Proverbs on Health and Wellness

Title: Proverbs on Health and Wellness
Date: 31 July 2022
Preacher: Elder Lui Yook Cing

Health and wellness are big topics today.
According to WHO analysis, the global health expenditure is US$ 8.5 trillion. 【1】
By comparison, the wellness industry is valued at $4.5 trillion and continues to grow 【2】, representing 5.1% of global expenditure output.
In Singapore, 1 in 4 people will be aged 65 and above by 2030.
People are living longer, spending more on health and wellness, but not necessarily happier.
Health and well-being are related but not same.
The Bible is not silent on the issue of health and wellness. This morning, from the Old Testament Wisdom of Proverbs, I shall elaborate the following:
1. Complete Person, Holistic Approach
• Approach to well-being (flourishing) is holistic, taking the person as a total entity
2. Being Impacts Well-being
• Who you are, the type of person you develop into, impacts your overall well-being
3. Life Choices Matter
• Lifestyle practices that Proverbs has identified as vices and virtues make a difference to the outcomes in health and well-being

1. Complete Person, Holistic Approach
In the ancient Hebrew (OT) understanding, the Person (Self) is an integrated total being. Not separated into distinct parts like, say, body, mind, soul.
Today, studies health sciences adopt similar holistic understanding of personhood and approach to healthcare.
In WHO’s definition: Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.
WHO rightfully points out that the focus of health is not just toward bodily needs. The emotional health and socio-relational aspects are integral too.
 
Our Bible sheds further enlightenment.
Genesis 2:7: The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
The biblical perspective of personhood is imago Dei. Man is created in the likeness of God.
First and foremost, the person is a spiritual being. Our very existence is intrinsically linked to our inert relationship with our Maker, whose Life is in us – breathed in us. How solid or ‘healthy’ is that relationship? Our well-being ultimately derives from our union with God, who is the source of life and good.
Second, as imago Dei, the human person is a fascinating being of diversity within a unified whole. Every individual is uniquely endowed with diverse facets, each contributing to the person.
In the Bible, expressions like body, mind, soul do not imply separation of functions. Rather, they represent different aspects the person. For instance, we find expressions in the OT where internal body organs – such as the heart, kidneys, intestines, bones – have emotions like compassion, anger, pain.
Jeremiah 4:19: My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace.” (KJV)
The implication of the person as a unified inter-connected whole is to adopt a holistic approach to health, taking in consideration all aspects.
In other words, health is concerned with the state of total wellbeing. Being healthy is a broad concept incorporating different aspects.
There are many factors that affect a person’s health and wellbeing. They can be categorized into different health dimensions. The names and number of these dimensions may vary slightly according to the focus of different research studies.
For the sake of discussion, I shall list the common 8.
Each dimension incorporates many facets that can positively or negatively affect health. The 8 dimensions are inter-dependent, meaning that each dimension affects the others. Holistic health (or total wellbeing) is achieved only when all dimensions are sufficiently met and balanced.
Briefly, these are the 8 dimensions. Are you aware to attend to them?
1. Physical: having adequate physical activity, sleep, nutrition
2. Intellectual: opportunities to participate in creative activities, expand knowledge and skills
3. Emotional: having capacity to cope with life’s challenges
4. Social: having satisfying relationships with others, strong support system
5. Occupational: deriving gratification from your role and contribution s
6. Financial: feeling secure in current and future financial situation
7. Environmental: opportunities to connect with pleasant, stimulating environments
8. Spiritual: attaining sense of purpose and meaning in life
The third unique Christian perspective is the reality of mankind as fallible and vulnerable.
The Bible enlightens that we co-exist amid the presence of evil and the prevalence of sin. On this side of eternity, the world we live in is not perfect. God has decreed that life on earth shall come to an end.
Inevitably, every individual goes through certain stages in our life journey. In the context of health: this means we shall resonate between being well and falling sick; some of us will succumb to chronic illness. Most will encounter growing old, become frail and decline functionally. Some will suffer health crisis that require complex long-term care. Eventually, all of us die.
With similar insight, Singapore’s National Health Group has laid out a comprehensive framework to meet the nation’s evolving population health needs, targeting each stage of one’s life.
1. Living well without illness
2. Living well with illness
3. Living well with crisis and complex care
4. Living well with frailty
5. Leaving well
The emphasis is rightly placed is on “well”. No matter your circumstances and life stage, it is possible to carry on a state of ‘wellness’. The impetus is on us as individuals and collectively as a people to make efforts in the right direction now. (Read the book The Art of Living and Leaving Well by Rev William Wan)
Associate Prof Daniel Fung, CEO of IMH states is so insightfully:
“Well-being and living well do not equate to illness prevention. There are unhappy people who are physically healthy. Even if I have chronic illness, how I live my life and my relationship with others would be more important in helping me live well. You can choose to flourish in illness or languish with health.”
From healthcare science, briefly these are the implications.
First, take responsibility for your own health. Do not relinquish this role to medical professionals and institutions.
This involves preventive measures. For long past, medicine has devoted resources on developing cure. We are shifting back to a balanced emphasis on preventive care. While you are still in the healthy ‘living well’ stage, devote efforts on proven means that prevent diseases. Such as healthy lifestyle choices like good eating habits, physical activity, health screening and vaccinations.
Third, do not neglect your mental emotional health. Or for that matter, all other domains of well-being. Inevitably, we will face crisis in life – frailty, sudden health crisis that result in long-term dependency. In such circumstance, we draw from the reservoir within us to draw resources, re-discover new meaning in life, to carry on “flourish in illness”.
Emotional well-being involves growing in resilience and adaptability, spending time to reflect, preparations for crisis, buildings deep relationships with significant others such as friends and family.
Fourth, a concerted effort to forge an informed community that supports those in need. Longitudinal studies have shown the causal relationship between undesirable socio-economic conditions and poor health outcomes. Someone with poor access to health care and education early in life is predisposed to health risks.
As the Jubilee community of Christian faith, we must commit to ensure that no individual or family belonging to our community lacks access to care for their well-being.
What type of ‘communities’ foster well-being?
Mitch Anthony, author of The New Retire-mentality, highlights 5Cs.
According to him, successful aging means living with vitality. The mindset of a vitality-person is one who continues to challenge himself mentally and physically, as if he has many more years to live. Not the mindset of “I’m waiting for the dreary end to come”.
Let’s build a wholesome community that fosters and engages people in the 5Cs of mentality:
1. Curiosity: Be engaged in life, try new things
2. Challenge: Keep learning! Face pressure head on. Focus on process, not outcomes.
3. Connectivity: Relationships are everything! Keep in contact with friends and family
4. Creativity: Reinvent yourself! Problem-solve.
5. Charity: Be positive. Give yourself and resources to help others. Opportunities for volunteering
To sum up my first point on Total Personhood and Holistic Approach to wellness:
1. Imago Dei: you are a fascinating being created in likeness of God, with diverse and inter-related aspects within a unified whole
2. Holistic Approach is needed for a wholesome and flourishing life
3. Responsibility: as an individual, take ownership of your own well-being; the community as a nation, as a people of God, play a part too
4. Fallibility: the world is not perfect, man will succumb to life crisis
5. Man is a Spiritual Being: in the Bible’s narrative, the ‘root-cause’ for total wellbeing is the spiritual aspect – our relationship with God.
Let me move on to next point.

