Prayer By The Church For The Sick May 31, 2008

James 5:14 talks about praying as a church. “Is any one among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church…” I think this is a much misunderstood text in the Bible. Based on this text there are ‘healers’ who go around selling the so called ‘anointed oil’ to poor patients in churches and make money out of it. There are other well meaning believers who ignore this verse of Scripture as though it was not meant for them.   Let us look at the text. It is instructed to the one who is sick to call for elders to come and pray. It is not the other way around. It is not for elders or evangelists to go around with ‘anointed oil’ to heal the sick. I believe in divine healing and I remember using this text when we found our little daughter who was just three months old with a rare kind of cancer. We took our cue from this verse and on behalf of the child we called upon the leaders of our worshipping community to anoint the child and pray for her and for us before she was sent for medical care. Doctors told us that there was no proven medicine for that type of malignancy. They also said that the child would die in two weeks’ time if some treatment was not given. They treated her for forty days as an in-patient and one year as an out-patient. The Lord has marvelously healed her and now at age thirty she runs a small ministry accepting throw-away children and bringing them up in the fear of the Lord.   Sickness is another occasion when God is calling us to pray. This time, more than individual prayer the Lord instructs us to call for the elders of the church. Community prayer has its special place in the economy of God. God has placed us in His church which is His body on earth. The church as the community of God enjoys special privileges which individuals do not enjoy. United prayer must be practiced as commanded in the Scripture. Here in this passage, it is prayer for healing of the individual. Some sickness may be the result of individual’s sin (1Cor.11:30) and sicknesses of this kind are healed when prayed over as a sign of forgiveness.   Often our corporate prayers do not have efficacy because individuals who come together to pray do not practice secret prayer. Those who practice secret prayer, those who live in an attitude of prayer, when they come together for corporate prayer, there is much power there. If our church prayer meetings must become powerful, individual believers must be taught to pray in secret and to live in an attitude of prayer.

          

             For more articles on prayer and experiences in prayer visit www.mathewpaul.org

 

Is Any Among You Suffering? Let Him Pray (Js.5:13). May 30, 2008

“Is any one among you suffering? Let him pray” (Js.5:13). This verse speaks about individual prayer. In this verse prayer is recommended for the one who suffers. Does this verse mean that only those who suffer need to pray? One principle of Bible interpretation is that no verse of Scripture should be taken in isolation and be interpreted thus. Each verse must be understood only in its context. There is the immediate context where that text is found and there is the wider context of the Scripture itself. Here the immediate context is the sufferings of Job in the previous verses. That does not add any thing to the meaning of the text. The immediate context strengthens what the text says: when some one suffers instead of murmuring or complaining, he/she must pray.

 

But the wider context of the Scriptural teaching on prayer is not merely that only those who suffer must pray. See what our Lord says in Lk.18:1 “…that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” This is clearly the Scriptural teaching. Men ought to pray always. Pray without ceasing (1Thes.1:17), Devote yourself to prayer (Col.4:2) etc. are clear commands of the Scripture. No one reading the Scripture can escape such references to prayer.

 

 Men ought to pray always. That is what the Bible teaches. Failing which, men should pray at least when sufferings come. In other words, sufferings are occasions when God is prompting us to pray. God is calling us to pray by the sufferings that He sends in our lives. “Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you will glorify me” (Ps.50:15). Troubles and sufferings are occasions when God gives us an opportunity when He would specially work for us. So let us learn to pray when sufferings come. Tragically many believers begin to murmur and then begin to doubt the goodness of God when sufferings come. When we react that way, we are losing the opportunity of a mighty work of God in our lives.

 

The verb used in this verse is present imperative. That gives us the idea that prayer must be the continual attitude of our lives. It can very well be translated, “be praying” as found in the Analytical Literal Translation. Yes, the Bible expects every believer to have the habit of prayer. Continue steadfastly in prayer (Eph.6:18). Let us develop an attitude of prayer whether we are suffering or not. Let us pray especially when sufferings come.

 

The biographical sketch of the famous hymn-writer Joseph Scriven who wrote, “What a friend we have in Jesus”, tells us that prayer does not necessarily eliminate all troubles from our lives; but prayer can transform burdens into blessings and that in suffering a child of God can truly sing. That’s why James says in the same verse, “If any one cheerful, let him sing praises”. Indeed, prayer can change every suffering situation into a cheerful one!

 

                      (For more articles on prayer and experiences in prayer visit www.mathewpaul.org)