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Roseveare shared a commitment common among missionary doctors that the cause of the gospel is paramount. She said, according to writer Lin Johnson, "I want people to be passionately in love with Jesus, so that nothing else counts."

"I'm a fanatic, if you like, but only because I believe so strongly that nothing counts except knowing your sins have been forgiven by the blood of Jesus.

"We've only got this short life to get others to know the same truth."

Although Paul Brand's clinical work was mostly in India, his impact reaches into Africa and around the world because of his important research on leprosy, which remains a serious health problem in many parts of Africa.

One of Brand's most powerful contributions to the Christian community arose from his theological reflections on human experience. As a Christian physician, he discovered that the "most problematic aspect of creation [is] the existence of pain." He was later to write: "God designed the human body so that it is able to survive because of pain."

The origins of Christian medical missions
The Bible and early church history link the spread of the gospel to care for the sick and healing. The miraculous healings of lepers, the blind, and the lame in gospel accounts and Peter's healings in Acts are intimately connected to God's work of salvation through Jesus Christ.

During a fourth century famine in Turkey, Basil the Great of Cappadocia built a complex of buildings, including a church, a hospice for travelers, and a hospital for the sick. The hospital at Cappadocia is one of the earliest examples in Christian History of a church community dedicating itself to the urgent physical needs as well as the spiritual needs of people.

Sixteen centuries later, this model of ministry still works. "A doctor's vocation is his medicine, but his real calling is still to win people for Christ," Harold Adolph said in a 1981 interview for the Billy Graham Center missionary archive.

"When the love of Christ can be demonstrated by fulfillment of a tangible need, you get farther. They're coming to us with their recognized need; we're taking care of that and pointing out other needs."

Timothy C. Morgan is deputy managing editor for Christianity Today. More Christian History, including a list of events that occurred this week in the church's past, is available at ChristianHistory.net. Subscriptions to the quarterly print magazine are also available.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Christian History Corner appears every Friday at on Christianity Today's website. Previous editions include:

European Christianity's 'Failure to Thrive' | Why Christendom, born with an imperial bang, is now fading away in an irrelevant whimper. (July 18, 2003)

Where Have All the Classics Gone? | These days it's a triumph when a movie is simply inoffensive. But we can do better than that (July 11, 2003)

From Beer to Bibles to VBS | How America got its favorite summer tradition. (July 3, 2003)

The African Lion Roars in the Western Church | Anglican liberals are fretting, conservatives rejoicing, and all are scrambling to their history books: whence this new evangelical force on the world scene? (June 27, 2003)

How John Wesley Changed America | His 300th birthday should be a red-letter day on this side of the ocean. After all, we're all Wesleyans now. (June 20, 2003)

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July (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47