John Edwards likes to talk about his "poverty tour," especially about a man named James Lowe who had lived for 50 years with a cleft palate, unable to talk because he did not have health insurance and couldn't afford the simple operation to repair it. Edwards claims that this is an outrage, and I agree.
I don't agree that repairing a cleft palate is a "simple operation," but that's really not the point. Where Edwards and I differ is in our answer to the outrage.
Edwards' answer to the outrage is "universal health care," whereby the federal government collects forced monetary contributions (aka taxes) to fund a huge, inefficient bureaucracy, placing undue burdens on taxpayers and the healthcare industry alike. Not only is this blatantly unconstitutional (which ought to be enough), but history proves that it is doomed to failure, and it will take the U.S. healthcare industry down with it. Edwards' solution, then, ultimately results in "fairness" by making it impossible for anyone to have decent healthcare. Great intentions, but you know what they say about the road to hell.
My answer to the outrage is the body of Christ. The church in James Lowe's neighborhood should be ministering to him. Acts 3:1-8 would be a great place to start, and carry on with James 2:14-18. Every church, in every neighborhood, should be on the alert for those to whom the Lord calls them to minister in the name of Christ. Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the word of God is living and active." Obviously, the Bible does not say, "Minister to James Lowe, pray for God to heal his cleft palate and loose his tongue, and speak the love of Christ into his life." Certainly the general precepts are there, as I've mentioned, but in the "sola scriptura" crowd, we're so focused on the written word itself that we sometime miss the obvious real-world application of those precepts. We don't want to get our hands dirty, lest we soil our Bibles. Matthew 25:41-46 was written for us. We must learn to hear and obey the Spirit, just as Peter and John did, so we can tap into His dynamic, powerful, meaningful, God-glorifying ministry.