By Ron Seck
How incredibly wholistic the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is!
Community Health Evangelism seeks to minister to the whole person: body, soul and spirit. When CHE does so it follows in the work of Jesus, the Apostles, and God’s eternal resurrection
When Jesus entered into the world, Greek thought ruled the culture. To them, the body was the worthless, defiled cage that imprisoned the immortal spirit. To discard this wretched, sinful body at death was the great, final liberation of the spirit. For a pure spirit to return to a physical body after death would be utterly foolish. The only eternal thing was the spirit.
Jesus’ bodily resurrection turns this whole way of thinking upside down. For forty days after his death, he walked and spoke and ate with his followers. He invites a doubtful Thomas to reach out a hand and touch his wounds (John 20). His resurrection shows that salvation belongs to both the spirit and the body.
When the Apostles preached Jesus’ bodily resurrection, they were declared a wholistic salvation for those who put their trust in Christ. They preached with such spiritual power that thousands were being converted, day-by-day. But the same awesome power was also manifested in incredible physical ways. As Acts 4: 33-34 records, “God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.” We witness here the physical integrated with the spiritual: the Church’s ministry to the whole person.
Lastly, at the final resurrection our immortal souls will be reunited with our physical bodies and we will live forever in a new heaven and earth. The final chapters of Revelation offer a vision of completed spiritual reconciliation and physical restoration. How incredibly wholistic the redemption of our God is!
Integration and wholism are core values of CHE because of their prevalence through the whole New Testament. We preach the bodily resurrection of Jesus, God’s salvation of the whole person through faith in Christ, the wholistic Kingdom that is now and not yet. We minister to the whole person—to the spirit and to the body. And we do so in order that there be no needy persons among us.
Ron is a member of the Representative Council and is the Central European Coordinator for the Global CHE Network.
He and his wife Jeannie work as the North American Baptist Field Directors for Hungary.
Visit Ron’s Blog to learn more about his ministry.
