Theology, pills, and sacraments

I went to the rheumatology specialist with my wife recently, and was well impressed by her knowledge of the subject, compared to the registrar who saw us the previous week. She had some students with her, and was explaining to them how to diagnose the disease and distinguish it from other inflammatory arthritis forms, and how to medically describe the deformities in my wofe's hands and what their impact on the diagnosis is. And loads of stuff like that. i am always fascinated by biology, and drink in all that information.

But all that information was bonus - what we really needed to hear was "take these pills", "have this injection". That is the root of the matter. That is how theory is translated into healing.

Back home, sitting on the loo is the only chance I get to read and I was dipping into McGrath's Historical theology and his bit about Baultmann (spelling?), and it twigged - theology is just the same. We can have all the knowledge in the world about the Bible, the great theologians and their ideas, etc etc, but when people come to us what they really need to hear is "take this bread", "drink this wine".

(apologies to my evangelical theology of sacraments)