Authority to Heal

Rating:
Summary: practical, real, authentic
Review: Blue presents a five-step model to start a healing ministry, especially for those with little or no such background. This model originates from Fuller Theological Seminary's Professor John Wimber and has been tested in diverse denominational heritages, e.g., Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal. The five steps, with headings in Blue's own words, are:

(1)To Interview the Sick Person: The purpose is to gather pertinent information, anything from where it hurts to the person's family history, to estimate the condition's causes (natural, emotional, relational, spiritual), scope, history and significance. The symptoms of physical illness and mental disturbance are usually rooted in spiritual, emotional and relational causes that are not obvious at first. Open-end questions encourage the person's participation; the person is to be allowed to be the expert on his/her own pain. Listening between the lines is essential --- hurting persons may know more about their problems than they are willing to say, or they may be unaware of the underlying causes. Intense listening is indistinguishable from love; and love heals. Listeners must be worthy of trust. It is also essential to listen to God. God may at any moment communicate t us something vital about the person --- this is called a "word of knowledge" or a "word of insight".

(2)To Choose a Prayer Strategy: Blue actually presents no strategy beyond a general recommendation to be specific in the intercession to focus on the estimated root cause.

(3)To Pray for Specific Results: In order to monitor periodically the sick person's condition to determine what, if anything, is happening --- we are to pray for observable measurable results rather than with non-directive vagueness. The better we can see what God is ding, the better we can cooperate with God in his work. Any feedback from the sick person needs be honest accurate, avoiding any implicit or explicit pressure to report improvements when there is none; otherwise, spiritual and medical help might be prematurely stopped.

(4)To Assess the Result: If healing has only begun, then prayer may be continued. If little or n healing appears, the diagnosis might be wrong and further interviewing may be needed to gather more/better information.

(5)To Give Postprayer Direction: The healing process, once it begins, may be helped or hindered by the person's own thoughts and actions. For example, some sickness is caused by sin; and the healing may be neither significant nor permanent, unless the sins repented of. Good counsel and support are essential.

It is instructive to conclude by Blue's repeated reminder that the final comprehensive realization occurs only at our resurrection from the dead, and the greatest contribution to health and wholeness within the Christian community is not ultimately the healing ministry, but rather the preventive medicine of following Jesus.

Rating:
Summary: Premier book on healing
Review: In the initial part of this book Ken journeys people through the theology of Christian misconceptions about healing. He then set out a paradigm and praxis for people to minister Gods healing to others. He traces the various aspects of modern Christian thought about sickness and contrasts this with the biblical view. Ken also looks at the influence that a variety of historic/cultural/institutional world views have had on modern Christian thought regarding healing. This is a worthwhile book for anyone interested in healing. Ken has a profound Grace based theology and this is evident throughout the book. You will feel empowered reading this book and Ken uses numerous anecdotes skillfully.

Rating:
Summary: inspirational, thoughful, provocative
Review: Ken Blue, a pastor in San Diego, delineates the biblical foundation for a faith-based healing ministry. After identifying and refuting several erroneous mindsets impeding a biblically based healing ministry, he outlines a five-step model to start such a healing ministry.

Blue reasons from the Bible that God wills the ultimate healing of all spiritual, psychological and physical sickness. That God desires and wills to alleviate certain earthly sickness and pain --- was evidenced by Jesus' healing miracles that were actualized in love and compassion for the sick. When Jesus told his followers to preach the Kingdom of God, he also commended them to heal the sick and to cast out demons. Virtually every mass turning to God in the New Testament occurred with not only preaching, but with also the manifest power of God's healing. The Kingdom of God, often misunderstood as merely a spiritual state or a futuristic reality, may be advanced concretely here-and-now one person at a time as he/she is delivered from the dominion of darkness. This deliverance may come as the defeat and the driving off of sickness, often caused by the personalized evil of demonic presence.

One cognitive hindrance to a biblical healing ministry is the false ideal of "sanctification through sickness", traceable back to the Patristic church when Roman persecution seemed to purify and to grow the church and when a person's martyrdom brought him/her status within the church. With Constantine's state-alliance with the church, true confessors (no longer externally persecuted) self-persecuted through asceticism by degrading one's body. Supported also by the prevalent Greek thoughts, "sanctification through sickness" became established in the Patristic era and survived the Reformation. In modern days, this "sanctification through sickness" notion is justified by sickness' alleged educational or remedial value. When God sends sanctifying sickness, it is sent to modify bad behavior. Christians are not to passively accept sickness, but rather to stop sinning. The sickness lasts only as long as the sin continues and not interminably without explanation as chronic illness often does. Involuntary passive sickness is to be differentiated from voluntary active cross-bearing. Inevitable suffering due to persecution is likewise to be distinguished from evitable sickness. We are not to accept sickness passively as if it were good in and of itself, but to fight it with all we have; and the church has Christ's ministry of healing with which to fight it.

A second mistaken theology (found more likely among Calvinist-leaning churches) is divine determinism, that all pain or comfort must have been so decreed by God. "God is sovereign, so anything that happens to me must be God's will. If I get sick, then this must be God's will for me." This theology is an attempt to address the question why bad things happen to good people. There is a very true underlying premise that God is all-powerful and that nothing can happen that He says "no" to. This theology, however, takes it a step further and assumes that anything that happens is God's express will. It discounts human choice (though the Bible clearly teaches free will) and it discounts spiritual warfare. This outlook contradicts Jesus' evident desire in the Gospels to heal sickness. It presents a warped view of God as mean and that He desires for bad things to happen to us as part of His good plans. This could breed despair and passivity, as well as hostility towards God.

A third attitudinal hindrance is faith-formulas, found more frequently in Arminian-leaning churches. Faith-formulas presume that only if the Christian knows/believes enough/properly, health and prosperity may be fully and constantly available. This is human-centeredness and may possibly induce false guilt when the expected outcome is unrealized. Rather, biblical faith involves a child-like trust in God's love and power, despite sickness and need. Indeed, the Gospel's accounts and Blue's own experiences indicate no strict causal relationship between faith and healing. The present-life's experience of the Kingdom of God is partial and provincial and ambiguous, with an ebb-and-flow whose dynamics lies largely beyond the Christian's comprehension.

A fourth hindering mindset is the naturalistic worldview, which understands the world as a closed system governed only by the cause and effect of natural laws, discovered by empirical observations. Present-day western Christians often expect no miracles and consequently experience none. Blue's own experiences, however, indicate a high correlation between one's request for miracles and one's experience of healing.

Cardinal to a healing ministry are (1) a recognition that God desires wholeness and that God wills to heal the sick, (2) a sincere compassion for those in pain, and (3) a willingness to be vulnerable for possible humiliation and defeat without ever knowing why --- those who pray for the sick enter an unseen world of spiritual forces, which cannot be fully comprehended. However, the very worse that can happen is that nothing happens --- people would not be damaged by prayer, if people are not lied to and not flogged for their lack of faith, but reassured that nothing can separate them from the love of God. People do not regret being loved by God and his people.