“Several years ago I was busy with Luke the physician, imagining what it must have been like for him to leave his medical practice for the preaching life. The way I figure it, he did not stop carrying his black bag. He simply repacked it, taking out the scissors, scalpel, and tincture of iodine to make room for the medicine of the gospel–those healing stories of God that did more to put people back together than all the potions in the world. There were beatitudes for the stricken and prophecies for the blind. There were instructions for the paralyzed and parables for the hard of hearing. There were acted-out words of God for those who no longer trusted words and there was silence when all else had failed . . . And not just then but now. And not just me but you. We are all doctors of the gospel. We are all tellers of the story, which does not heal by taking away the pain but by giving us a way to live with it–naming it, sharing it, enduring it. To run from what hurts is natural. To fact it is not, and yet that is where our true health lies. If we are able to turn towards the pain of the world and let it do its work, the result may be hearts broke open to God and one another. Those who live their lives shall find them.” BBT in Gospel Medicine, ix-xii