Restoring the Temple – Health For the Total Person

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” — Galileo Galilei

Every year 1.7 million Americans die from chronic diseases.i The ten leading causes of death include heart disease, cancer, strokes, lung disease, diabetes, and kidney and liver diseases,ii all of which are affected by diet. The remaining two leading causes of death-accident and suicide-are often effected by lifestyle choices like alcohol and drug abuse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) admits that these major killers “are an extension of what people do, or do not do, as they go about the business of daily living. Those who practice health-damaging behaviors risk decreased quality of life and early death.”iii Heart disease and cancer, the first and second killers on the list, can often be prevented by modifying high risk behaviors like tobacco use, poor nutrition, and physical inactivity. You have the power in your own hands to change the future of your health.

There are many ways of practicing the healing art; but there is only one way that Heaven approves. God’s remedies are simple agencies of nature that will not tax or debilitate the system through their powerful properties. Pure air and water, cleanliness a proper diet, purity of life, and a firm trust in God, are remedies for the want of which thousands are dying; yet these remedies are going out of date because their skillful use requires work that people do not appreciate. Fresh air, exercise, pure water, and clean, sweet premises, are within the reach of all… iv

  • (The King James Version is used in all biblical quotations.)
  • i Chronic Diseases and Their Risk Factors: The Nation’s Leading Causes of Death, CDC Report, 1999
  • ii Ten Leading Causes of Death, United States, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Vital Statistics System, 1997
  • iii Chronic Diseases, ibid.
  • iv Counsels on Diet and Foods, E.G. White, Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington, DC, 1938, 301.2