2. Being Impacts Wellbeing
The key passage for today’s reflection is Proverbs 4:20-23
20 My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings.
21 Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart.
22 For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.
23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

You are created in the likeness of God. Your total Self cannot be conceived without an awareness of dependence upon God our Creator. Ultimately, joy and satisfaction – over and above crisis in life – results from a union with God, who is the source of flourishing life and well-being.
In OT, the heart represents the totality of a person. Wisdom exhorts us: spare no effort to take care of You. Particularly your true self – the inner person. This is your reservoir from which flourishing life pours out.
We derive 2 insights derived from Proverbs on what such ‘guarding’ implies.
Proverbs: 3:7-8 Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear God and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.
Proverbs 3:1-2 My son, do not forget my teaching.. [then] then length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.
First, the person exhorted to exercise his will. You choose – what paths to take, what line of actions for various circumstances. You make choices on how you wish to conduct your life.
Second, the wise person chooses to “fear God and shun evil”.
Acknowledging God as the source of wisdom, the wise person honours God and submits to His ways. He lives life adhering to God’s teachings because he accepts this as inherently good.
He also shuns evil – making determined commitment to break from everything that God has decreed as unwholesome and “not good”.
As a result of allegiance to God, “the length of days, years of life and peace will be added to you. The person who chooses to fear God and shun evil is enriched in fullness in every way.
Peace (shalom) is expression of wellness in Bible. Peace depicts wholeness and completeness. It is not just absence of hostilities, but an inner sense of tranquillity and at rest, with contentment.
Shalom flows from all of one’s relationships being put right – with God, within oneself, and with others.
Fundamentally, shalom is reconciliation with God. It is God who gives us peace with Himself.
How you relate to God influences the way you relate to others and respond to situations. Eventually, how you repeatedly conduct yourself shall develop you into a certain type of personality. To a certain extent, behaviours shape one’s character.
To summarize my second point: Choose Who to Be
1. As Imago Dei, we are created for relationship with God.
2. In God’s likeness, God gives us volition. To exercise our will wisely.
3. To choose allegiance to God is to fear Him, shun evil
4. This leads to shalom – wholeness and fullness

