The Ministry and Medical Work
[
Appeal for the Work in Australia, Pages 13-15 (1899).
]
Both home and foreign missions should be conducted in connection
with the ministry of the word. The medical missionary work is not
to be carried forward as something apart from the work of the gospel
ministry. The Lord’s people are to be one. There is to be no separation
in His work. Time and means are being absorbed in a work which
is carried forward too earnestly in one direction. The Lord has not
appointed this. He sent out His twelve apostles and afterward the
Seventy to preach the word to the people, and He gave them power
to heal the sick and to cast out devils in His name. The two lines of
work must not be separated. Satan will invent every possible scheme
to separate those whom God is seeking to make one. We must not
be misled by his devices. The medical missionary work is to be
connected with the third angel’s message as the hand is connected with
the body; and the education of students in medical missionary lines is
not complete unless they are trained to work in connection with the
church and the ministry.
There are in the ministry men of faith and experience, men who
can say: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and
our hands have handled, of the Word of life; ... that which we have
seen and heard declare we unto you.”
1 John 1:1-3
. These men are to
instruct others....
The medical missionary work is not to take men from the ministry,
but to place them in the field. Wherever camp meetings are held,
young men who have received an education in medical missionary
lines should feel it their duty to act a part. They should be encouraged
to speak, not only on these special lines, but also upon the points of
[558]
present truth, giving the reasons why we are Seventh-day Adventists.
These young men, given an opportunity to work with older ministers,
will receive much help and blessing....
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