Commentary on "The Water of Life"

PHIL HARRIS

 

Day 5: Wednesday, April 21, 2010

 

Overview

Today’s lesson is centered on the vital importance of water in the chemistry of the human body.

. . . but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isa. 40:31 ESV)

 

Observations

While water is of vital importance in the physiology of the human body and the lesson makes some correct observations concerning the need for pure water to maintain good health, there is a critical misstatement that should be addressed.

Since water has no calories and is not an energy source for our bodies, the writers of this lesson should have known better than to refer to water as being a source of power and energy. Even the title ‘The Power of Water’ is misleading. Rather, water is the solvent, the carrier of those elements that are the source of energy that is delivered to the body’s cells where work can then be performed.

Even in those cases in the physics of our planet where the fall of water due to gravity produces power, the sun is the source of energy that made this production of power possible. Once again, water was simply the carrier of energy, not the source.

Significantly, the memory verse used to set today’s lesson theme does not make this error. Strength, as used in this verse, is compared to ‘wings like eagles’ with no reference to the attributes of water.

While the wrong amount of natural water in our system will impair the use of those sources of energy we possess or restrict ingestion of additional needed energy along any of the other building blocks that support having a healthy body, there is no such thing as having too much of the Holy Spirit.

Surely, we could have expected better written lesson material from the Health Ministries Department of the Seventh-day Adventist church.

 

Summary

• While water is vitally important for good health, it is going beyond the function of water to refer to it as an energy source, just as Jesus Christ is the source of the power in our spiritual lives that the Holy Spirit gives us.

 

GO TO DAY 6

 

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