Messenger of the Lord

Interaction a Spiritual Matter

In 1875 Ellen White called this interaction between mind and body “a mysterious and wonderful relation. They react upon each other.” Further, she made this profound concept intensely practical: “It cannot be to the glory of God for His children to have sickly bodies or dwarfed minds.” ⁴ MOL 278.3

One may ask, why do “sickly bodies or dwarfed minds,” as a general rule, have anything to do with “the glory of God”? Ellen White is consistent and wholistic: “Anything that lessens physical strength enfeebles the mind, and makes it less capable of discriminating between right and wrong. We become less capable of choosing the good, and have less strength of will to do that which we know to be right.” ⁵ MOL 278.4

The question is: How did Mrs. White develop her expansive, wholistic contribution to health awareness, an emphasis that has become more relevant as the years pass? Was her distinctive formulation of health principles developed in a mind hermetically sealed from the world around her and penetrated by the Spirit alone? No, that is not how God works. ⁶ Her theological understanding of the Great Controversy Theme provided the mental grid whereby she was able to recognize in the area of health and disease the fundamental and enduring wisdom of her age, and to reject that which would soon prove worthless. MOL 278.5

Emanating from this theological sense of wholeness flowed a distinctive and eventually coherent philosophy of health. This philosophy, in addition to clear insights by which millions of church members have ordered their personal lives, has spanned the earth with a singular system of health institutions. MOL 278.6