Healing through the laying on of hands is for today

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

Kinda' figured this would be the route you'd take in response. Ah, well. You can lead a horse to water...

Anyway, you can "speak for God" all you like, but I'm not the least convinced that you actually do. My last post lays out why.

2 Timothy 4:20
20 ...Trophimus I have left in Miletus sick.

And, again, you would be wrong. And, like you said, "you can lead a horse to [the living] Water, but you can't make him drink." Too bad for that dying horse, aye? I would hope that you would do better than lay down in your dying theology. I have many testimonies of people who had no reason to expect that when I prayed for them God would heal them. And, yet it happened.

It just happened again three days ago with a 17 year old who has every reason to be angry; but after seeing others healed and delivered the night before, decided to go up to an altar long after people stopped going up and were preparing to leave. God met him, there. He woke up with a completely different handle on his still difficult life and actually came to my wife and I and asked us to pray for his back. The first time we prayed, he said it was better and then explained that if he twisted it, it still hurt a little. We prayed again, and again he tested it. And, he said it was completely gone and then he helped me and the other kid mop the whole gym floor (without any bit of a grimace that you would expect from someone with pain in their back), then he played basketball a couple of hours later (again with no relapse into the back pain that he had).

Isn't it interesting that Paul--who saw a lot of healings under his touch and raising of dead under his touch (as documented in Scripture), would also see some that weren't healed. And, even more interesting that you--an unbeliever with regards to all that the Scriptures teach--would quote 2 Tim 4:20, which was written by Paul.

The beauty of your last comment is it doesn't matter one iota whether you are convinced or not. It isn't my job to convince you, it is my job to warn you. And, the warning will stand. I won't be guilty before God of not telling you what I was supposed to tell you. Paul said that in Scripture, too.

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

The Orthodox Church has a big history of miracle making but we don't proclaim it as the most essential part of our teachings. However, my main problem with healing by laying hands is the accusation that someone didn't get healed because he/she didn't have enough faith or were sinners.

David, I don't know of any true Christians, in Scripture, who wouldn't have considered healing an essential part of their teachings. I'm not saying everyone was expected to see healing under their touch, but I don't think there is one true Christian talked about in Scripture in a positive way who didn't believe that healing was an essential part of their teachings. However, I certainly agree it isn't the most essential part--God the Father, Jesus Christ, The Word of God, The Son of God, and the Holy Spirit. But, can you believe in Jesus Christ while rejecting what He taught? Can you believe in the Father while rejecting who He is? Can you believe in the Holy Spirit, while rejecting so much of what He does?

I lament some of the things I have heard people say. Some blame the person praying, yet we have so few who actually have the boldness to step out and be used by God. Some blame the people who were willing to ask for prayer or accept offered prayer. I lament that just like you. God has reasons that we aren't privy to. Some are written in Scripture and some were said by Jesus Himself; but, that is God's call.

As I have said to others, just because people do wrong things and say wrong things, it isn't a justifiable reason to say something doesn't exist today. I said earlier that there are false churches, false pastors, false leadership at all levels in organized church, false Christians, and doctrines of demons that void whole chapters of Scripture, but we aren't getting rid of those?????

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

Tradition of men is an ironic strawman.

I guess you can think of it like that. But, just remember that Jesus attacked the traditions of men when they stood against what God said during His time here on earth.

 

[SkyWriting]

Huh? I don't understand what you are saying. I have seen people without faith healed. I have seen people without faith see someone they trusted get healed and it messes them up. But, there are those who will find every excuse to not believe. Too bad for them.

If God's miracles were visible, it would go to your head, and you'd think you had some kind of special power. The people get jealous of you, start to hate you, say yo uare the devil.....al kinds of bad stuff. You get proud, arrogant, start selling your powers.

All kinds of bad things would happen if anyone had power to pray for healing. Amputees in particular get hostile to you. I've seen it. You don't want that power.

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

If God's miracles were visible, it would go to your head, and you'd think you had some kind of special power. The people get jealous of you, start to hate you, say yo uare the devil.....al kinds of bad stuff. You get proud, arrogant, start selling your powers.

