Tentpegs

We have dealt with The Problem of Prayer before in this series, but it is probably time to revisit it.

In our study last night my wife and I discussed James 5:13-20. I admitted that I struggle with these sorts of passages because they are incredibly clear, and yet don’t seem to mesh with experience. We can open a back door by saying
1) the healing will only happen when it also correlates with God’s will
2) the healing will only happen if the person in question has no doubt whatsoever, and when there is not a healing there is some amount of disbelief
3) the healing in James is a spiritual healing similar to Mark 2:1-12
However, none of these “outs” seem like they are actually offered in James, they are not the obvious clear meaning of the text. What do we do when Scripture does not seem to correlate with experience?

I have previously admitted that I have had several faith struggles in my life, chief among which have been struggles with unanswered prayer (and don’t tell me “He answered! He just said no!”). The questioner is correct: James makes this rather formulaic and seems to guarantee positive results. We could go to the earlier sections of James and see that he, himself, gives us exceptions to this. If we ask while doubting, while in conflict with our brothers, or if we fail to ask — we don’t get. He isn’t shy about reminding us about why some prayers fail. Still, it certainly seems as if he believes that prayer should work and, if we approach it correctly, it always will. Is that your experience? It isn’t mine and I would imagine it isn’t yours, either.

One of the real problems we have with interpreting this book is that we fail to place it in its historical context. James was the brother of Jesus. He came to faith after Jesus’ resurrection. While he was late to the party, he arrived with everything he had. His nickname among his friends was “camel knees” due to the callouses he developed during his daily hours of prayer. He was wise and devout enough to be considered the leader of the elders at Jerusalem when Paul brought in questions about what Gentiles could be required to do. Still, we need to place him firmly in the brief period in which he lived and wrote. He came to faith sometime after 33AD and was killed in 62AD. The stories of his death vary slightly but it seems that he was thrown off the roof of the temple. The fall didn’t kill him so a judicial mob stoned him and struck him in the head with a staff until he died. (the Empire was briefly between emperors and so the judicial murder was legal, but only barely so. The High Priest Ananus ben Ananus ordered his death for “offending the people.”)

During the time in which James wrote his books, miracles were everywhere. People could be healed by touching bits of cloth that Paul had touched. The apostles had passed the gift of healing along by the laying on of hands (though it seems that those who received it were not able to pass it along themselves. It had to come from the hand of an apostle, unless we are mistaken in our interpretation of those events). Something happened shortly after that time: the miracles dried up. Paul himself could only advise Timothy to drink wine for his stomach ailments and personally cared for a beloved brother who nearly died from another sickness. He healed no longer and, it seems, his experience was not unique. That has led many to believe that the time of miracles was rather like the scaffolding on a building. Once the building has been firmly established, the scaffolding is removed. Paul himself, in the famous love chapter of First Corinthians 13, said everything will cease but faith, hope, and love.

James lived and wrote during the heyday of healing. He could confidently give instructions knowing that they would achieve the desired results. Later, things changed and, had he lived, he would have had something to say about that… but we can only guess what it might have been. Still, there is much good to be mined from his discussion of prayer. We must pray with confidence and persistence(we could also get that from Luke 11) without doubting that God will give us what is right when it is time for Him to give it. We can still anoint with oil (that was medicine and a way to comfort people, easing their dis-ease. We don’t have to use oil. We can use medicine, foods, better beds, etc.) and still confess our sins and prayer for both spiritual and physical healing.

While I would love to live in a world of constant miracles (I think), I live in a world in which God breaks in from time to time to do something incredible but, most of the time, requires us to walk by faith, not by sight. James, certainly, would counsel patience and endurance for those in that kind of world.