Eat Your Leviticus

Americans have become increasingly skilled in medicating their conditions, either directly (vitamins and over-the-counter drugs) or with professional help (prescription drugs).  But strangely, despite the fact that we have more brands and types and knowledge of pills available to us than ever before, we still have a lot of sick people.

Rather than investing in better pills, and better knowledge about which pills to take, what if we focused on eating really good food?  What if God put our food together with more absorbable, more balanced nutrients than the best of pills can offer?  What if God's engineering was better than ours?  I am thankful for vitamins and drugs, and the scientists who design them.  They are often helpful and even life-saving.  But, I think many of our health conditions could be prevented or cured if we would simply:

• Eat a wide variety of food
• Eat foods seasonally
• Eat foods with as little processing as possible

I have noticed that many people approach their spiritual health like their physical health.  They look for 'vitamin verses'.  Short, pithy Bible cures for particular malaises.   Topical indexes are handy for this.  Got worry?  Take Philippians 4:6-7.  Anger?  Ephesians 4:28-32.  Lust?  Matthew 5:27-28.  And so on.  And yet despite the fact that we have more books and blogs and sermons talking about Scripture than ever before, we still have a lot of spiritually anemic people.  I think it's because we are trying to self-medicate, or expert-medicate, our souls.  Why not trust the Expert?  He made our souls, and He's given us, not a collection of magic-bullet verses, but a gourmet, balanced meal: the whole Bible.  I think most of our spiritual problems could be solved if we:

• Read from many parts of the Bible (Torah, history, poetry, prophets, gospels, epistles)
• Read through the Bible on a schedule
• Read through the Bible with as little 'processing' as possible -- which is to say, reading whole chapters and whole books rather than isolated verses.
• Listened primarily to expository sermons that go through a book of the Bible, rather than topical sermons based on a few scattered verses.