By Tope Akinnola
I learnt the other day, as reported by NBC News, of Bishop Gerald Glenn of The New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in Virginia, who died of coronavirus infection the day before Easter, and whose wife became seriously ill too of COVID-19.
He was said to have held a crowded service previously on March 22 in defiance of social distancing advice and said that he firmly believed that ”God is bigger than this virus.”
God truly is bigger than this virus. But God is also God of balance. Life is about balance. When there’s imbalance, then things will swing to different points of extremities. I believe also that the Scriptures are a document that creates balance. And I would like to bring or offer some balance here.
And you should know that I’m not here to be critical or denigrate the elderly minister in any way. My heart goes out in prayer that his wife recovers quickly.
Maybe you haven’t noticed yet, but I am going to let you know, that the Scriptures are a book of protocols and guidelines, which when followed, create balance.
Now, the Pentateuch, or first five books in the Bible, can be regarded as the very first or earliest composite document of brilliant public health and sanitary protocols and practises in history. Arturo Castiglione, in ”A History of Medicine,” published in 1941, said in page 17 and I quote: ”The laws against leprosy in Leviticus 13 may be regarded as the first model of sanitary legislations.”
Bear in mind too, that the instructions and regulations laid down in Scriptures were given and operative well over 3, 300 years before the germ concept of disease was properly developed, mainly by Louis Pasteur, though others like Robert Koch and Anton van Leeuwenhoek, considered the father of microbiology, also made vital contributions.
Leviticus 13 lays down strict protocols or regulations for ISOLATION to prevent the spread of contagious plague or disease among the people. The priests who ministered in the temple were also the public health officers who were responsible to take great care to inspect the lesions on a person, before diagnosing the person as having leprosy or a contagious disease. And as verses 2-6 of Leviticus 13 show, if the priests were doubtful as to the certainty of any particular diagnosis regarding the condition of the person, the person was to be compulsorily isolated for monitoring and observation, firstly for seven days; then for another seven days, making a total of 14 days or two weeks in total.
If and when the certainty of anybody’s diagnosis with this communicable or infectious disease has been arrived at and the result was positive, the person was then required to be QUARANTINED or ostracized outside the camp, that is, outside the boundaries of where there was heavy population, ”all the days wherein the plague shall be in him,” as the Scriptures state.
In fact, the person was in addition, required to wear a mask or covering over their mouth, and warn or alert others by shouting, ”Unclean, unclean!” if per adventure they moved or strayed along in an environment where there were non infected people. The intent was to alert non infected people to stay away at a distance. So in their own way, they maintained strict SOCIAL or PHYSICAL DISTANCING protocol. Check Numbers 5:2-4 and Leviticus 13:45-46.
So you see, the Scriptures have details of isolation, quarantine and social distancing protocols in order to limit and stop the spread of human-to-human infectious diseases for a period of time.
Now, you need to understand that in Matthew 8:1-4 where Jesus healed a leper, the leper was in direct violation of the Levitical law concerning quarantine, while Jesus was also in direct violation of the Levitical law that barred direct physical contact with a leper when he touched the leper to minister healing to him. Jesus was a disrupter who brought extraordinary mercy to interrupt and disrupt the system of doing things under the Law, but even at that, he understood and treated the case of an infectious disease or communicable plague like leprosy differently because of the public welfare gravity of it, by still respecting the right of the priests as the recognised public health officials of the day (Deuteronomy 24:8) to conduct new testing or diagnosis on the leprous man to confirm that he truly has been miraculously healed.
Jesus also recognised that these public health officials, in this case, the priests, were the ones to authorise the re-integration of the leper (who was now healed) back into society. That’s why Jesus told the leper whom He had just ministered healing to in Matthew 8:4 (AMP), ”See that you tell nothing about this to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, for a testimony [to your healing] and as an evidence to the people,” in line with Leviticus 14:2.
In the book of Acts of Apostles, we didn’t see specific recorded healings of leprosy but if there were, my gut tells me that the early apostles would have followed the same protocol that Jesus followed in ensuring or advising that the recognised public health officials confirm the healing miracle.
Now, even though we don’t have specific mention of coronavirus or COVID-19 in the Scriptures, we however have clearly stated common sense wisdom and guidelines to protect people’s welfare and well-being on how human-to-human transmission, or infectious diseases like this should be handled from an human perspective.
While I believe in the ability of the supernatural healing power of God to flow in church or crusade meetings to heal the sick — that’s not to say that God’s healing power can’t move and heal the sick outside the confines of a church meeting place or a crusade ground — but you should realise that not everyone in a big mixed crowd of say a thousand people or more operate on the same level of revelation and faith; so it is best to observe common sense guidelines of social or physical distancing for a period to protect those who are weak in faith.
And to those who are still silly enough to still continue to castigate or mock ministers or pastors of not going to conduct healing services at isolation centres, I will say that common sense dictates that they should know that isolation centres are guarded by state security protocols and someone can’t just crash into them randomly to pray for the sick. If a healing minister would minister to the sick in such isolation centres as we currently have, they would have to be invited by senior government officials or top public health officials and strict protocols would also be followed as per pre-ministration and post-ministration.
Finally, don’t forget the basic import of my discourse, which is, as we pray and hope for a quick reverse of the spike in cases of this worldwide plague and its complete cessation, it is best to generally observe the necessary health protocols and be law abiding, not just for yourself, but also for the safety and well-being of other people in society.
