How to write your testimony effectively - Telling your own story is perhaps one of the most effective methods in sharing the gospel message.  It's Biblical, attractive and effective if done right.  “The problem with some writing isn’t that it’s bad writing. It’s just boring,” - Ginger Kolbaba, managing editor of Marriage Partnership magazine...

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Karen Hoy

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 The Person of Christ is a work by various authors about the most precious subject in all the scriptures - God's Son, Jesus Christ.  Some subjects include the Perfect Servant, the Eternal Sonship of Christ, the Incarnation of Christ, the Deity of Christ, the Impeccability of Christ, His Pre-existance, His Moral Glories, the Atonement  Work and others.

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Stephen Vance

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James Dyck

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PRAYER FOR THE SICK
Would it be right to accede to the request of a sick brother, to send for the elders of the church to pray for his recovery?

I should think that the question ought rather to be, “Would it be right to refuse such a request?” Surely the Scripture is very plain, “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him” (James 5: 14, 15)." TARGET="_blank">James 5: 14, 15). We must not evade Scripture or twist it out of its simple meaning, as is sometimes done, because if taken as it stands, it may seem to favour some false notion. There is scarcely a heresy in the world which cannot quote some half-truth or twisted text in its favour.

No doubt James 5:14" TARGET="_blank">James 5:14 has been used as a basis for the many erroneous systems of bodily healing abroad to-day, and so some have fallen into the erroneous idea that it must be evaded. “For instance,” says one, “James does not give us ‘church truth.’ “ That is no doubt in a sense the case, but he seems to speak here of a church custom, for we cannot admit that “church” in its local and technical sense, means one thing in the Acts and another in the Epistles, and we accept without hesitation for ourselves to-day other exhortations of the Epistle. Another evasion, as it seems to me, is to ask, “Where in the scattered condition of the church are the elders?” The answer is that in nearly every scripturally-ordered assembly there are some who are known and act as such, and who bear the character of elders in a greater or lesser measure. Others point out that the epistle is addressed to the twelve tribes. Yes, but to them as actual or potential believers in Christ. See, for example, James 2:10" TARGET="_blank">James 2:10 “My brethren have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . with (or along with) respect of persons.”

The Roman Catholic Church, of course, bases on this passage the “Sacrament of Extreme Unction.” But for this they have to read—”Is any among you dying?” because they only administer the rite to those in extremis. For anyone to recover after the reception of Extreme Unction is quite unlooked for and out of order, whereas the anointing in “James” is in view of recovery—”The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him.” This last promise seems to give character to the whole passage. It is as though it were a case where the sufferer* suspected that the Lord was dealing with him on account of some sin, and sent for the doctors of the soul, rather than of the body. I do not know any faith-healing systems which teach the sick to send for the “elders of the church.” It is generally rather some leader, who professes to be a “Healer,” who sends for the sick; or else it is a faith-healing home, often under female control, where the sick are taken in as boarders, awaiting their turn to be healed at some public service, which savours rather of an advertisement for man than as a testimony for God.