All kinds of bad things would happen if anyone had power to pray for healing. Amputees in particular get hostile to you. I've seen it. You don't want that power.

When you say "visible", you mean that everyone would be willing to accept it? Because I'm still hard-pressed to understand what you mean. When I pray and people get healed, it is visible to those around their situation. It isn't in their heads. It isn't a psychological healing. It is a real physical healing where broken bones disappear, where crippling arthritis leaves a body, where a damaged back becomes whole and able to do things that the person couldn't do for a long time.

It certainly is uncomfortable. Some people are downright mean, especially people who call themselves believers but only believe some of what God said. In fact, the biggest persecution often comes through those who think they know the God and Father of Jesus Christ and really don't.

But should that be an excuse to desire to have a form of godliness without the power? What happened to denying ourselves, picking up our cross, and following Him? What happened to not loving our lives even unto death?

 

[aiki]

And, again, you would be wrong.

Well, merely saying so doesn't make it so.

And, like you said, "you can lead a horse to [the living] Water, but you can't make him drink." Too bad for that dying horse, aye?

Inasmuch as you were the "horse" I was referring to, yes, I suppose it is "too bad."

I would hope that you would do better than lay down in your dying theology.

"Dying theology"? No idea what you mean here...

I would hope that you would do better than lay down in your dying theology.

Would you hope? Really? Somehow, I doubt that...

It just happened again three days ago with a 17 year old who has every reason to be angry; but after seeing others healed and delivered the night before, decided to go up to an altar long after people stopped going up and were preparing to leave. God met him, there. He woke up with a completely different handle on his still difficult life and actually came to my wife and I and asked us to pray for his back. The first time we prayed, he said it was better and then explained that if he twisted it, it still hurt a little. We prayed again, and again he tested it. And, he said it was completely gone and then he helped me and the other kid mop the whole gym floor (without any bit of a grimace that you would expect from someone with pain in their back), then he played basketball a couple of hours later (again with no relapse into the back pain that he had).

So, when was the last time you went to the cancer ward of your local hospital and healed sick kids there? The story you tell above could be easily chalked up to the placebo effect and/or a desire to want to fit in.

Isn't it interesting that Paul--who saw a lot of healings under his touch and raising of dead under his touch (as documented in Scripture), would also see some that weren't healed.

Yes, very interesting. It suggests that healing is not the "mainstay" of Christianity that you want it to be.

And, even more interesting that you--an unbeliever with regards to all that the Scriptures teach--would quote 2 Tim 4:20, which was written by Paul.

Um, calling me an "unbeliever with regards to all that the Scriptures teach" simply reveals your ignorance about me and what I believe.

The beauty of your last comment is it doesn't matter one iota whether you are convinced or not.

Exactly.

It isn't my job to convince you, it is my job to warn you.

It's your "job," eh? What's the pay like? Good hours, being a warner?

And, the warning will stand. I won't be guilty before God of not telling you what I was supposed to tell you.

Uh huh.

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

Play nice.

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

Well, merely saying so doesn't make it so.



Inasmuch as you were the "horse" I was referring to, yes, I suppose it is "too bad."



"Dying theology"? No idea what you mean here...



Would you hope? Really? Somehow, I doubt that...



So, when was the last time you went to the cancer ward of your local hospital and healed sick kids there? The story you tell above could be easily chalked up to the placebo effect and/or a desire to want to fit in.



Yes, very interesting. It suggests that healing is not the "mainstay" of Christianity that you want it to be.



Um, calling me an "unbeliever with regards to all that the Scriptures teach" simply reveals your ignorance about me and what I believe.



Exactly.



It's your "job," eh? What's the pay like? Good hours, being a warner?



Uh huh.

I simply respond to what you write. You declare your unbelieve, not me. I see God heal people and you try to say it doesn't exist.

If you were to properly use your statement in regards to me, then you might say: "you can try to drag the horse into a barren desert, but he won't go." That would make your statement true, because I won't follow you into a barren desert devoid of Life.

