.” Taking a step backward he again said, “I never thought I would get a reaction like that out of a medical school class.” Still quivering and retiring even further he said a third time with great emphasis, “I never thought I would get a reaction like that out of a medical school class.” With that he snatched up his lecture notes and disappeared from the room. “The greatest want of the world is the want of men--men who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.”38

Studies in medical school were punctuated with recreational activities design to disrupt the monotony. One such recreational venture involved dinner at faculty homes and a roundtable discussion. The next day in class one of my classmates said, with his face aglow, “I can’t wait till we get to live in those kind of big houses”. Who is the role model? “And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”39 Jesus Christ did not come to this earth, walk in dusty sandals, and surrender his life to the most ignominious death, so I could live in a split-level wonderland and drive a Ferrari. And what about those faculty houses, from which one could gaze across the valley, across the railroad tracks, to one of the poorest most heavily government-subsidized cities in state?

As a physician, I am admired. In order to help cultivate this respect, shouldn’t I drive a luxurious automobile, live in an impressive house and wear extravagant clothing? Don’t people have a right to feel proud of me as their health care provider? “Expensive, outward show does not elevate men and women in the eyes of sensible people.”40 As a health care professional I worry lest I become of the class of the rich young ruler whom Jesus told, “One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.”41 Hopefully I will not, as did this young man, go away sorrowful.

I had the privilege of working with a very fine Jewish doctor from Poland. He was very good at what he did. One day as we were talking, he commented that, for a Christian institution, there sure were a lot of psychedelic cars out in the parking lot. And so it was, if anyone wanted to see the latest and greatest, a trip to the hospital parking lot would give him or her a good survey of current models. What a testimony to this observant non-Christian. Even the world knows to expect self-denial of Christians. If our example, Jesus, lived a life of self-denial, would not to do otherwise risk denying Him? “The question as to whether the medical profession is to be controlled by Christian principles in regard to compensation, or by the selfish standard of the world, has long been ignored, but can be ignored no longer. Shall the pure elevating principles of Christianity be exemplified in the physician's life?... Shall he practice self-denial for Christ's sake? or is it only for a few men of more common occupation to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, while merchants, lawyers, and professional men, go free to follow the bent of a selfish will? Is the world to see no representatives of Christianity in the medical profession?”42

I’m called to think about Jesus Christ, the great physician, who gave up heaven to come to this earth, and show us what God was really like by healing our diseases and sharing the way of salvation. I can find no record of Him making merchandise of His services. I take is as a challenge and as a pledge of honour to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. I want to be able say with sincerity and commitment, "I am not bound to be rich, but I am under obligation to be righteous and to represent my Redeemer. I will not imperil my soul by declaring I must have a certain revenue. I have purposed in my heart that I will not give Satan reason to triumph over me because I endanger my spiritual life and become the servant of sin. I will not cultivate or encourage selfishness and covetousness, for it is the ruin of the world.”43

So I’ve shared a bird’s eye view of an issue too big for any one of us to tackle alone. It’s so big, this selfishness/sin problem, that it has taken all the resources that God can possibly muster, including the life of His Son, too endeavour to resolve it. Two great forces battle for the heart, the force of selfishness, and the force of love. To which force is my life a testimony of loyalty?

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