Faith and Healing

Faith is described many times and in many ways in the Biblical Text.  It is impossible to please God without faith.  If we have even so small an amount as to resemble a mustard seed – really, really, really tiny – we can bring about the End Times (the moving of the Mount of Olives promised in Zechariah (14:4), which perhaps Jesus was referencing in his oft-quoted “make this mountain move” statement (I think it’s less about the power of faith, incidentally, than it is about Jesus pointing His followers back to the waited-for Great Day).

The myriad ways in which “faith” is used in the Text do present some challenges of intererpration and applicaiton.

In Hebrew, the word most often translated as “faith” or “faithful” is the Hebrew “emunah” (אֲמָנָה), form its root word “aman” (אָמַן), which most often is rendered as “believe”, “confirm”, and “support”…Can I get an “Amen”?  (Same word.)  Emunah was used to describe Moses’ raising of his hands “steadfastly” all day long while Israel defeated her enemies.  In Deuteronomy 7, God is described as “faithful” – the God who is faithful.  And Abraham (in Genesis 15) is described as having “emunah”, which God credited to him as righteousness.

The Greek word translated most often as “faith” is “pistis” (which apparently looks like this in Greek: πίστις, εως, ἡ).  The commentators (I think there is consensus) tell us that “pistis” is always a gift from God, and not something we may produce on our own.  To add to this a bit, “faithfulness” is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  And though we cannot “MAKE” fruit grow by a force of will, we can create ideal climatic conditions for it to be produced by God.

So, let’s return to the title of this piece, and some of the questions which sparked it.

• Do miraculous (or difficult-to-explain) healings happen today?
• What role does faith play in the seemingly miraculous occurrences (such as healings)?
• If healings happen, how and why?  That is, is it the faith of the one being healed or the faith of the ones praying for healing?
• If healings happen, is faith required?  That is, if neither the receiver of the healing or the “giver” of the healing have faith, will that prevent healing?
• Healing is named as one of the gifts given by the Spirit.  The verse (1 Corinithians 12) seems to indicate that it is given to “some” (in fact, the verse specifically says that it is given to “some”, just as “working of miracles” and “the ability to distinguish between spirits”, and “interpretation of tongues”).  So, is healing only given to some select people, or is it universally given to all in the Church?  In other words, is Paul’s choice of words (i.e., “to one”) merely an expression to be taken loosely (as in “everyone is going to see that movie”) or to be taken literally?

I do not know all the answers to these questions.  I think I am content with not knowing answers to them.  Some might call my mental shoulder shrug a cop out, giving up the intellectual struggle when the going got tough.  Maybe they are correct.  Maybe it is a cop out.  But perhaps it’s also a realization that there are some questions which will elude answers this side of eternity and about which sincere Christians everywhere have always disagreed.  And quarreling about such things where answers are ambiguous at best, contradictory at worst, would seem to produce not harmony and love, but division and animosity, about which things we are warned.  See what Paul advised Timothy (2 Tim 2) and Titus (Titus 3).

Even so – even granting my skepticism at finding answers which satisfy all parties – I am approaching these questions with some Socratic thinking.  That is, I am going to attempt to answer them or work toward some answers.  Stay tuned…