Alzheimer’s, the Brain, and the Soul

[Garland-Green]

Article by Tony Reinke
Staff writer, desiringGod.org

Early this year, World Magazine published a brief update on the life of Elisabeth Elliot, a Christian woman widely respected for her sacrifices to advance global missions. She turns 88 next Sunday.

Elisabeth is well known for being married to Jim Elliot, a missionary martyred in eastern Ecuador in January of 1956. After his death, she remained in Ecuador as a missionary, serving the same people who killed her husband. When she returned to the States, she launched an impressive writing and speaking ministry, and remarried in 1969. Her second husband died of cancer just four years later, and in 1977 she married her present husband, Lars Gren.

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[cristobela]

My hopes were lifted when I saw him mention Deuteronomy 7, but he didn't deliver. gonk

People tend to exclude the bits about the Commands as if that won't equally comfort them, which is robbery, because if a person is in that situation—and obviously you're not going to make judgments about why they're in it, when you didn't witness anything, don't even intimately know the circumstances, nor their sins—but at least leave it in the person's conscience for them to introspect on whether or not they've invited such things upon themselves—or, on the flip side, that this is being done despite their obedience, in order to glorify God in some way.

If brought upon them specifically for their disobedience, the comfort is that He will relent if they repent. If brought upon them despite their obedience, the comfort is that this is God's will and it will result in your good, His glorification, and the good of others too. There's no reason to leave out parts of the equation (the Commands) in fear that they'll fail to comfort the person. The danger in withholding the full picture is that you fail to warn those who invited this upon themselves because of disobedience. The alleviation from their misery/suffering is in alerting them of their sins, to repent, and continuance in said repentance, not in saying, "God will be with you no matter what", because that's not what Scripture says.

• Deuteronomy 7:9-11 (NIV)
  
  9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. 10 But
  
  
  those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction;
  he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.
  
  
  11 Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.
  
  
• Deuteronomy 7:15 (NIV)
  
  15 The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you.

Otherwise:

• Deuteronomy 28:27-28 (NIV)
  
  27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind.

Alzheimer's would fit under “confusion of mind”.

The New Testament is no different.

• John 14:15 (NIV)
  
  15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
  
  
• Revelation 9:20-21 (NIV)
  
  20 The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

The rest of mankind, even if you're not a Jew, receives plague for disobedience (and if so, repent and be alleviated—but they don't, so they're not).

If you know in your heart of hearts that you have not violated any such Commands, then you're not suffering for your evil, but in spite of doing good, and suffering for some other purpose (e.g. Job, Jesus, etc) that will result in God's glory and rewards for you if you endure faithfully. How is that not comforting?! In either case, we need to know the Commands to endure faithfully too (loyally, obeying God and not losing trust in Him).

• Romans 2:9-11 (NIV)
  
  9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil:first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.
  
  
• Revelation 14:12 (NIV)
  
  12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.

That being said, it's not that I'm walking away from this not having benefited. I definitely learned how important our habits really are, in more ways than one. idea