You can continue to scoff and mock all you like. If protecting your unbelief, much in the same way an atheist protects his unbelieve, makes you feel better, that is your choice. But, I will continue to tell you that you are wrong. Your mocking doesn't hurt me, because I know the Truth.

Since I know Who I know and He does what you say He doesn't; I can't help but question how you could really know Him and reject what He says and does today.

I didn't know we were supposed to demand of God in exchange for doing what He called us to do. Where did you find that in your Bible?

 

[StrivingFollower]

I've always found it strange the way people speak against the miracles still occurring. The arguments of "how come there's not more evidence? How come it's not working every time?" make zero sense. How many prophets in the Bible had easy lives? None of these guys were Superman. They were tested hard. They had to rely on God to survive. They had to stay in understanding that God was above them.

We have to rely on faith to reject the observations of our world, the comfort of our easy understandings, and try hard to change our perspective to the spiritual world. That's the importance of the miracles. It's a big test of faith. It would be very depriving of God to remove this test of mental toughness and devotion from us. We should always strive to be the best we can be, that's what it's all about.

 

[JackRT]

Actually quite a number of medical and/or scientific studies of "faith healings" have been done over the decades. Here I use the term healing as referring to a cure from a physical ailment. In the vast number of cases the effect was temporary with the person reverting to their original condition within a few hours to a few weeks. In some cases they ended up in worse condition because, believing that they were cured, they had terminated the medical therapies that they had been using.

Rabbi Harold S. Kushner stated in A Question of Miracles (Thomas 2001): "I hope there is a special place in Hell for people who try and enrich themselves on the suffering of others. To tantalize the blind, the lame, the dying, the afflicted, the terminally ill, to dangle hope before parents of a severely afflicted child, is an indescribably cruel thing to do, and to do it in the name of God, to do it in the name of religion, I think, is unforgivable." Note that he is speaking here of faith healing. He knows whereof he speaks since he was the parent of a child suffering from Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS). His son Aaron was born in 1963 and died of old age in 1977.

 

[aiki]

I simply respond to what you write. You declare your unbelieve, not me. I see God heal people and you try to say it doesn't exist.

But I didn't say that. Did you actually read what I wrote? Let me quote myself:

"It (healing) is certainly something God does on occasion, but when I think of a "mainstay" of Christianity I think of the Gospel, the Trinity, the Second Coming of Christ, the Lord's Table, Baptism, and the Final Judgment, not healing. On what basis should healing stand on par with these pillars, these "mainstays" of Christian belief?"

If you were to properly use your statement in regards to me, then you might say: "you can try to drag the horse into a barren desert, but he won't go." That would make your statement true, because I won't follow you into a barren desert devoid of Life.

Well, if the truth of Scripture is a "barren desert" to you, I have to wonder about what sort of "horse" you are.

You can continue to scoff and mock all you like.

I have done neither thing. But I have expressed skepticism toward your perspective on healing. Are all those who don't see healing just as you do scoffers and mockers?

If protecting your unbelief, much in the same way an atheist protects his unbelieve, makes you feel better, that is your choice.

Are you not "protecting your belief," too? It looks like it to me...If you think it is a valid belief, you ought to protect it. I've pointed out that you may be going too far in your desire to see healing a "mainstay" of Christianity. So far, your answer has been, basically, to tell me to get stuffed. Not a very reasoned, scriptural response, I think.

Since I know Who I know and He does what you say He doesn't; I can't help but question how you could really know Him and reject what He says and does today.

This is what is called a false dichotomy. Not believing about healing exactly as you do does not make me an unbeliever. It just makes me someone who doesn't see things as you do. It greatly concerns me when I see professing Christians making doctrinal mountains out of molehills. Healing may happen, yes, but there is no biblical mandate whatever for thinking it ought to be a "mainstay" of Christianity - as I pointed out to you from Scripture.

I didn't know we were supposed to demand of God in exchange for doing what He called us to do. Where did you find that in your Bible?

??? Sorry, no idea what you are talking about here...

