re: Bible and sickness

Don’t like em? And yet here you are.

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We got any snake handlers in this thread?

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I would think so. There's a protestant church on hwy 190 outside Erwinville that was suspiciously a snake farm before it became a church. I assume someone there is at least aware of TD.com

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the Bible says we can pray our sickness out. Does anyone believe this?

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Actually, I’ve read respectable articles reporting on research that shows that people who pray for improvement in sickness have better outcomes at a level to be statistically verifiable. Is it just positive thinking? Maybe. But it is real.

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FooManChoo

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A courteous, vigorous, thoughtful, and thorough reply.

My disagreement is not with cessation of Apostolic gifts as such. It’s taking James’s instructions to the Church regarding calling elders (whose duties, among others, is prayer) to anoint the sick and dis-eased with oil and pray for their healing and narrowly characterizing those instructions as strictly pertaining to the Apostolic age. I’m not persuaded those instructions ( and possibly that gift ) are necessarily confined to the Apostolic age.

Respecting normative.
Were all prayed for, at that time, under James’s instructions, healed? Or did perhaps the Holy Spirit ordain that some prayed for not be healed and die or continue to live with some affliction like St. Paul’s thorn or Timothy’s stomach affliction? To what degree do those times differ from our own? Everyone prayed for then healed and only one in ten thousand healed today? More one sided? Less one sided? To what can the difference be attributed? A purer more committed Church then but an anemic, compromised Church now? The presence of Apostles?

Are today’s Church’s legitimately ordained elders in some way less sanctified than those elders of Apostolic yore?
Can’t today’s elders, with reasonable expectations, follow Holy Scripture, anoint the sick with oil, pray, and the sick be healed with the Holy Spirit’s blessing and anointing?

Granted it may not be normative now (if it ever was ultra “happens all the time” normative). But how much of that may be because for many years orthodox scholars have proclaimed healing of the sick an extinct Apostolic gift.

Just as many Christians have been mislead and disappointed by false teachers, prosperity hucksters, and healing prayer cloth vendors-is it not possible that an equally disappointing and discouraging malaise has made its way into the marrow of the Church by creating an atmosphere, an attitude of “well, of course, you can call the elders, anoint the sick, and pray for healing, but it probably won’t work because that’s for them way back then-not so much for us now”?

Despite any differing beliefs or opinions I believe we both agree our great Triune God is sovereign and will have his will accomplished in all things.

His peace and his blessings be with you in abundance.

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I shite you not,

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And then you talk like this.

I believe it’s possible. If you believe in God- as the omnipresent, space less, timeless creator of the universe, then you kinda have to believe that He can do whatever He deems proper.
If you understand that you are going to spend eternity with Him in perfection, then this life takes on a different meaning, and is unmistakably changed.

Got questions.org

Seen it work multiple times for a variety of health issues. When scripture is followed and faith is present with repented hearts praying, things happen. The problem for people like you is that God doesn't heal everyone so he must heal no one. His ways are higher than our ways. Look at the world today. Christianity weakened; crime, evil and reprobate minds are presently the real pandemic.

Your post to attempt to make fun at a group of peoples faith was pretty weak and pathetic.

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and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick,

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This is how you end up with the nuts that won’t let the doctors give their children lifesaving drugs. To them it is a test of faith. They feel if God wants to take their kids, he’s going to take them.

I feel sympathy for those poor children who needlessly perish, but this is America and we are supposed to have freedom of religion and freedom of government intrusion. I think it’s wrong for the state to incarcerate the parents in those cases even if we all know they are nuts.

The snake handlers don’t even realize that Mark ends at chapter 16 verse 8 with the two Marys hauling arse in fear that Jesus was resurrected and they told no one! The snake handling verses are later additions by authors other than the original. Some scholars call that a forgery. All scholars acknowledge that some scribe took Mark, and since he didn’t like the way it ended, inserted some extra verses he borrowed and rearranged from the other 3 gospels. We have the original manuscripts which ended at chapter 16 verse 8.

Here is how Mark legitimately ends before the serpent handling was added:

8And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

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Does anyone here truly believe the Bible? The world has us going to medicine for every little thing, but the Bible says we can pray our sickness out. Does anyone believe this?

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This is not complete in context. You should understand that there are examples of situations where healing is done through prayer and laying on of hands but also examples where it is not completed by this means.
Paul had an unspecified thorn in his flesh which was not cured and had to be endured. His eyesight (possibly the same issue as the unspecified problem) could logically be inferred as poor - whether by injury, age or simply genetic. He had also been stoned and seriously injured - surely with lingering effects. Timothy had a stomach ailment which he cured not through prayer, but through a bit of wine.
The point is that this is not an infallable magic spell which belongs to man to wield wholly at his will, but a method of drawing man closer to God and to man's community of faith.
Consider Moses' striking the rock for water after his people grumbled about their lack of water. What he did on his own initiative was strike vs calling for water as he was directed to do.
So is it failing a testing which causes failure?
Timing?
Improper method?
Or is it simply that the answer is, "No" for some unseen purpose?
His ways are not our ways. His thinking is not our thinking. Just the way things are.
But yes, I do believe. I am just not confident that I understand all things completely and try to tread lightly. Humbly.