A LETTER FROM JAMES

Chapter 5 – Part 3

The Power of Prayer

13 Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. 14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.

16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. 17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! 18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

James now moves on to a very heavy part of his message which has tended to create re-occurring anxiety and complexity within the Christian church over the centuries. How does the pilgrim, endeavouring to live the kingdom lifestyle, address, cope with and resolve hardship and suffering? It may well be that no commentator on this passage has ever adequately addressed the subject matter and, all too often, it has given rise to erroneous theology and wrongly focused Christian direction.

No section of the Bible can be taken in isolation
but needs to be filtered through the complete lens
of biblical understanding.

No section of the Bible can be taken in isolation but needs to be filtered through the complete lens of biblical understanding, and this is particularly true of this section on healing. The church has moved between both ends of the pendulum, either elevating divine healing to an obsessive emphasis or totally ignoring it all together. Neither stance is helpful nor theologically correct.

In such moments of illness, particularly, severe or terminal illness, we need the fervent support of like-minded Christians. God’s design and desire for humanity is that they should live in an authentic and caring community and nowhere is this more undeniable, than within the Christian community. It is a community infused with God’s love and empowered by the Spirit of Jesus to reach out and comfort, with everyday practical support, those who are suffering.

It is a sharing, caring community and we must take every opportunity to reveal our suffering and concerns with those with whom we share that community. We also need to understand that ministry to those suffering is prayer, plus Christian compassion and action. Telling someone that is suffering that you will pray for them has to be followed with actions that speak as loud as the prayers.

When facing illness and suffering, how do I respond? I think the first thing James is saying is that we are to live in the moment, shared with our Christian community and wrapped by prayer. It is crucial at such times that we are authentic and honest with ourselves and confront and accept the changing and conflicting emotions:

Suffering hardships?  - pray.

Happy? - sing praises. 

Sick – seek support from the church - come and pray over you.

When it comes to this matter of healing there are issues we need to understand if we are to make any sense from the words of James.

Early Christian Hospital.

• God is sovereign and can intervene in any human situation that He chooses, including healing. However, we have no right to demand anything from Him. There is a danger inherent here that false or unbalanced expectation can shatter a person’s faith should healing not occur.
• The concept of healing is not the main theme of the Gospel and we border on heresy when we elevate it above the central theme of the Bible: which is the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and humanity’s salvation available through Him. We need to be on guard against the temptation to take some of the more spectacular and overstated parts of the Bible and turn them into ostentatious expressions of lesser theology.
• Since the time of Jesus the Christian church has always been at the forefront of healing and ministry to the sick and much of our modern hospital systems, owe their inception and development to Christianity. Christianity has always understood, and psychotherapy confirms it, that there is an indelible link between mind and body. Our attitude to life, faith and relationships impact our physical condition.
• This is a subject that needs to be sensitively and wisely handled. It is wise to note that there is a link here between healing and forgiveness. It is well understood that guilt can, in many circumstances, stimulate ill-health and forgiveness is a healing balm.
• In all that we do in relation to prayer for healing it must always be couched in the example of Jesus – I want your will to be done, not mine, (Matthew 26:39 – NLT)
• We can never fully comprehend the mind and will of God – it is beyond us and some circumstances just need to be accepted even though we do not understand. If ever there was a complexity around God’s way it was evident in WW2 when over 6 million Jews, God’s chosen people, were murdered by the German Nazi regime. If ever there was a time when we felt God should have miraculously intervened it was then. But He didn’t. However, that barbarity was the catalyst that enabled world leadership to fulfil God’s plan for his chosen people, dispersed over the world for thousands of years, and bring them back to the land God had promised to their ancestors, the modern state of Israel.
• We live in a fallen and disease-ridden world and the Christian life is not an insurance policy against this world we have to live in.

            Restore Wandering Believers

19 My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, 20 you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back from wandering will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.

It is worth noting that James concludes his letter with an appeal to Christians to strive to restore backsliders. The reality is that it is all too easy to simply write-off those who have left our fellowship and turn our thoughts and energies to other things. However, that is not the heart of Jesus as he so poignantly illustrated in the parable of the lost sheep.

The reality of Christian life is that there will always be those who wander away from the truth. Inherent in the teaching of the Bible is the obligation for every Christian has to try and restore those who have wandered away, regardless of the circumstances. It is true that we are each responsible for our response to God and finding the path to our own salvation. However, James is seeing the bigger picture that embraces our Christian responsibilities and compassion; that of helping a fellow pilgrim find their way back to God.

It is very easy to become frustrated and impatient with a fellow Christian who seems intent on their own spiritual destruction and just throw up our hands in despair. Implied in Jesus answer to Peter about forgiveness (see Matthew 18:21-22) is the concept of unending patience with errant people. We never know when exactly it is that the Holy Spirit will break through with inner light and understanding and it is the Christian responsibility to “hang in there” until the light breaks.

In the final analysis, what we are about is a rescue mission and if life teaches us anything at all it is that rescue is a difficult, dangerous and at times, unrewarding task. However, no matter how hard and difficult the mission, when we are successful we will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins. The end result will be worth the patience and effort needed.

Video meditation: Rescue the perishing (Click on or paste link)
https://youtu.be/syxKUsW1jaw