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Your reference to apologists hiding behind smoke screens makes your bias, and your intent for posting this thread (as well as your other threads) all too obvious.
Actually, the key to understanding what is being said here is indeed context. James is not referring to physical healing, but to spiritual healing.
Below is a class on James 5:13-20 given by Dr. Robert Dean of West Houston Bible Church. If anyone is interested then simply click to listen.
What follows is a transcript of the class above. Here is an excerpt of the transcript:
James 5:15 “and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick [weary].” So now we have a new translation here that is a little more accurate: [13] “Is anyone among you facing adversity? Let him pray. Is anyone encouraged [strengthened]? Let him sing praises. [14] Is anyone among you weary [weak spiritually]? {Then} he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; [15] and the prayer offered in faith will strengthen the one who is weary, and the Lord will lift him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.”
Looking at the last part of that verse we realize that maybe we are talking about something different from physical sickness, because as soon as we introduce the concept of sin we realize that what had happened was that this person had been converting the outside pressure of adversity into the inside pressure of stress in the soul. Their soul is fragmenting, it is compounding itself, they are a diyuxoj believer, double-minded, unstable in all their ways, and they have reached appoint where they are incapable of going forward. They are overwhelmed by depression, by discouragement, by failure, and so this is giving God’s solution here and it is related to the use of the faith-rest drill, specifically manifested in prayer.
Another thing we need to look at is some of the words for restoration that are used in the passage. V. 15: “The prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick.” The word there for “restore” is SOZO [swzw]. It means to deliver, and to save. The root meaning is to deliver and it is always necessary to look at the context to see what the deliverance is from. This is talking about realizing maturity in the spiritual life. Then it says the Lord will “raise him up,” the future tense EGEIRO [e)geirw] meaning to lift, to raise, to lift up, to restore, to stimulate or awaken. So we have a picture of a carnal believer, maybe a reversionist, who is completely away from the Lord, fragmenting his soul, and then he turns back but really doesn’t have the strength on his own because he has so blown it in his spiritual life that he calls other believers to pray for him.
I didn't expect you to listen to the class. You are too far gone in apostasy and I leave you to it. I posted the class given by Dr. Dean for anyone who is interested in understanding what James was referring to.
If what you say is true then you would be able to exposit yourself and not need the crutch of others' works...
Originally Posted by Mike555 I didn't expect you to listen to the class. You are too far gone in apostasy and I leave you to it. I posted the class given by Dr. Dean for anyone who is interested in understanding what James was referring to.
originally Posted by Richard1965
If what you say is true then you would be able to exposit yourself and not need the crutch of others' works...
Well, with you Mike it's always a spiritual matter. It's the last refuge of a fundamentalist who has no other explanation for the obvious failure of the scriptures because when you argue spiritual the sky's the limit for excuses, so I'll stop right there as well and call your defense utterly ridiculous and without merit.
using commonsense and reason is the last refuge of the the fundamentalist?
I am not sure what to say. On one hand we make progress in dumping the magic and addressing the human element and on the other hand we shout down the person making progress.
so using a human as a focal point to help us, well, focus doesn't make sense to you? as a deist you don't see that?
Fundy-literal cannot see out side of the boxes they put themselves in. There are many belief boxes to live in. The expression of the belief can clue us in on intensity of the emotion felt in that brain. Fear, loneliness, codependency, OCD, abused, loss, jealousy, and revenge.
Indeed, but I believe that means he does not believe in the God of the Bible or rather, God as depicted in the Bible. But then, come to think of it, neither does Mystic phd.
Your reference to apologists hiding behind smoke screens makes your bias, and your intent for posting this thread (as well as your other threads) all too obvious.
Actually, the key to understanding what is being said here is indeed context. James is not referring to physical healing, but to spiritual healing.
Below is a class on James 5:13-20 given by Dr. Robert Dean of West Houston Bible Church. If anyone is interested then simply click to listen.
What follows is a transcript of the class above. Here is an excerpt of the transcript:
James 5:15 “and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick [weary].” So now we have a new translation here that is a little more accurate: [13] “Is anyone among you facing adversity? Let him pray. Is anyone encouraged [strengthened]? Let him sing praises. [14] Is anyone among you weary [weak spiritually]? {Then} he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; [15] and the prayer offered in faith will strengthen the one who is weary, and the Lord will lift him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.”
Looking at the last part of that verse we realize that maybe we are talking about something different from physical sickness, because as soon as we introduce the concept of sin we realize that what had happened was that this person had been converting the outside pressure of adversity into the inside pressure of stress in the soul. Their soul is fragmenting, it is compounding itself, they are a diyuxoj believer, double-minded, unstable in all their ways, and they have reached appoint where they are incapable of going forward. They are overwhelmed by depression, by discouragement, by failure, and so this is giving God’s solution here and it is related to the use of the faith-rest drill, specifically manifested in prayer.
Another thing we need to look at is some of the words for restoration that are used in the passage. V. 15: “The prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick.” The word there for “restore” is SOZO [swzw]. It means to deliver, and to save. The root meaning is to deliver and it is always necessary to look at the context to see what the deliverance is from. This is talking about realizing maturity in the spiritual life. Then it says the Lord will “raise him up,” the future tense EGEIRO [e)geirw] meaning to lift, to raise, to lift up, to restore, to stimulate or awaken. So we have a picture of a carnal believer, maybe a reversionist, who is completely away from the Lord, fragmenting his soul, and then he turns back but really doesn’t have the strength on his own because he has so blown it in his spiritual life that he calls other believers to pray for him.
thats good. Its better than "deny everything/anything" and/or "omni-god" of religions. Both ignore observations in favor of personal emotional need. It would be nice if both those groups were honest with themselves. But thats a pipe dream, that kind of honesty means understanding what it means to be "not you".
I don't see why it should make any Christian deny the Bible. Sincere prayer can bring healing if it is the will of God. Is it not the place of God to judge the effectiveness of one's prayers? Is it not the place of God to do His will in response to our prayers?
5:15 " and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him."
I think the passage can apply to both the earthly, i.e. corporeal, and spiritual realms. I don't know that it's my place to go around judging whether one's prayer was righteous and faithful enough to justify God's healing, you know? That's out of my hands.
I feel that James 5 is about the possibilities of prayer, and how we should earnestly and fervently pray and ask for God's favor, not about some guarantee to have our prayers perpetually answered in the affirmative.
I feel we must remember the place of God and His control and His right to do His will. If it was just an automatic "Pray this prayer and be healed," then any time anyone prayed, they would be restored, and none of us would ever die unless by instantaneous incidences that did not allow one time to pray for healing. And I don't think that idea aligns with anything else in the Bible. I feel the Bible is pretty clear that God is in control and it is His choice to do His will upon hearing our prayers.
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