Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:24b-31 Southwood 22 April 2007
By Rev Steve Stewart
"A Healing Ministry in the Church"
God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honour to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 f one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But eagerly desire the greater gifts. [NIV]
Introduction:
In January 2005 I returned from my annual retreat convinced (as some may remember) that God was calling Southwood Church to minister the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These gifts can be found listed in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, and include a wonderful array, including:
o Wisdom; knowledge; faith; miraculous powers; prophecy; distinguishing between spirits; speaking in different kinds of tongues; interpretation of tongues; serving; teaching; encouraging; contributing to the needs of others; leadership; showing mercy; hospitality; willing to associate with people of low position... and also what I want to teach on this morning: gifts of healing.
Over the last two years we have seen many of these gifts, not all though perhaps, being used. And for the last year we have had a healing team -Iain MacCaig, Daphne Williams and Cara Kear (under my oversight) operating informally, praying for those who are sick, laying on hands and asking God to heal those who ask for it.
So, following a year of prayer, Bible study, practice and training, the Church Vision Group (the CVG) at Southwood now believe the time is right to formally 'commission' that Team into their ministry -which we'll be doing next week. But the right Christian way before that happens, is to provide some Biblical teaching on Christian healing, so that we understand why and how this team is to work and to minister that Spiritual gift.
Why a healing ministry at all?
But why have a healing ministry at all? Surely there are doctors, nurses, psychiatrists and a whole array of medical professionals to make us better and deal with our problems?
First, I want to say that there is little in Christian healing which should run counter to ordinary medical treatment. On the whole there is nothing in Christian healing which is in competition with or working against ordinary healing. Why not? Well, simply there is nothing in the teaching of the Bible which should make that necessary. Luke, for example, was a doctor and travelling companion of Paul the apostle. He would have been involved with the miraculous healings -even an exorcism- (Acts 16:18) which accompanied the Gospel,(e.g. Colossians 4:14) and yet at no point is it ever indicated that Luke's ministry as a doctor was undermined. If you break your leg or have a car accident, please still dial 999!
Secondly, it is impossible to read the Bible and not come to the conclusion that miraculous healing is simply part of the life of the church.
From Hezekiah's killer boil (healed by God through Isaiah -see 2 Kings 20) to the miracles of Jesus Himself, to those of the Apostles recorded in Acts, and the instructions found in the letter of James and here in 1 Corinthians: instructions for us to expect and minister the gifts of healing.
So, let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 12, and see how we get on...
Healing is 'normal' in the church
One of the first things we notice in this list is that the Spiritual gifts of healing as perfectly normal -indeed, when we find miraculous healings in the Bible, they are noteworthy for their simplicity, their lack of accompanying ceremony, and their general lack of, well, weirdness: this is very distinctive from healing which is to be mistrusted, which is not from God -the kind of thing you find at best in New Age so-called 'spirituality' and at worst in Satanic ritual: no complex magic potions, chants or mantras, strange actions or unusual clothing. Christian healing is very 'normal' and simple -not weird or scary at all.
One thing to carefully check on whenever you have a Christian healing ministry in the church -indeed whenever you have any ministry or gift exercised in the church!- is that you do not end up with a way of thinking that has more of man and less of God in it. An example would be the idea that all illness is directly linked to some specific sin, when in fact Jesus speaks out on more than one occasion against such a notion! (see e.g. John 9:2ff; Luke 13:4). The only clear exceptions to this seem to be those who are getting sick at Corinth (see 1 Corinthians 11:27-30) because they are abusing the Lord's Supper, the communion, and so doing harm to the fellowship of believers, and also some very specific sins of the Israelites as a people which the God punishes (see e.g. the punishment put on Israel for making the golden calf in Exodus 32:34-35, but even this is a general punishment!). It is far more common in the Bible for illness to be given no clear cause.