 

[JackRT]

This is what is called a false dichotomy. Not believing about healing exactly as you do does not make me an unbeliever. It just makes me someone who doesn't see things as you do. It greatly concerns me when I see professing Christians making doctrinal mountains out of molehills. Healing may happen, yes, but there is no biblical mandate whatever for thinking it ought to be a "mainstay" of Christianity - as I pointed out to you from Scripture.

Well said.

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

The trouble is that we are not going to see those things in the same way that they occurred in the First Century. This is because our modern factionized churches are nothing like the church of the First Century. Most churches today are functioning as mere religious temples, or "clubs", each denomination acting exclusively and not fellowship with Christians outside of their faction. There are churches that see themselves as "the true church" with the correct doctrines, and all others are not as right with God as they are.

The stupid thing about it is that many of these groups think that God will exercise His power with healing and other miracles through them, and then wonder why He doesn't. Instead of seeing the reality of their situation, they blame the sick people for not having enough faith; or they decide to take a cessationist view and say that God has withdrawn them from the church. The reality is that God will not work with a self-righteous, religious party spirit.

The same goes with someone who sets themselves up as a "healing evangelist" and "God will only heal through me". God doesn't work that way. He will not favour one party group over another.

I hate that stuff, too. But they had that in the first century--those of the circumcision were a group Paul derided often in his Epistles. I certainly wish the church had the relative unity it had back then, too. I don't know of any "healing evangelists" in the circles I learned through that act like the healing evangelists you spoke of. Most that I would follow are encouraging others to pray for the sick as well--especially Todd White, as an example. He goes out of his way to tell others that he isn't special and they can be doing what He gets to do as well.

But, it would be completely incorrect to say that the same stuff they saw doesn't happen today. Maybe it doesn't happen as often or it doesn't happen through as many people--because of the reasons you stated--but the Holy Spirit hasn't shriveled up and become inept at doing what He did back then through those who would surrender all.

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

I would not allow anyone to lay hands on me. There are spiritual reasons for that stance. I've been healed on three occasions by the Lord. His grace was sufficient for my situation. I believe prayer helps and discernment is a must when healing is involved.

And, discernment is critical when decided what doctrines you are going to believe. So, if you fail in discerning the doctrines you choose to stand for, then how can you correctly discern who can pray for you? God certainly can heal without another touching you. But, God also heals through people. His grace is always sufficient for our situation; but, we don't get to tell him what is allowable grace and what is not.

It is only fear that keeps you from accepting prayers of another Christian. There is no legitimate spiritual reason. It isn't God and it isn't godly discernment. God brings healing, not man--in every situation.

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

Actually quite a number of medical and/or scientific studies of "faith healings" have been done over the decades. Here I use the term healing as referring to a cure from a physical ailment. In the vast number of cases the effect was temporary with the person reverting to their original condition within a few hours to a few weeks. In some cases they ended up in worse condition because, believing that they were cured, they had terminated the medical therapies that they had been using.

Rabbi Harold S. Kushner stated in A Question of Miracles (Thomas 2001): "I hope there is a special place in Hell for people who try and enrich themselves on the suffering of others. To tantalize the blind, the lame, the dying, the afflicted, the terminally ill, to dangle hope before parents of a severely afflicted child, is an indescribably cruel thing to do, and to do it in the name of God, to do it in the name of religion, I think, is unforgivable." Note that he is speaking here of faith healing. He knows whereof he speaks since he was the parent of a child suffering from Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS). His son Aaron was born in 1963 and died of old age in 1977.

Disappointment and failure to see something in your own experience doesn't justify making up doctrine about it.

If you want to draw your knowledge from non-Christian sources who speak against what the Christian Scriptures declare, that is your choice--not a good one mind you, but your choice none-the-less.

I sat in a congregation where the pastor of a church got up in front of the congregation and repented, because they had prayed for an elder's wife who didn't get healed of cancer. The reason the pastor was repenting is that before his eyes, he saw a woman who was born deaf and mute that he knew for 19 years and who was now 30 years old, get healed through the prayers of a man named Randy Clark--who the pastor didn't even want to have in his church, because of his own failed experience. Fortunately for both me and the woman who was healed, their church charter allowed the elders to overrule him. That blew that lie I had been taught by the impotent "church" out of the water and opened up a whole new frontier in my walk with God. Yay, God.

