The gift of healing
- 3Statements
- 4Recorded acts
- 17Gifts
Picture: Christ Healing the Blind Men of Jericho, Nicolas Poussin, 1650. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
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- Healing
A low row is something these statements did not find, not a verdict on you.
What is the spiritual gift of healing?
Healing is named twice by Paul and both times in the plural: gifts of healings (1 Corinthians 12:9 and 12:28). Christians disagree about whether it is given today. All agree God still heals and answers prayer, and James asks the prayer for the sick of every church.
Why it matters
How a church answers this decides what happens when a member is diagnosed with something serious. In one church the elders are called, there is oil, and the prayer is specific. In another the same love arrives as meals, lifts and a steady visit every week. James asks for the first and never calls it a gift; the whole New Testament expects the second.
Where does the Bible name it?
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and to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit
1 Corinthians 12:9
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then gifts of healings
1 Corinthians 12:28
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Do all have gifts of healings?
1 Corinthians 12:30
World English Bible British Edition
What does the gift of healing look like in a church?
The translation quoted here says gifts of healings, with both words in the plural, and Paul asks, “Do all have gifts of healings?” (1 Corinthians 12:30). These statements ask what has happened when you prayed for people who were ill, and whether people come to you because of it. They cannot tell this gift apart from an answer to prayer, and James asks that prayer of everyone: “pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
Nothing here counts how much anyone prays. Whether what happened was this gift is for your church and those who lead it to say, not this page. Many Christians believe God still gives this gift today; many believe He gave it only for the time of the apostles. Both believe that God still heals and answers prayer.
Did you know?
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Paul never writes this one in the singular. Every time he names it both words are plural, “gifts of healings”, which many readers take to mean that each occasion is its own gift rather than a standing power somebody holds.
1 Corinthians 12:9, 12:28, 12:30, World English Bible British Edition
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Paul expects the answer no to his own question, “Do all have gifts of healings?”, and the run of questions around it does the same for apostles, prophets, teachers and miracle workers.
1 Corinthians 12:29-30, World English Bible British Edition
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James gives a church a procedure for illness and never calls it a gift: call the elders, let them pray and anoint with oil, and confess your sins to one another.
James 5:14-16, World English Bible British Edition
Who did this in the Bible?
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Acts 3:1-12
At the temple gate Peter told a man lame from birth that he had no silver or gold but would give what he had, and said, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk; he took him by the right hand and raised him up, immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength, and he went into the temple walking, leaping and praising God; when the people ran together in wonder, Peter asked why they looked at him and John as though they had made the man walk by their own power or godliness.
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Acts 5:12-16
By the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people, and more believers were added to the Lord; the sick were carried into the streets and laid on cots and mattresses so that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by, and crowds from the cities around Jerusalem brought the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed.
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Acts 9:17-18
Ananias entered the house and, laying his hands on Saul, told him that the Lord Who had appeared to him on the road had sent Ananias so that he might receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit; immediately something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes and he received his sight, and he arose and was baptised.
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Acts 28:7-9
The father of Publius, the chief man of the island, lay sick with fever and dysentery; Paul went in to him, prayed, and laying his hands on him healed him, and then the rest on the island who had diseases came and were cured.
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