Next week my firm will hold its annual health insurance information meeting. The news won’t be good. Premiums are expected to increase 10-15% after increasing a similar amount last year. If only my 401(k) could grow like that!

The bottom line is that my paycheck will become smaller and my health care costs will become larger. Health care costs are rising at an unsustainable rate. These costs are particularly burdensome on churches, where they compose an ever-increasing portion of pastoral compensation and overall church budgets. One wonders how much longer small churches will be able to afford a full-time pastor with a family.

My wife and I have also spent most of this year scurrying through the endless maze of our byzantine and befuddling health care system. Our journey began when my wife’s father had a stroke in April. He subsequently spent five months in the hospital where they couldn’t wait to get him off their books and out of their facility. He’s presently being cared for at home with the assistance of visiting nurses. Over the past seven months we have had the displeasure of dealing with private insurance companies, hospitals, nursing services, medical transportation services, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on. This system is a nightmare.

So I get it. The health care system is a mess and, like many Americans, I want someone to fix it! But the question for Christians is, How should it be fixed? How do Christians apply a biblical worldview to the health care debate?

Many Christians, particularly those on the liberal end of the spectrum, consider this issue a no-brainer. They argue that universal government-sponsored health care is the only acceptable moral position for Christians. After all, wasn’t a major part of Jesus’ public ministry about healing the sick? Are we not supposed to love our neighbor? Do we not have an obligation to help the poor? For Christians of this ilk universal government-sponsored health care is a moral imperative of the gospel.

At first it seems difficult, and downright un-Christian, to argue with the logic of the Christian left. But, with a little reflection, the seemingly ironclad reasoning begins to spring some significant leaks.

Consider, for example, the argument they use regarding the role of healing in Jesus’ ministry. Scripture is unequivocal on the point that Jesus did not practice universal healthcare. While He ministered on earth, He was all-knowing and all-powerful. He could have healed every sick person in the world, but He didn’t. Jesus chose not to heal all the sick. According to the logic of the Christian left, Jesus would be construed as callous and immoral. It’s difficult to argue that supporting universal health care is a moral obligation for all Christians when Christ Himself chose not to make this an imperative of His ministry.

The logic of the Christian left is further undermined by the real reason Jesus healed people as part of His ministry. The reason Jesus healed a select group of people was partially due to His desire to alleviate human suffering, but the main reason was to reveal that He was the Son of God and the promised Messiah. When Jesus asked the man at the pool of Bethesda whether he wanted to be made well, Jesus wasn’t simply referring to his physical need for healing; He was pointing out this man’s need for a Savior (John 5:6). Jesus healed people in order to point them to their real need—salvation.

The logic of the Christian left is also off the mark because it renders too much to Caesar. Governments, and the bureaucrats they spawn, are not well known for their deep compassion. In the hands of the government, people quickly become reduced to numbers, tables and statistics. The more of our lives we surrender to the leviathan of government, the further we travel down the road to serfdom. The Bible tells us that government rightfully holds the sword, not the scalpel.

Yes, the system is broken. Yes, we need to rethink the entire system and come up with new approaches. But don’t let the Christian left convince you that Jesus wants the government to run health-care. Finally, remember that Jesus is coming back someday and when he does we won’t need healthcare because there will be no more sickness and death (Revelation 21:4), but on that day what we will need is a Savior. If we really care about people’s well-being, then sharing the good news of Jesus Christ is the ultimate moral imperative for the Christian. I only wish the Christian left were a bit more concerned about that.

That’s how God’s Word speaks in your world.

–Anthony Selvaggio