Since becoming a Christian on May 29, 1957 at a Billy Graham Crusade in Madison Square Garden in New York City, I have been studying the Bible.

I went to school for four years of preparation for the ministry, followed by almost 20 years of pastoring at various churches, preparing and delivering somewhere around five thousand Bible-based sermons. During my 4 years of formal training, the Bible was our textbook and the final word for all our studies.

Then in 1976, I was told I had colon cancer, a potentially life-threatening physical problem. I had just watched my mother die a horrible death from the same ailment at the hands of the medical community, which had treated her with its modalities for her colon cancer. Because of Mom's horrible experience, I went searching for a better means of dealing with it.

In my search for help, I contacted evangelist Lestor Roloff, a great Bible preacher in Texas. Brother Roloff had been teaching biblical nutrition for years. He discouraged me from going the medical route and advised me to simply change my Standard American Diet (SAD) to the Genesis 1:29 diet of raw fruits and vegetables. He also encouraged me to drink a lot of carrot juice.

I took Brother Roloff's advice and started to get well almost immediately! Within a year of changing my diet to a pure, raw, vegetarian diet, not only was my tumor gone, but so were all the other physical problems I was suffering.

This experience drew me into the Bible, a book I had been studying and preaching from for over 20 years prior to my illness. To my amazement, I found the Bible had lots to say on the subject of diet. So much, in fact, that in 1987, I wrote my first book, Why Christians Get Sick, which contains approximately 150 Bible verses relating to the subject.

In 1992, Rhonda and I started the Hallelujah Acres ministry in a small store in Rogersville, TN. We served carrot juice and other vegetarian fare and shared my health message with all who would listen. From that humble beginning, Hallelujah Acres has grown to help millions of people around the world.

I was not alone in my gross ignorance of Biblical nutrition — it is a subject in which most Christians have practically no knowledge. Most of the prayer requests for sickness in our churches are the result of this ignorance!

After following the Standard American Diet for the first 42 years of my life, I have been following this Genesis 1:29 diet for 35 years and counting. In so doing, I can personally attest as what each diet does to the physical body. I have been there and done that!

I have dedicated my life to learning everything I can on the subject of diet from both Christian and non-Christian sources. I have studied under Dr. Carey Reams in Georgia; worked with Dr. Ann Wigmore in Boston; spent two years learning Natural Hygiene and lecturing at the Shangri-La Health resort in Florida; and have studied most of the modalities in both the traditional and alternative health fields.

So, when I speak on the subject of Biblical nutrition, you can rest assured that I know what I am talking about.

I encourage you to do as I have done (and am still doing): learn all you can about God’s way to ultimate health — and adopt it wholeheartedly.

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. (3 John 2)