Article March 5, 1910 Issue

In a recent issue the Rev. John Lloyd is credited with...

Alfred Farlow

Marinette (Wis.) Eagle-Star

In a recent issue the Rev. John Lloyd is credited with having said, "Professor Ramsay, one of the ablest historians and critics of this period, thinks Paul met with Luke at Troas, where he was practising medicine, and that Paul converted him to Christianity." He expresses the strange opinion that "Luke then gave himself up with zeal to the cause of Christ, and felt that he could not advance that cause better than by accompanying Paul, helping him in his work, and ministering to him as a doctor, the apostle having probably consulted him at first regarding a severe nervous disease from which he suffered."

Evidently, Professor Ramsay has arrived at this unique opinion through nothing more than a vivid imagination, since there is no evidence whatever to establish such a claim and no such conclusion could be logically drawn from a true knowledge of Christianity and its consistent practice. Would it not seem a little strange to Bible students that Paul, who restored the young man who fell out of the window and was "taken up dead," and who healed all manner of disease, was put to the shift of resorting to medical treatment for a "nervous disease"? This surmise on the part of Professor Ramsay may seem ingenious at first sight, but it will scarcely stand the test of a careful examination. It is certainly an inefficient method of proving that Christianity demands the coalition of spiritual power and material remedies. Moreover, if Paul advocated any sort of medicine, it was the kind which was in vogue in his day. He knew no other, and Mr. Lloyd would probably not admit that there was any efficacy in the superstitious material remedies of Paul's age, nor would he recommend them. We assume that your readers are all familiar with the peculiar remedies which were used in the treatment of the sick in the days of Luke, therefore we refrain from describing them.

It may be that some of the primitive followers of Jesus, because of their immature faith, divided the power between God and material remedies in their treatment of the sick, but there is no evidence that Jesus himself ever resorted to such means or that his near apostles employed any material remedies whatever.

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