Maybe there will actually be a special place in hell for those who openly taught unbelief and were responsible for the many who blindly followed them off the narrow way into the ditch of death and destruction.

 

[bèlla]

And, discernment is critical when decided what doctrines you are going to believe. So, if you fail in discerning the doctrines you choose to stand for, then how can you correctly discern who can pray for you? God certainly can heal without another touching you. But, God also heals through people. His grace is always sufficient for our situation; but, we don't get to tell him what is allowable grace and what is not.

It is only fear that keeps you from accepting prayers of another Christian. There is no legitimate spiritual reason. It isn't God and it isn't godly discernment. God brings healing, not man--in every situation.

This isn't an issue for debate and I would hope my comment would not suggest that. I'm speaking of my personal protocol. I did not apply it to anyone else. More importantly, I have been healed on three instances by the Lord. I think I'm qualified to say what is appropriate for me. Two of those instances involved incurable diseases.

The individual who lays hands on another is God's conduit or is operating through another medium. I have elected not to put myself in that situation. Others are welcome to do so. I would not begrudge someone who wanted to pray on my behalf. But I will not have hands laid on me by anyone.

 

[JackRT]

Disappointment and failure to see something in your own experience doesn't justify making up doctrine about it.

Making up doctrine is way above my pay grade. In fact, I am convinced that we already have far too much doctrine already.

 

[Hillsage]

And, again, you would be wrong. And, like you said, "you can lead a horse to [the living] Water, but you can't make him drink." Too bad for that dying horse, aye? I would hope that you would do better than lay down in your dying theology. I have many testimonies of people who had no reason to expect that when I prayed for them God would heal them. And, yet it happened.

It just happened again three days ago with a 17 year old who has every reason to be angry; but after seeing others healed and delivered the night before, decided to go up to an altar long after people stopped going up and were preparing to leave. God met him, there. He woke up with a completely different handle on his still difficult life and actually came to my wife and I and asked us to pray for his back. The first time we prayed, he said it was better and then explained that if he twisted it, it still hurt a little. We prayed again, and again he tested it. And, he said it was completely gone and then he helped me and the other kid mop the whole gym floor (without any bit of a grimace that you would expect from someone with pain in their back), then he played basketball a couple of hours later (again with no relapse into the back pain that he had).

Isn't it interesting that Paul--who saw a lot of healings under his touch and raising of dead under his touch (as documented in Scripture), would also see some that weren't healed. And, even more interesting that you--an unbeliever with regards to all that the Scriptures teach--would quote 2 Tim 4:20, which was written by Paul.

The beauty of your last comment is it doesn't matter one iota whether you are convinced or not. It isn't my job to convince you, it is my job to warn you. And, the warning will stand. I won't be guilty before God of not telling you what I was supposed to tell you. Paul said that in Scripture, too.

Great testimony. It is unfortunate that so few in the church know that 'healing is not the whole gospel', but 'neither is the gospel whole without healing.'

We had the beginnings of a Holy Spirit conference start at our church last Friday. A couple I knew from a 100 miles away came and brought a friend. They came again Saturday night and the brother they had brought with them the night before testified that the sciatic pain and numb foot that he had been treated for for 3 years was healed the night before, just by coming forward and standing with a hundred others.....one of which was me, who is still 75% deaf. No, we don't have all the answers, but I still believe.

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

But I didn't say that. Did you actually read what I wrote? Let me quote myself:

"It (healing) is certainly something God does on occasion, but when I think of a "mainstay" of Christianity I think of the Gospel, the Trinity, the Second Coming of Christ, the Lord's Table, Baptism, and the Final Judgment, not healing. On what basis should healing stand on par with these pillars, these "mainstays" of Christian belief?"



Well, if the truth of Scripture is a "barren desert" to you, I have to wonder about what sort of "horse" you are.



