Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? 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 will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
James 5:12-15
James provides us with examples of various situations in which we should pray, praise, or ask for prayer. In the case of the person in these verses who needs prayer for healing from sickness, his state was such that he could not move to receive prayer. Prayer needed to come to him.* Think about that: prayer had to come to him. These few verses give us much to think about worth noting.
Interesting to note is this individual was anointed with oil by the elders. The elders, at this point in church history, were official leaders of the church community with some pastoral roles.* They were spiritually mature men who guided the growth and spiritual development of local congregations.* Because the prayers were prayed by the elders, the faith involved in those prayers was the faith of the elders.* The healing of the man was not by way of his own prayers or his own faith.*
It’s also important to note that the healing of the man came through the vehicle of faith and not the vehicle of oil.* It’s true that other places in Scripture point out healings without oil, but in this verse God instructs the use of oil.* While oil is used for a variety of other reasons in Scripture (symbolically, medicinally, etc), James is clear that it is the Lord Jesus who heals and not the oil.*
Finally, we must draw attention to the important word if. As we see in the ministry of Jesus (see e.g., John 9:3), sickness is not always the result of sin in a person’s life. If there is sin and a need for forgiveness, then that is available too, but we must not approach the sick as if they deserve their malady.*
What does this mean for us?
In Christian circles, much condemnation has been passed around about “not having enough faith.” In these verses of James, the sick man displayed no faith at all. He didn’t even pray. There was faith involved in inviting the elders.* And there was faith motivating and expressed through the prayers of the elders, but the sick man needed the faith and prayers of others. There are times in life that we do not have enough faith, and we cannot pray our own prayers.
In these moments and seasons, we need each other. We need the community of faith to come to us and pray for us and have faith for us. Surely, Jesus does the healing, and we cannot always understand the times that some are healed this side of eternity and others are not.* This much we know: 1) our faith is in our Lord Jesus, not in our own ability to have faith to conjure something we desire, 2) we need each other, and 3) one day we all will walk in complete wholeness with no more pain or sickness or tears (Revelation 21:4).
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to have faith for someone else and pray for them. Perhaps today God would have you ask for someone to come to you to pray, or go to them to receive prayer. Maybe today God would have you trust that He is good and heals even if you do not understand when He does not heal in our timeline.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus.
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*Blomberg, C. L., & Kamell, M. J. (2008). James (Vol. 16, pp. 242–245). Zondervan.
Guthrie, G. H. (2006). James. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews–Revelation (Revised Edition) (Vol. 13, pp. 270–271). Zondervan.
Stulac, G. M. (1993). James (Jas 5:13–18). IVP Academic.
Moo, D. J. (2021). The Letter of James (D. A. Carson, Ed.; Second Edition, pp. 300–312). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Nystrom, D. P. (1997). James (pp. 304–307). Zondervan Publishing House.
Martin, R. P. (1988). James (Vol. 48, pp. 206–210). Word, Incorporated.