Prayer, anointing with oil, and healing

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. James 5:13-15

A tricky passage, this. Why? Because it seems to “promise more than it delivers”.

There’s no problem about praying for those “in trouble”, of course; that’s fundamental to our faith, something we do very day. Nor, of course, with “singing songs of praise” when we’re “happy”; why wouldn’t we?

But it’s in the next part that we might start to feel a little uncomfortable. When we’re sick, James tells us, we should “call the elders of the church” to pray over us, and get them to “anoint us with oil in the name of the Lord”. Certainly, we don’t have a problem with praying for the sick; we do it routinely. But James clearly has something more in mind: he envisages a gathering of the church “elders” for this purpose, and he explicitly recommends that such a prayer time should be accompanied with “anointing with oil in the name of the Lord”. Many of us may feel at this point that we’re getting a little “out of our comfort zone”!

Still worse (so to speak) is to come: “And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well”. Not, notice, “may make the sick person well”, but will make the sick person well”; no ifs, no buts. You see what I mean by “promising more than it delivers”.

We may feel like replying to James, “No, James, our experience just isn’t like that! We take the point about faith, just as Jesus said, and we are only too conscious of the weakness of our faith. But we know Christians of deep and even radiant faith who didn’t, or don’t, experience healing. Sorry, James, but you’re surely overstating your case. Life just isn’t like what you say”.

This is a difficulty there’s no wriggling out of - not, at least, if we are determined to be honest. Whether we like it or not, experience seems to contradict scripture. So what are we to do?

One possibility is simply to ignore it – it becomes one of those passages we file away in our minds as “not for now”, perhaps deep down recognising that “now” will probably never come. So it becomes an irritating niggle at the back of our minds.

If we are of a more determined spirit we might, second, collect whatever Bible commentaries and other books are relevant and hope for enlightenment. Good! But I’m afraid it’s very likely we will end up disappointed and even confused, for we will find that even the “experts” (perhaps I should say “especially the experts, including those who have good reputations for their biblical soundness) cannot agree, so we are no further forward.

Some well-respected scholars will tell us that miraculous events happened, certainly, in New Testament days, but that after that they ceased, so we shouldn’t expect them today. (I have heard it claimed, for example, that Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 13:10, “when completeness [or “perfection”] comes, what is in part disappears” refers to the “completeness” of the whole Bible, something we now have, and that it renders “signs and wonders” obsolete. But that is decidedly forced and artificial! – raising the question why, if that is the case, James’ words were ever included in the Bible in the first place.)

I fully accept that there are parts of the Bible which were never intended to be taken strictly literally for all time – the six days of creation, for example, or the instruction that women in worship should always have their heads covered. But James 5:13-16 doesn’t read like that; James writes in such a matter-of-fact way that it’s hard to avoid the feeling that he intends his words to be taken at face value: follow this procedure, and healing will result.

So, the question again: what should we do? I wish I had an easy answer, but I don’t. Let me just offer a couple of thoughts.

First, such passages as this can serve as a test-case for the way we read our Bibles.

It’s a basic rule of Bible interpretation that we should interpret it in the most natural way – whether “literal” or not - not twisting ourselves into contortions in order to get round difficult passages. Putting that another way, we should read the Bible as we find it, as it is, not as we would like to find it, or as we think we ought to find it, or even as some learned scholar tells us we should find it. James, writing this chapter, obviously had high expectations of direct and even miraculous answers to prayer, and that is a fact which, as I suggested earlier, it’s not really honest to try and wriggle out of, so let’s look it fair and square in the face. Better to honestly hold up our hands and say, “I just don’t see how to understand this!” than to multiply various unlikely alternative possibilities.

A question for every Bible-reader: am I honest in my reading, tackling tricky passages head-on and being open to possibilities that make me a little uncomfortable, or do I just limit myself to the nice, easy passages, the ones I feel comfortable with?

Second, a few thoughts about the whole question of prayer for the sick (with or without anointing with oil). But I’m afraid we will have to leave that till next time…

Father, I confess that there are places in your word that leave me puzzled and even confused. But thank you for those parts where the meaning is glowingly and wonderfully clear. Help me to grow in my faith both by luxuriating in the clear passages and by wrestling honestly with the hard ones. Amen.

More than ten years ago a book was published called How to read the Bible for all its worth, by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, respectively an Old and New Testament specialist. Not always an easy read (but then the Bible isn’t always an easy book, as we have seen!), but it has stood the test of time. Worth looking out for if you are serious about your Bible reading.