I have done neither thing. But I have expressed skepticism toward your perspective on healing. Are all those who don't see healing just as you do scoffers and mockers?



Are you not "protecting your belief," too? It looks like it to me...If you think it is a valid belief, you ought to protect it. I've pointed out that you may be going too far in your desire to see healing a "mainstay" of Christianity. So far, your answer has been, basically, to tell me to get stuffed. Not a very reasoned, scriptural response, I think.



This is what is called a false dichotomy. Not believing about healing exactly as you do does not make me an unbeliever. It just makes me someone who doesn't see things as you do. It greatly concerns me when I see professing Christians making doctrinal mountains out of molehills. Healing may happen, yes, but there is no biblical mandate whatever for thinking it ought to be a "mainstay" of Christianity - as I pointed out to you from Scripture.



??? Sorry, no idea what you are talking about here...

You are free to perceive as you like. What is the value of bantering with you in the Scriptures? I am sure you have already know all the arguments, yet you choose to disbelieve.

I'm not really talking about healing only, I'm talking about all the gifts and all the signs that Jesus says will follow those who believe in Mark 16. So, the Holy Spirit is a Person in the Godhead, correct? The Holy Spirit came here with gifts. If the Holy Spirit is still present today, why would He no longer have those gifts? If they were only for during the Apostles, why were Philip's daughters called prophetesses? Did God not know that they would be alive when the Apostles died? Why all the discussion in the Scriptures on the gifts? Did the Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture, not realize that His gifts were going to be null and void by the time the Epistles were published into the Book that some claim is the "perfect thing that is to come." And, yet, how could such a Book be perfect if whole chapters are void by the time the Book comes out? But, if we expect the gifts are still active today, we study what that means and we realize that not everyone is given the gift of healing. But, according to James, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. He, then, compares us to Elijah and describes how Elijah's prayer stopped the rain and started it back again. And, we are told to "confess our faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you might be healed". It seems like James wouldn't agree with your take on the rarity of healing. Paul certainly wouldn't either since he is instructing people to "covet the best gifts" and "desire spiritual gifts" not to mention the amount of time he spent talking about the gifts and how they should be used. Jesus wouldn't seem to either (Mark 16:15-18 and John 14:12--for two instances). Jesus didn't just do everything, He sent His followers out while He was here and they saw healings and deliverances. Why would He have His immediate followers do the works? Whatever your reason, why would that be any less important today? Philip didn't write Scripture, nor did Stephen.

So, if Jesus says those who believe will do these things, and you don't do these things, then how can you say you believe (by Jesus' definition)?

You claim that I'm making "doctrinal mountains out of molehills"; but the reality is the people claiming the gifts have stopped have built false mountains that prevent ignorant followers from seeing the Truth. Belief that requires little supernatural involvement from God doesn't require much faith and is often very shallow. Since, I was one of those ignorant blind followers, I care for those who are still bound by the lie. Maybe we would see a lot more healing and deliverance....Maybe the church today would look a lot less impotent, if we didn't allow people to pigeonhole the real Truth as just a little molehill that we shouldn't make a big deal about.

So, when we talk about Scriptural Truth, let's make sure we are talking about the whole Scriptural Truth and not just the piece you feel comfortable with.

Give me a Scriptural reason why healing shouldn't be something we expect, as believers?

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

This isn't an issue for debate and I would hope my comment would not suggest that. I'm speaking of my personal protocol. I did not apply it to anyone else. More importantly, I have been healed on three instances by the Lord. I think I'm qualified to say what is appropriate for me. Two of those instances involved incurable diseases.

The individual who lays hands on another is God's conduit or is operating through another medium. I have elected not to put myself in that situation. Others are welcome to do so. I would not begrudge someone who wanted to pray on my behalf. But I will not have hands laid on me by anyone.

And you certainly have the right to set up your own boundaries. Just know that isn't backed by Scripture. You certainly don't have to go to a healing meeting (if God doesn't direct you to), but to reject the prayer of another believer is out of fear, not discernment. Again, you can make that choice, but it shouldn't be confused with walking in the Spirit.