RE: prayer and healing

I have done an e-mail devotional study for several years. I go to an online
concordance which has many Bible versions and I put in a word or words. I
then read all the pertinent verses. I may do this in several versions. I may
use the whole Bible, or only the NT. I may go to Strong's and look up the
words and their definitions. The site has a button for 'in context' and I
use that any time I do not already know the context.

I have several Catholics on my distribution list. One, in particular,
insists that my devotionals are Catholic. The reason is, that when you take
the promises of God in context, and with all the others, it is always a
two-way contract. The believer must do A in order to expect B. The promises
are inevitably 'if then' statements.

My studies aren't Catholic. They are contextual. If we are in line with
God's word and if we believe, then we see results. Prayer without both
obedience and faith doesn't have promise of results, when taken in overall
context.

A study on prayer inherently cannot be scientific. We cannot possibly know
the faith of the one who prays. We can hardly know the obedience. And Jesus
made it clear that the receiver of blessings must also believe in the vast
majority of cases.

I believe that my life is a more valid scientific study. I have positive
hours and negative hours. I reap the results of each. I have had well over
100,000 waking hours since I became cognizant of these principals. I believe
that that is a statistically sound study - and the results are more than
conclusive. Prayer with believing and obedience works.

  -----Original Message-----
  From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of Janice Matchett
  Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2006 11:40 AM
  To: Mervin Bitikofer; asa@calvin.edu
  Subject: Re: prayer and healing

  At 08:57 PM 3/31/2006, Mervin Bitikofer wrote:

    "...As C.S. Lewis once noted, Jesus' promise as given in Mark 11 (after
withered fig tree) is that whatever we ask for in prayer, if we believe it,
it will be done for us. No caveat that it must be within God's will. No
conditional that is has to be something 'good'. Just believe, and it will
be done. Lewis concludes that new believers should certainly not be
tantalized with passages like this before some maturity of immersion in the
wider body of scripture. But how do you literalists deal with passages like
this? Or at the end of Mark (I've been reading Mark lately) -- the signs
that WILL accompany those who believe: they will handle snakes and drink
deadly poison without harm. How many sermons have you heard preached on
that passage? I view all scripture as authoritative from God, but I can
sure understand the eye-rolling delight agnostics get from passages like
this and from us in our "bend-over-backward" antics to explain why certain
passages "don't apply." Probably, I'll get a half dozen well polished
reasons from some of you about why snake-handling, etc. can be dismissed as
a cultural difference or some other thing. And I can guarantee you that all
such explanations (some of which may be entirely correct IMO) will still
elicit only condescending smiles from hostile challengers who will only see
the "convenience" of our dismissal. Out of a two thousand year history of
Christianity, has a mountain every been thrown into the sea? Maybe nobody
in Christendom has ever been able to "believe" enough. Yes, I know, it's
only metaphorical mountains that are cast aside, we tell ourselves. "How
convenient!" my athiest friend would respond. (He's a literalist like
some of you apparently are, and extremely stubborn about it.) So how do we
answer people in this mode of thought? --merv

  @ You want to attempt to "reason" with clueless emotional basket-cases
who hold polar opposite opinions, ideas and beliefs simultaneously - denying
the law of noncontradiction ????

  This is the sort of "answer" such mentalities should get:

  Insert Prayer for Gumball

  Does the Bible Teach that Prayer Can Get You Anything? James Patrick
Holding

    Matthew 21:21-22 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto
you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is
done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou
removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things,
whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

    Matthew 18:19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on
earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them
of my Father which is in heaven.

    1 John 5:14-15 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if
we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that
he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we
desired of him.

  From these verses spring all manner of issues, from a variety of sources.
Skeptic and apostate Dan Barker (Losing Faith in Faith, 108) says, "Honest
Christians know that these verses are false. It does no good to claim that
many prayers are unanswered because they are not 'according to his will.'
Even prayers that are clearly in line with the expressed 'will of God' are
rarely successful." On the other end, some within Christendom abuse these
verses for the purpose of trying to get rich.

  One is constrained to ask, of course, where it is Barker has recorded the
"expressed will of God" -- he provides no examples of this. But it is
needful to closely examine these verses and dispel arguments and abuses from
both sides of the fence.
  Matthew 18:19 -- First, as always, context is important, and let's see in
what context this verse is offered:

    Matthew 18:15-20 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go
and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee,
thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with
thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word
may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the
church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a
heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall
agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done
for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

  Barker illicitly isolates Matthew 18:19 from its context to make it look
like a general instruction on how to pray for whatever you want in any
context. This passage follows instructions for pursuing "sheep" (members of
the believing community) who go astray. Verses 15-18 are further
instructions for community discipline. Verse 19 is an amplification on verse
18, using the "Again, I say unto you" which indicates an expansion of what
has been noted previously. Thus, even so far we see that whatever verse 19
means, it is restricted to the context of discipline within the believing
community of Christ. It is not, as Barker imagines, or as health and wealth
gospel preachers suppose, a license to request anything. (If this is what
Barker once thought, little wonder he apostasized! But his poor study habits
in Bible school are no excuse for leaving the faith.)

