Washington Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

By Bill Roberts, Washington Conference ministerial director

I have learned many things about love from Dr. Francis Collins. He is a brilliant man with both a PhD and an MD degree and has directed the Genome project which mapped three billion bits of human genetic code.

When he was nominated to head the National Institute of Health, he was opposed because his faith. Richard Dawkins said he was, “not a bright guy.” And yet, Collins goes to tea with Dawkins on visits to Oxford.

When Christopher Hitchens, a militant atheist who was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, Collins offered to help him find cutting edge treatment. Hitchens wrote columns in Vanity Fair about his journey. One “Christian” rejoiced at his pain saying, “he got cancer in the one part of his body he used for blasphemy…then comes the real fun, when he’s sent to hellfire…” In one of Hitchens last columns, he paid tribute to Collins as a “selfless Christian physician,” who visited him and offered help. He described him as, “This great humanitarian.”

Collins didn’t preach. He loved and impacted a leading atheist. We don’t know Hitchens’ heart. The only gospel that could reach him was love lived selflessly. In Philippians 2:4 it says, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Collins saw Hitchens not as an enemy but as someone Jesus died for.

We are commandment keeping people. In John 13:34-35 Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This kind of love cannot be manufactured but is a transfusion from Jesus. I encourage you to love like Dr. Francis Collins loves people and see how God works through your Christian love.