Acts 28:8 “And it happened that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and dysentery. Paul went in to him and prayed, and he laid his hands on him and healed him.”
The above quoted passage of scripture is an example of this method of healing taking place, for we see the apostle Paul laying his hands on an unbeliever, praying the prayer of faith and healing him. We know that it was Paul’s faith that healed this man, because Paul had just arrived on the island and this man, being sick with a fever and knowing nothing about Pauls’ healing ministry, could not have exercised any faith of his own to be healed. And so this passage again confirms the truth to us that the outcome of this method of healing is more reliant on the faith of the one doing the praying, rather than the faith of the one being prayed for. The second truth that is reinforced in this passage is the fact that the Lord uses this method to heal individuals not multitudes.
2 Timothy 4:20 “Erastus stayed in Corinth, but Trophimus I have left in Miletus sick.”
We have made an important observation in this section, which is that the outcome of this method of healing is more reliant on the faith of the one doing the praying, rather than the faith of the one being prayed for. Nevertheless as with most spiritual truths, there are exceptions to this rule. The above quoted passage of scripture is an example of one of the exceptions. The context of this passage is that the apostle Paul informed Timothy that he had left Trophimus, who was part of his ministry team, sick in the town of Miletus. As we have already seen in the previous passage of scripture, Paul certainly had the faith to lay his hands on people and pray for them to be healed and they would be healed. So if Paul had that ability why, with one of his own ministry team members being sick, did Paul not just lay hands on him and pray so that he could be healed. The answer lies in the fact that Trophimus was one of Paul’s ministry team members, who had travelled and ministered extensively with him. In other words Trophimus was a mature believer, and it is for that reason that Paul’s faith proved to be ineffective in this instance. And so the exception we see from this account is that the Lord expects mature believers to exercise their own faith to receive their healing, and not rely on the faith of others. For whatever reason, Trophimus was not able to appropriate his own healing by the time Paul left however, which is why Paul was forced to leave him in Miletus to recover.
Mark 6:5-6 “Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. (6) And He marveled because of their unbelief.”
We have mentioned that there are exceptions to the rule that this method of healing, i.e. healing through the prayer of faith, is more reliant on the faith of the one doing the praying, rather than the faith of the one being prayed for. The above quoted passage of scripture is another example of one of the exceptions. The context of this passage is that the Lord Jesus was preaching the gospel in His hometown of Nazareth. If you read the full account in scripture you will see that this was the one and only time that Jesus preached in Nazareth, because after hearing Him preach, the citizens of that town tried to kill Him by throwing Him off a cliff. Nevertheless the point that I wanted to focus on for the purpose of this discussion, is that this passage declares that Jesus was unable to perform any significant healings in that town. So why is that? It certainly wasn’t because Jesus lacked the faith to heal them. The answer lies in the comment that Jesus “marvelled because of their unbelief”. We are not talking about weak faith or even neutral faith i.e. the person being prayed for neither believing nor disbelieving. But rather we are talking about unbelief. In other words these people are convinced that they cannot be healed through the laying on of hands. And so the exception we see from this account is that unbelief prevents both the unsaved (and immature believers) from being healed, even if the one who lays hands on them has the faith to heal them. And so we have seen in this section that all believers can practice the method of healing using the prayer of faith. This method does not involve the spiritual gifts of healings however; it is purely the saint laying their hands on a sick individual in faith in order to heal them.
Michael E.B. Maher
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