If the Bible speaks of faith healing, why does not work?

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lion_of_judah

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Why does it not work when parents pray for their kids instead of sending them to doctors? I assume they are following what James said in his epistle about healing, or what Jesus supposently said about the signs that follow those that believe.

But why doesn’t it work if it’s in Scripture?
 
Where does it say that the person’s **illness **will be healed?

13 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone in good spirits? He should sing praise.*** 14 ****** Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint (him) with oil in the name of the Lord,****** 15 ****** and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.*** *** 16 ****** Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.

***I think the prayers of the faithful are praying for what’s important - the state of the ill person’s soul.
 
St. Augustine says that when you first plant a tree you water it every day, but then when it gets strong you stop because it can take care of itself. This is the way miracles in the Church work too. Now that we have the sacraments and the Church is everywhere, it is no longer necessary to water the tree…

I’m not doing much justice to St. Augustine here. But you can check the Homily lessons for the III Nocturn on the Saturday before Pentecost in the traditional Breviarium Romanum for a better understanding.

Oh, and another thing. Sometimes they still do work.

A few months ago on Holy Thursday I got a call from my sister telling me her non-Catholic friend had a bike accident and her skull was pushed into her brain. I called my pastor who went to this girls bedside. He got permission from her mother to bring her into the Church and gave her extreme unction. Now a girl who was expected to die within days has recovered and is in therapy, but talking, aware, etc.

Will she accept the Church? Who knows, but she has another chance. Deo gratias!
 
well, I don’t believe in the whole no more miracles things, because Jesus didn’t put a time limit on it, so we shouldn’t either. lol
 
Who said no more miracles? I believe St. Augustine was talking about frequency, not possibility.

:coffeeread:
 
Still, I will assume it was his opinion. But Jesus did say, supposedly, that “these signs will follow them that believe:”, and you know the rest.

And people today still believe, so since Jesus said it, it must mean today also. 👍
 
:confused:

Yes, still today, St. Augustine was talking about frequency and necessity. Since we have the sacraments there is less need for these signs.

I’ll also point out that if you look at these gifts of the Holy Spirit, they are usually coupled with sacraments in scripture. James 5 was cited above, and coupled with Extreme Unction. While tongues is associated with baptism after Peter and Paul baptize or confirm new Christians.

I see you are a Protestant. Have you ever considered becoming a Catholic?
:signofcross:
 
yeah I considered it, but I was not going to go to classes for like what, a year?

So I decided not to. 🙂
 
There are people today that continue to defy scientific explaination for their recovery. Many of the people involved have attributed these unexplained recoveries to prayer.

It’s important to remember that there is healing in suffering. Sometimes healing doesn’t occur for many years. Sometimes it doesn’t happen in this lifetime.

It’s also important to remember that sometimes the gift of God’s healing is present in the doctors and nurses and in medicine. Doctors only heal people by the grace of God.

Lastly, sometimes God doesn’t give us the answer we want. Jesus himself prayed that he wouldn’t have to endure his passion, yet this was necessary suffering. However, this suffering brought about great good. 👍
 
lion_of_judah said:
yeah I considered it, but I was not going to go to classes for like what, a year?

So I decided not to. 🙂
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1 day a week for like 6 months. 24 days. Going to college is harder than that and becoming Catholic will benefit you more long run than college ever will. 😃

Besides it takes 6 months or so for our small minds to get a small grasp of God’s truth. 👍
 
yeah, see, 1 day a week for 6 months, so that’s 24 days of learning what I assume is just the NT.
 
Before you reject the Church because you might have to take a little instruction, I would do some more investigation into what the Church teaches and why it is necessary for salvation.

In those classes you will not just study the New Testament…
 
Well, surely belief in the Lord doesn’t take more than a second, hence the reason some convert on their deathbed, or in the car, etc.

So if it didn’t take them 24 days, why should we go through 24 days?
 
