pat loughery

Today was an interesting gathering. It was a small group (err, even smaller than usual).

As I described earlier today, we looked at Matthew 7:29-8:18, focusing on Jesus’ use of authority to heal in compassion. There was a couple there, relatives of regular attendees. They had a good story of healing: she was healed of MS. it was a wonderful story.

The problem, though, was that we had competing interpretations of the story. Their theology of healing was purely word-faith, “Name it and Claim it”. In all circumstances, healing has already occurred; you just need to love the Lord fully and claim it in faith to activate it.

I have strong disagreements with that theology. If that’s true, I’m not sure why Paul would have remained troubled by the “thorn in my flesh” from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, or why he would have instructed Timothy to take a little bit of wine to combat his frequent illnesses in 1 Timothy 5:23, or even why Jesus had to pray a second time for the blind man who saw people that looked like trees in Mark 8:22-26.

I mean, if we read that text to say that Jesus didn’t have enough faith or love his God enough, isn’t that a bit off-center?

This particular form of word-faith didn’t include the interesting bit that I’ve seen before: that the illness doesn’t actually exist, but is only an illusion. Like, you don’t really have a headache; it’s just the enemy trying to convince you that you do have one.

Here’s my other problem: A friend of mine once wrote (quite wisely as usual, but I can’t reference the blog entry because her archive search is down so get to work on that will ya please R? :-)) that our theology should be able to look people in the eyes. I don’t think that telling people that they’re not healed because of their own lack of faith is accurate, healthy, or helpful.

So then there’s this question: This issue came up during our sermon time – which is by nature and design highly interactive and dialogical. I quickly had to decide whether it was better for me to identify the differences in our theologies, or to extend grace to guests and try to more subtly redirect the conversation. In short, how to use my authority in order to benefit the entire body the best.

I chose the second path, but I’m not convinced it was the right way.