Who decides for us – and on what basis?  

The decision, for instance, to lock down cities and mandate experimental drugs during the pandemic fell to the government officials that we underlings voted in. But on what basis did they decide what to do? 

Was it pressure from lobby groups, or consultation with many contrasting experts, or a knee jerk reaction “to do something” and appear to be decisive, or to stop people flying into a panic, or to hand over the reins to powerful corporations peddling their wares, or was it all very sincerely meant and it came as a genuine shock to them when things turned out so disastrously? 

Whatever the reason, has what’s happened had any impact on what basis governments make decisions in the future when a potent contagious virus strikes? 

Would they consider, for instance, the advice of the one public health official whose medical education was taught to him by God. So, when a man with those credentials tells us that anyone with a diagnosed infectious disease should immediately go into quarantine and stay there until no longer contagious – as Moses did in Leviticus 13:46 – then that would seem like a good place to begin.

And as a youngster in English boarding schools this was the practice I grew up with too. Whenever a virus ripped through the school a separate building on campus was set aside for quarantine while life went on as normal in the rest of the school. There wasno locking down the entire school, and no masks or social distancing. 

Nor were they required in ancient Israel either. The sick were quarantined in care outside the camp, but life for the rest of Israel went on as usual. A mask was only worn by the contagious as an indication to others to steer clear of them (Leviticus 13:45). Those who weren’t contagious did not wear masks.    

If only we’d done that during the pandemic. Think of all the businesses that would still be operating, school classes that would have continued, and teachers, nurses, doctors and thousands of others who would have kept their jobs and kept things functioning normally. 

But when governments “don’t think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God,” Romans 1:28 – well, we now know what happens when they don’t. And it’s so sad, because if they’d consulted Scripture and asked God for help, they would have got it (James 1:5).