NotWorthy said:
Where does it say that the person’s **illness **will be healed?

13 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone in good spirits? He should sing praise.*** 14 Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint (him) with oil in the name of the Lord, 15 ***and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven. ***16 ***Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.

I think the prayers of the faithful are praying for what’s important - the state of the ill person’s soul.
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That answer dodges the meaning of the text. It encourages the idea that God says a lot of fancy stuff which He has not the slightest intention of supporting by action. Such behaviour is despicable enough from a human being - it is far worse from a Being Who makes a big thing of being faithful to his words, more reliable than men, a god of truth, & all the rest of it.​

No - an honest-to-goodness God does not make lying & deceitful promises. A demon might well do those things - but not God. :mad:
 
06convert said:
There are people today that continue to defy scientific explaination for their recovery. Many of the people involved have attributed these unexplained recoveries to prayer.

It’s important to remember that there is healing in suffering. Sometimes healing doesn’t occur for many years. Sometimes it doesn’t happen in this lifetime.

It’s also important to remember that sometimes the gift of God’s healing is present in the doctors and nurses and in medicine. Doctors only heal people by the grace of God.

Lastly, sometimes God doesn’t give us the answer we want. Jesus himself prayed that he wouldn’t have to endure his passion, yet this was necessary suffering. However, this suffering brought about great good. 👍
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IOW - any disappointment based on having trusted God, can be explained away. That’s unconvincing - & anyone could give that same explanation for the failure of his gods to live up to their billing. Why does Isis not heal her worshippers, or Baal his ? Because they are great gods, who know better than their worshippers what is best for those worshippers,despite appearances. Result: Isis, Baal, god-or-goddess-of-whatever-name is a great & good deity who must still be trusted. 🙂​

Doctors heal by the grace of the gods Ninazu & Asklepios, among others: there is no way to disprove the healing power of either; it is mere bias that encourages us to imagine that our own god is responsible for healing anything. We’ve heard of ours - but that proves nothing; he could be a very minor deity, & the history of his worshippers certainly fits this possibility: a really great god would be able to take much better care of them; but his are slaughtered like cattle. Prayer to a can of beer & prayer to the Jewish-Christian deity would have the same results - except that one can enjoy the beer in the can; so prayer to a can of beer is actually superior to prayer to the Jewish-Christian deity: praying to the J-CD has no effects at all. Enjoying a beer does. 🙂
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

That answer dodges the meaning of the text. It encourages the idea that God says a lot of fancy stuff which He has not the slightest intention of supporting by action. Such behaviour is despicable enough from a human being - it is far worse from a Being Who makes a big thing of being faithful to his words, more reliable than men, a god of truth, & all the rest of it.​

No - an honest-to-goodness God does not make lying & deceitful promises. A demon might well do those things - but not God. :mad:
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Where did I imply that? ***… and the prayer of faith will save the sick person. *** I thought saving the sick person addresses what a person who is ill needs more than ever, salvation and forgiveness. Not a healthier body. I would have thought if the author was talking about their health, the text would read, and the prayer of faith will heal the sick person.

Besides, if we look at the Church as a miracle factory, we are looking for our own temporal needs and not our salvific needs (IMO).
 
lion_of_judah said:
well, it does say sick. 🙂
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And it does say “you will be saved” and “your sins will be forgiven”, and only then does it say “you will be healed”, but as a result of confessing your sins and praying for one another.

To me, the context of this passage is the Anointing of the Sick, which (thank God) has helped save far more souls than it has healed sicknesses (although there are known cases of miraculous healings).
 
lion_of_judah said:
Well, surely belief in the Lord doesn’t take more than a second, hence the reason some convert on their deathbed, or in the car, etc.

So if it didn’t take them 24 days, why should we go through 24 days?
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It doesn’t take 24 days to believe in God. It does take 24 days to get you off to a good start of living a good faithful Catholic life.
 
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