“Still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.”
Everyone does hear what they want to hear and disregards the rest. I find it when I write about healing. I find it on YouTube when I talk about healing. Jesus never told someone looking for healing that they did not have enough faith. The only people in the Gospels who lacked faith were haters and healers. Jesus never told someone looking for healing that they did not have enough faith. Jesus told his disciples that they lacked faith and they were training to be healers. They accepted that judgment, yet popular teachings from modern day faith healing tells us that healers are not to blame. Faith healing says those who come to Jesus and ask to be healed will not be healed if they lack faith. This is a complete reversal from what Jesus taught and practiced.
There were always at least two people involved in performing miracles during Jesus’ career – the person requesting a miracle and the healer. Out of all the attempted healing miracles in the New Testament, only one healing went wrong and when the disciples asked Jesus what went wrong, Jesus told them they – the disciples/the healers – they lacked faith. When people came to Jesus for healing, whenever he said anything about faith, it was encouraging and positive and he healed them every time – without fail. People looked to Jesus for healing and without exception, their faith was enough. There were no exceptions – if someone asked for healing, healing was provided. The only people denied healing were people who didn’t want healing.
Kenneth Copeland passes the blame on to one of the seekers
The popular teaching that blames the person needing healing is a reversal of blame that misdirects followers from discovering their healers actually lack power and faith on their end to heal. Blaming victims rather than healers blinds people from seeing that so many miracles on stage are nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Buying into faith healing teachings blinds people from seeing that the sick usually have enough faith – just as much as anybody in Jesus’ day. It is the healer who lacks faith. It is the healer who will not stay and wait and fast and pray with the sick.
Focusing on self for lacking faith – rather than the faith healer blinds people from realizing the limits of the healers. Blaming the sick and diseased passes over the fact that healing that does occur under many ministries is no more powerful than magnet therapy, Christian Science, Mormonism, acupuncture, alternative medicine, and the like. Moses wowed the magicians of Egypt who could only reproduce three of his many miracles. Our modern money making healers do not wow anyone except their own followers.
I hear it said that the devil can reproduce miracles. Sure, Pharaoh’s magicians could reproduce the first three miracles they saw Moses perform. But while they had used every piece of magic they knew, Moses was just getting started. Pharaoh’s magicians would not be impressed with our faith healers, instead, they would be able to perform the same and tell Pharaoh give more work to the slaves Moses represented.
Focusing the blame on the seekers rather than the healers is a reversal from what the Bible says and what Jesus practiced. Looking to sick and hurting people and blaming them for healing that doesn’t last or that doesn’t take place at all blinds people to the truth.
For saying these things, I will get thumbs down. Those who have been marinating in the faith healing teachings will hold fast to their beliefs, even though what they believe in is a cruel reversal to the truth presented in the Bible.
“You can’t handle the truth!”
Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men
