Question:  Dear Greg,

            I hear that Jehovah Witnesses don’t believe in blood transfusions.  Where in the Bible does God forbid it?  Where does God draw the line for born-again Christians concerning medical needs?

            Angie

Answer:  Dear Angie,

            Jehovah’s Witnesses take a literal view of the old covenant prohibition against the eating of blood and they take a literal view of the significance of blood – that blood is our life (this is used in a spiritual sense in the New Testament as we are given the communion of the body and blood of Jesus).  To this view the Jehovah’s Witnesses add their own interpretation that taking any blood from another human being would be a sin.

            No such teaching appears in the Bible.  The Bible is not against doctors or medical practice – Luke, the writer of the Gospel, was a physician, and Christ is referred to as the Great Physician.  God, of course, is our healer, but nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to avoid medical assistance.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht