It is easy to criticise those who pray for healing or
material provision, especially when we come from a comfortable, suburban or
academic, social location. Sociology often shapes theology, frequently
unconsciously. Prosperity teaching appeals frequently to the urban poor and
immigrants, who desperately need God to come through for them.
It was in the inner city that I learned to pray, for example, for finances, not when ministering to rich millionaires, but asking God to provide for people’s rent, bills, and debts. Low level stuff. Prayer ministry lines developed, to intercede for immigration visas and housing problems, not goose-bumps for middle class charismatics.
It was in the inner city that I learned to pray, for example, for finances, not when ministering to rich millionaires, but asking God to provide for people’s rent, bills, and debts. Low level stuff. Prayer ministry lines developed, to intercede for immigration visas and housing problems, not goose-bumps for middle class charismatics.
The problem for many evangelicals, though, is that they
are so frightened of the dangers in prosperity teaching, they don’t engage with
Scripture’s teaching on prayer. One Sunday, someone left our service, accusing
us precisely of prosperity teaching, simply because our preacher had encouraged
people to pray expecting something from God (Acs. 3.5).
I also remember a seminary student coming to me, asking if it was OK to pray for healing. They had become so confused, by all the caveats and provisos, with which their lecturers had surrounded the issue, no doubt for wise pastoral reasons, that they’d lost confidence. But it is clear that God invites, even commands, us to come to him with our needs (Mt. 11.28 & Phil. 4.6).
I admit that my practice has not always been ‘successful’. There are many times when my prayers for people haven’t been answered by their obvious healing. Nevertheless I do believe that God always answers our prayers, though I accept that he often, maybe usually, does so in ways we don’t understand.
In the words of the old African-American spiritual, ‘The Heavenly Telephone’, we just have to ‘call him up and tell him what you want’- but then, for our sanity, we must leave the results up to him. We’re not in control, we have to trust in the goodness of his sovereignty and providence (Ro. 8.28).
Certainly, Jesus’ promise of ‘greater things’ (Jn. 14.12) hasn’t been fulfilled in my experience. This is a perpetual challenge to me. However, it also therefore provides me with an agenda for spiritual growth, an area I can hope to develop into, to keep pressing into the promises of God. This must be so for every Christian, unless we adopt a preconceived cessationist antipathy to any claims of the miraculous.
Where the normative practice is healing prayer, there is a danger, however, of raising expectations unrealistically. Often, despondency sets in, when healing doesn’t occur, because there is then nothing a charismatic church can offer as support. So one colleague therefore instigated groups, for the bereaved, and those with chronic, longterm, illnesses - to help people receive God’s wholeness in a deeper sense.
Here, prayer for healing shades off into regular pastoral care. So that, as in all these debates, the issue is to widen our ministry of healing, to include all aspects of God’s healing work, rather than narrowing it down.
I also remember a seminary student coming to me, asking if it was OK to pray for healing. They had become so confused, by all the caveats and provisos, with which their lecturers had surrounded the issue, no doubt for wise pastoral reasons, that they’d lost confidence. But it is clear that God invites, even commands, us to come to him with our needs (Mt. 11.28 & Phil. 4.6).
I admit that my practice has not always been ‘successful’. There are many times when my prayers for people haven’t been answered by their obvious healing. Nevertheless I do believe that God always answers our prayers, though I accept that he often, maybe usually, does so in ways we don’t understand.
In the words of the old African-American spiritual, ‘The Heavenly Telephone’, we just have to ‘call him up and tell him what you want’- but then, for our sanity, we must leave the results up to him. We’re not in control, we have to trust in the goodness of his sovereignty and providence (Ro. 8.28).
Certainly, Jesus’ promise of ‘greater things’ (Jn. 14.12) hasn’t been fulfilled in my experience. This is a perpetual challenge to me. However, it also therefore provides me with an agenda for spiritual growth, an area I can hope to develop into, to keep pressing into the promises of God. This must be so for every Christian, unless we adopt a preconceived cessationist antipathy to any claims of the miraculous.
Where the normative practice is healing prayer, there is a danger, however, of raising expectations unrealistically. Often, despondency sets in, when healing doesn’t occur, because there is then nothing a charismatic church can offer as support. So one colleague therefore instigated groups, for the bereaved, and those with chronic, longterm, illnesses - to help people receive God’s wholeness in a deeper sense.
Here, prayer for healing shades off into regular pastoral care. So that, as in all these debates, the issue is to widen our ministry of healing, to include all aspects of God’s healing work, rather than narrowing it down.
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