Pharmekeia

 Let’s take a look at the Greek word “pharmekeia.” It is where we get the word “pharmacy.” One of the definitions many Christians give to pharmekeia is medicine or drugs, but that definition misses the full meaning of the word. The actual meaning is “sorcery,” in which magic potions or drugs are often used to cast spells. Demonic influences and even manifestations fuel sorcery. This is how the devil rules, by fear and intimidation. He will pervert anything to get his way. Drugs and medicines are tools and like many tools, they can be used for good or for evil. Magic potions and drugs are just some of the tools the devil uses.

Some say, "Well, they aren’t “natural”; therefore, they aren’t godly. What is natural? If you define it as “man-made” rather than something that God made, then bread isn’t "natural.” People take ingredients that God created. They alter them by stripping away parts of the grain (flour) and the vegetables or animals (oil or fats). Then, they are combined with salt, water, and other ingredients. This mixture is then chemically altered by subjecting it to heat.

The process of making drugs is the same. There is nothing on the earth that God has not made. People take natural substances and alter them to create drugs and medicines. The thing that makes them good or evil depends on the purpose and the outcome of their use. 

Is the purpose of a drug to alleviate suffering? Is the outcome of taking the drug healing or at least relief from suffering? Then it is probably good. However, if the entity pushing the drug uses fear, greed, control, or lust to manipulate someone into taking their drug, then sorcery is involved. Beware!

Let’s take a hypothetical situation to illustrate this. Imagine a bread company that wants to corner the market. They want to start a campaign to convince people that their bread is the only bread people should buy. Their campaign would probably include advertising that makes their bread look very desirable. This in and of itself is not sorcery, but they go further. They create advertising that paints their competitors in a bad light to create fear of other companies that bake bread. Then, they create peer pressure. They teach that anyone who chooses to buy bread from another company is uneducated, lazy, and possibly downright dangerous. Ultimately, their goal is to have a monopoly, so once they have brainwashed enough people, they start a campaign to make all other bread companies illegal. Now people only have one choice if they want bread. This is sorcery.

Is the bread they are selling in and of itself evil? No. It’s the manner in which it is sold. God has given us freedom of choice. The vast majority of adults have the ability to use their brains to make choices that benefit them. God has provided families to protect children and those few adults who don’t have this ability. Anyone who attempts to remove that freedom of choice from adults by fear, intimidation, greed, or control is delving into sorcery.

Satan will often use the good intentions of people to trap them. Take the education reforms of the late 1800s. There were plenty of schools in the United States back then. The literacy rate among people society deemed proper to educate (white males) was almost 100%. But, at that time, there was a huge influx of Irish immigrants who had not experienced the freedom to educate themselves or their children. They were also, for the most part, Catholic.

Good protestant people concerned about the salvation of these Catholic kids campaigned for public schools that would teach these kids how to read the Bible so they would no longer be dependent on the priests to tell them what it says. In the slums where the Irish lived, there were also street gangs that terrorized the cities. Caring people reasoned that if public schools were made compulsory, the children who were in the gangs would have a place to go to get them off the streets and be rehabilitated.  This led to the almost complete elimination of school choice by the mid-1900s. Now Satan’s trap was set. He could slowly infiltrate the system, removing God from the classroom and replacing the values and teachings the system had been founded on with his own. It has been a long hard fight to regain our freedom and millions of innocent kids are still trapped in those indoctrination camps.

Around that same time period, the industrialization of the United States drew millions of families to the cities, promising better lives for themselves and their families. Instead, the men found themselves trapped in greedy companies that robbed them of their families 12 or more hours a day, 7 days a week for little if any financial gain. Depression fueled alcoholism, and alcoholism fueled the abuse of women and children.

Good Christian women started a campaign to rid the country of what they perceived to be the source of the abuse - alcohol. This led to the disastrous laws of Prohibition in the 1920’s. Although this law was repealed, the government was now firmly established as the agency through which all medications were regulated. Modern medicine was established as the only means through which people could seek healing. Other choices such as chiropractic, acupuncture, and herbal medicine were outlawed. Vaccinations for school kids were made mandatory. All of this was “for our good.” But those who wanted to make different choices were prevented from doing so by the threat of consequences. This mindset is still prevalent. Our right to think for ourselves and choose how we care for our bodies has been greatly curtailed, but we are pushing back and have made a few gains.

This isn’t a recent phenomenon. One of the driving forces bringing people to the United States was thousands of years of government control of religion. From Babylon to Rome, to the Catholic church of the Middle Ages to the Church of England, the enemy has sought to control people through the removal of their freedom of choice.

Freedom of choice should govern our personal lives. The government should not be involved in how we choose to worship, educate our families, or in how we care for our bodies.

So, does that make going to a doctor to get medicines ungodly? No, the medicines in and of themselves are only tools. If you need them, by all means, do what you need to get them as long as it doesn’t involve denying the LORD. But push back! We shouldn’t have to go to a doctor for medicines we know we need. The doctor and the pharmacist’s role should be as a resource when we don’t know what to do. Be active in standing for freedom. Speak to others and vote!