Shalom & Eirene: Fully Caring for the Afflicted Person

Abstract

The biblical concepts and categories relating to the person portray the individual as a multidimensional relational totality. To be fully human is to be a constitutive part of the whole creation in an enhancing relationship with God, with others made in his image and likeness and with the rest of God’s creation. The ecosystem, culture-education, family and friends unavoidably influence the individual, as do the choices he or she has already made. Thus to be ‘a responsible partner’ with God in the creative process of becoming and making shalom, a person needs to be self-reconciled and then become reconciled one with another, in family, in community and in all other spheres of their immediate and cosmic context. It is this that proves a person to be truly reconciled with God and thus enabled him or her to become fully human.

Keywords

• healing
• shalom
• health
• theology
• wholeness