  So then, in this context, what is this prayer for? Verse 18 refers to
binding and loosing, a metaphor in this period to judicial authority. The
allusion is to the fact that in Jewish thought of the time, "the halakic
decisions of the community have the authority of heaven itself." [Keener,
454] The word for "thing" (pragma) is "a term frequently limited to judicial
matters." (Blomberg commentary on Matthew, 281; Harrington commentary on
Matthew, 269). The reference to two agreeing mirrors the situation in a
Jewish court representing the community in which two out of three witnesses
agree. "where the Shekinah abides with the court that judges justly" (Hagner
commentary on Matthew, 533) The action described (v. 17) is the
disfellowship of an unrepentant sinner from the community of believers,
something which in turn is recognized in Heaven. This is the only context
for this instruction. It does not even have tangible, earthly results; it is
an issue of status.

  (Side note: Whether this was an irreversible procedure -- whether the
apostasy was permanent -- is a topic reserved for our discussion on
perseverance of the saints. However, Keener notes that "Jewish
excommunication even in its long-term form was normally reversible if
repentance took place".)

  Matthew 21:21-22 (also Matthew 7:7-8, John 14:13-14) -- This one might
seem to skeptics to be more difficult to defend. "There's no context here to
fall back on!" they may say. Isn't there? Here are some considerations. How
realistic is it to think that this is a license to overturn topographical
features? This is certainly an example of hyperbole, indeed, of the same
sort used in Luke 14:26. The phrase "moving mountains" was "a Jewish
metaphor for accomplishing what was difficult or virtually impossible" and
"points to the hyperbole of what is being said" (Hagner, 605) Later rabbis
would ask for signs validating their views consisting of objects being
uprooted. "Yeah, but --" the skeptic says, "-- this still means, then, that
if you have faith, whatever you want will be done, maybe not
mountain-moving, but surely big stuff!" Health and wealthers will say, "If
that thing you wanted didn't get done, you didn't have enough faith." In
previous contexts I explained this by noting that the person with faith does
not ask for that which God would not or does not will; prayer is a two-way
street, not a request hotline for all that we want. This is not just a
brush-off or a simplistic solution, but is grounded in the realities and
thought of the time of the Bible. In Jewish thought, God was sovereign.
Nothing happened that God did not permit or cause. "Early Jewish teaching
did celebrate God's kindness in answering prayer, but rarely promises such
universal answers to prayer to all of God's people as the language
suggests." [Keener, 245] Only a small number of sages were considered pious
enough to ask for and receive whatever they wanted -- and that piety was
their key indicates that they weren't going around asking for just anything
they wanted (like Hanina ben Dosa, and Honi the Circle-Drawer), but only
what they supposed to be in the will of God. "Such a call to believing
prayer supposes a heart of piety submitted to God's will..."

  Finally, let us note that limitations are clearly set by the context. The
Lord's Prayer instructs us to pray for daily needs (Matt. 6:11) -- it does
not say, "Give us this day a Rolls Royce." Earthly children ask for bread or
fish (7:9-10) which are "basic staples in the Palestinian diet" that were
provided to children on a regular basis. We can ask for "good things"
(7:11), a term which sometimes referred to prosperity generally, but also
"referred to agricultural produce that the righteous would share with with
others (Test. Iss. 3:7-8)." (For more on "faith", see here.)

  This leads to 1 John 5:14-15, which was written to Gentile readers, and
thus it is appropriate that John added the qualifying phrase, "according to
his will" -- such a qualifier would have been unnecessary for Jesus' Jewish
audience. It would go without saying that that mountain (even a literal one)
would go nowhere without God's approval implied. Indeed, the rabbinic use of
the same verbiage which we have noted confirms this. Matthew does indicate
this limitation when he notes that the context is what is asked for in
prayer -- thus limiting requests to what is within the will of God.

  Now let's look at other verses sometimes cited to "prove" the inefficacy
of prayer:

    Luke 22:31-3 "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I
have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have
turned back, strengthen your brothers."

  Since Peter's faith did "fail", the critics say, prayer must be worthless.
Our arguments above suggest that the complaint is misguided: If it was not
in God's will to prop up Peter's faith, so be it; and one can hardly
complain that things didn't turn out for the better. Peter's experience of
failure undoubtedly was an experience that honed him into the powerhouse
that he became. Even so, this prayer did not fail -- the word "fail"
(ekleipo), used only three times, twice in Luke and in Hebrews once, refers
to a quite permanent condition (Luke 16:9 And I say unto you, Make to
yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail,
they may receive you into everlasting habitations.; Hebrews 1:12 And as a
vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the
same, and thy years shall not fail.) Peter's courage left him, but he never
actually stopped believing in Jesus -- indeed, the passage assumes he will
have a failure of some kind, and then turn around ("converted" -- the word
is used to mean turning around).

  So we are left with this: Skeptics like Barker can only vaguely claim that
something "clearly in line" with God's will wasn't granted. Barker has no
roll of God's will that I know of; indeed, how could he know the will of a
being he does not believe in? Health and wealth advocates may qualify by
claiming it is God's will that we be rich -- an issue that must be addressed
and defeated on other hermeneutical grounds. The bottom line: These passages
are not magical mantras, and should not be used as such.

  Sources
  Keener, commentary on Matthew, 454ff.
  http://www.tektonics.org/lp/prayfor.html
Received on Sat Apr 1 12:16:27 2006