One is, of course, not questioning the earnestness of many of these people, but is comparing their methods with our passage. Here it is the sick one who desires the fellowship in prayer of his brethren. These make no claim to be “faith-healers,” but they pray in simple fashion for the sick one, in submission to the will of God, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord. They cannot command the prayer of faith. It may not be the Lord’s intention to raise up the sick brother, but the prayer of faith (if they are able to offer it) shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him. Nothing is said as to other means being unlawful, and the word for “anoint with oil” is not the sacred word—used, for instance, in Hebrews 1:9" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 1:9 (the “Christ” word). It is noticeable that the most outstanding example in the Bible of healing, granted to the prayer of faith—that of Hezekiah—was in no way incompatible with the use of means—a fig poultice. The faith-healing systems would entirely rule out this as a lack of faith. The case that follows in James 5" TARGET="_blank">James 5 is still more simple. Here there seems no doubt as to the cause of the illness, and there is no question either of physician or elders. “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another.” Any godly person will do, for “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man” (though he be not an elder) “availeth much.” There ought surely to be more exercise among us as to the why and the wherefore of our sicknesses. They may not all be sent in chastisement, they may be part of our salutary and daily discipline, but there can be no loss in enquiring of the Lord, “Why am I thus laid aside?” We cannot leave the subject without a note of warning. Many erroneous teachings prevail to-day in the “faith-healing” world, e.g., that disease does not exist (how then cure what does not exist?); that disease in a Christian is a sin (!); that bodily healing is included in the Atonement (then why does any believer die?): and healing pilgrimages—little “Lourdes—are being encouraged to-day within the fold of the Protestant State-Church. The fact that cases of miraculous healing are claimed for all these systems, even if genuine, is not conclusive, for miraculous powers are not limited to the Spirit of God. We must test teachings, methods and results by the Word of God. What strikes the student of the faith-healing systems around us is the distant resemblance they bear, if any, to apostolic healings.

W.H.
* In order to have a full view of this whole subject we must not limit ourselves to this passage, but must Join with it such passages as 2 Corinthians 12: 7-9;" TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 12: 7-9; Philippians 2:25-27;" TARGET="_blank">Philippians 2:25-27; 2 Timothy 4:20;" TARGET="_blank">2 Timothy 4:20; 1 Timothy 5:23," TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 5:23, etc., in which there is neither mention of any miraculous intervention nor of sending for the elders. No scripture contradicts any other nor can it dispense with any other.

* The word is “weak”—the first condition noted in those under the chastening of the Father: “for this cause many are weak and sickly, and many sleep” 1 Corinthians 11:30)." TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 11:30).

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Some assert that if a woman dies in child-birth she goes to heaven, basing this on 1 Timothy 2:15." TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 2:15. What does that passage really teach?

The most certain thing about the passage named is that it does not teach what is suggested. God has but one way of saving sinners from hell and fitting them for heaven, and that way is through faith in His beloved Son. As to what it does teach, various commentators have given various replies, several of which, though differing, do not necessarily exclude one another. For it is quite probable that more thoughts than one were in the apostle’s mind as he penned the words, “She shall be saved through the childbearing, if they continue in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety” (R.V.).

To understand them we must take into consideration the entire paragraph, from verse 8 onwards, in which Paul teaches that men have a place of public testimony to fill, from which women are definitely debarred. For this prohibition he assigns two reasons: (x) that the man was first in creation, v. 13, and (z) that the woman was first in transgression, v. 14.. That verse 15 is closely connected with verse i, the “Notwithstanding” with which it begins makes quite evident, and there can therefore be no doubt that when using the expression, “through the childbearing,” the apostle has in mind the sentence pronounced by the Lord on the woman in Genesis  3:6. In that sentence there were two parts: (i) that she was to have sorrow in childbearing, and (a) that she was to be subjected to the man. The latter of these is in keeping with the principle upon which Paul has been just before insisting; while as to the former he has, in this 15th verse, something to add, in which warning and encouragement are combined. For, just as the curse pronounced on the woman was associated with her childbearing, so also, in the words addressed to the Serpent in the preceding verse, was the provision for her salvation in the promised “Seed.” Therefore the right path for her, the path in which “she shall be saved” (chiefly in the present sense of that word, so common in the epistles), is the very opposite of that public and prominent one forbidden her in verses 11 and 12. It is the path of home life and subjection; by keeping in which the very curse of Gen. 3" TARGET="_blank">Gen. 3 is turned into blessing. Compare those other words of the apostle in chap. 5. 13-15, where the dangers besetting young women who have no home cares are vividly depicted, and the way to be saved therefrom is the same as here. In fact he even uses there the verbal form of this word “childbearing,” of which neither noun nor verb is found anywhere else in the New Testament. Observe also, by way of contrast, how the young man1  Timothy 4:16, is to be “saved” by going on diligently with his public ministry of the Word.

W.R.

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