Proverbs provides practical guidance and examples on good and bad choices. This brings me to my final and third point. Life Choices.
3. Life Choices Matter
The choices we make offer insight of what type of person we are or will become, what we value in life. I’m talking about not just profound choices like who we desire for life partner, long-term work. But day-to-day choices: how shall I spend on my next free hours and my next meal.
The choices we make can effect change. Personal choices made regularly shape behaviours, which eventually develop into character.
In his Choice Theory (1996) Psychiatrist Willing Glasser demonstrates that four elements of choice work together to make up who we are and how our lives evolve. The way we think and act, in turn, influence the way we feel. Ultimately, this can alter our physiological state. He posits that each of us has direct control over how we choose to act, think, feel.
Proverbs, being practical wisdom, sheds light on what constitutes good and bad choices. For ease of discussion, we may call them virtues and vices.
The 4 cardinal virtues exhorted for living well are: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance. Theological virtues are faith, hope, love (charity).
The 7 vices listed are: pride, lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy.
I will not elaborate because we are reflecting on these in greater detail in cell groups. Do participate actively in cell group discussions.
In the context of health and wellness, Proverbs exhort 2 dispositions that I would like to highlight.

First disposition is Calmness
Proverbs 14:30 A tranquil heart is life to the body. But passion is rottenness to the bones.
An interesting proverb. Literally it contains 7 nouns and no verbs: Life. Flesh. Calmness. Heart. Rottenness. Bones. Jealousy.
Disposition of “calmness” disposition is not easy to translate. In original Hebrew, it denotes a composure of tranquillity, soothing, healing. Not matter the external circumstances, one chooses to cease contention and strife. Instead of misgivings, one chooses to focus on every good-will and undeserved grace experienced. The heart inclines toward contentment and is infused with gratitude, thanksgiving. Discipline in this brings life to the body.
In contrast is the disposition of “passion” that is filled with envy and jealousy. Where one constantly compares self with another, feeling unsatisfied and unjustified with one’s lot in life. It compels the person to keep striving and scheming to get ahead, gain the upper hand. This unsatiable chasing is the path toward decay in well-being.
Second disposition is Joy
As a healthcare worker in the larger scheme of elder care, my current vocation commits me to reflection and projects toward delivering total well-being to our aging population.
For all stakeholders involved, locally and globally, the desired end-goal is always toward bringing joy to the individual at whatever stage of life he/her is in.
We all acknowledge that we may not be able to change our circumstances – falling ill, growing old. But joy is an something every human being can experience, to bring to another, to share with another.
Proverbs 15:13 A joyful heart makes a cheerful face. But when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken
Proverbs 17:22 A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.
There is more to life than choosing our own goals to enjoy our life on earth. We come back to the fundamental issue of why God created us.
What is the meaning of our life? God created us to experience joy. Not merely to exist, but to enjoy and flourish in life, in communion with Him and the world He created.
The Shorter Catechism of Reformed Theology captures this well. “What is the chief end of man?” Man is created for one supreme purpose in life. To glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.
To “glorify God” is not to add to His glory but to live in such a way that honours Him and declares His gloriousness to all who see and hear us. To live a life of obedience to God, not hiding His glory behinds clouds of disobedience.
To “enjoying God” is being delighted with and loving God for who He is, finding Him to be the source of our deepest satisfaction and pleasure. This enjoyment is a consequence of us glorifying God.
The person who is restored to God experiences true peace and joy in God’s presence.
Let me conclude this morning’s reflection.
Conclusion
1. Any discussion on well-being must stem from the understanding that we are spiritual beings created in the likeness of God.
2. Health and wellness are affected by choices we make.
3. Exercise wisdom and take responsibility for taking care of our well-being.
4. Science in medical care has established healthy lifestyle practices that prevent health risks, such as regular physical activity, good eating habits, growing your social emotional network. Will you practice this?
5. This morning the bible informs us that the root to all well-being and flourishing life stems from a right relationship with God. Will you devote efforts for this to take right care of yourself and others?

【1】Global expenditure on health: Public spending on the rise?, WHO 15 December 2021 | Meeting report
【2】Global Wellness Institute 2021.

Bilingual Sermon Video Link:
https://youtu.be/5wPBwbfs1s4