So it seems from Scripture that healing was and is to be a normal part of the life of God's people. Indeed, it is all so normal that (look at the list), Paul simply cites 'healing' among a list which includes helping others and gifts of administration! But why so -why so 'ordinary'?
The answer lies in understanding the purposes of healing in the church: look at verse 25: the purpose of any Spiritual gift is:
25...that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other
To minister gifts of healing to one another, to lay on hands and pray for members of the church family to be healed is to enjoy and grow the unity we have for one another in Christ Jesus: to enjoy being church.
And when we grasp this point we see that simply doing the prayer for healing is as important -possibly even more important- than whether God chooses in a specific instance to grant a healing miracle or not. In the 'laying on of hands' (a Biblical term for healing -see e.g. Luke 4:40) what we are NOT doing in any worldly sense is 'providing a service' like a doctor or dentist or secular counsellor. We are just being a loving body of Christ. This is why it would be completely wrong to charge for the ministry of Christian healing. You would not do that any more than you would charge your own children for giving them a cuddle!
Why not have everyone ministering the gift of healing?
If this is so, then we might ask why we are commissioning a specific healing team? Good question. The answer is here in 1 Corinthians 12, where the basic idea is that different gifts are given to different people:
29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?
No they don't: just as not everyone is a gifted administrator (like Jane or Iain) and not everyone is a gifted Bible study leader (like our housegroup study leaders), so not everyone has that gift of healing -and one of the signs that God is giving that gift is that the person has a real fire in the belly to serve with that gift, be trained in it and use it Biblically for the building up of the church -the body of Christ: After a year, I have no doubt that our new healing team have all of these qualities, and so I and the CVG will be pleased to commission them next week. Again, look at what Paul says about Spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:24
God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honour to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
God has combined: whatever we are in Christ, we are to one another. It says that God "has given greater honour to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division" -God knows that some ministries will be more glamorous than others: the preachers and the musicians -and yes, potentially the healing team- have in worldly terms more impressive ministries than those who clean and set out chairs, those who make tea and coffee or do the admin. And how does that pan out in the world? Well, I suspect that Elton John gets more applause for a night at Madison Square Garden than the bloke who rolled his piano into place. If his comments are anything to go by I suspect Sir Alan Sugar holds himself in higher esteem than his apprentice! But not so among the people of God: we receive the Spiritual gifts freely from God, we minister them without favour: none taking glory from another, but rather building each other up:
24 ...God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honour to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
This humility and love for the church family is a key hallmark of a healthy healing ministry in the church.
Healing should know its place!
However, given all this, Paul still gives a right order to the gifts, to protect us from slipping into a place where the whim of any prophet, or administrator or even healing team member risks compromising good church order and right teaching: look at verse 28:
28...in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.
It is an order we must remember: "first of all apostles" -the Apostles, those who were first hand witnesses to Jesus' life, death and resurrection are the ones who were inspired by the Spirit to pen the Bible: nothing we come up with can undermine the teaching of Scripture. What the healing team is and does, as with all things in the life of the church, comes under the authority of Scripture and flows naturally from it. And under the authority of the apostles -contained in the Bible- come prophets (those who with Spirit-filled wisdom test and call the people of God to live in a way pleasing to Him), and teachers (like myself). And only within that framework does the church enjoy all the other gifts.
So, where are we?...
Summing Up:
o Christian Healing is not in conflict with mainstream medicine.
o Although important, healing is just one of many Spiritual gifts.
o Healing is a 'normal' part of the life of God's people
o Spiritual healing is not 'weird' -and if it gets that way, reject it!
o Gifts of healing are for building up the 'body of Christ', the church: they spring from love for the people of God.
o ...so they cannot be charged for!
o A healing ministry takes place under Scripture and within a right church order (Apostles, prophets, teachers, etc)
o The Healer is God -not us!
AMEN.
Rev Steve Stewart © 2007
*Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, a member of the Hodder Headline Group. All rights reserved. "NIV" is a trade mark of International Bible Society. UK trademark number 1448790.