Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

What is this page about?

To visit sick people and pray for them is one of the most Christian things that anyone can do. This page is not about the visit. It is about what people say afterwards.

If the sick person gets better, the preacher’s visit or the preacher’s prayer gets the credit. If the sick person dies, the preacher says that God showed him it was that person’s time. So whatever happens, the preacher is right, and the preacher is necessary.

So the question is not, “Should we pray?” The question is: who gets the credit? And who says that he knows what?

Every square wins

In any sickness, two things can be different. Was the preacher called, or not? Did the person get well, or not? That gives four cases.

Look at the last row. If a visit could save a life, then a family who did not call the preacher could kill. In three rows, the explanation makes the visitor look good. In the fourth row, it leaves the blame on the family.

What did the apostles do with the credit?

A man who could not walk was healed at the temple. A crowd ran to Peter and John. These were Peter’s first words:

Why do you fasten your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk?

Acts 3:12 · World English Bible

In simple words: Why do you look so hard at us? Do you think that we made this man walk by our own power, or because we are so holy?

Then he gave the credit to Jesus.

In the town of Lystra, a crowd wanted to worship Paul and Barnabas after a healing. The two men tore their clothes and ran into the crowd. They shouted: “We also are men of like passions with you” (Acts 14:15). In simple words: we are only men, like you.

In the book of Acts, one man was happy when people called him “the great power of God”. He was Simon, a man who did magic. Peter spoke to him very severely (Acts 8:9-24).

When sick people were not healed

The New Testament does not explain every sickness. It tells of sick people who were prayed for and were not healed. It gives no reason.

• Paul had a pain that he called his “thorn in the flesh”. He asked God three times to take it away. The answer was no: “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9). In simple words: my grace is enough for you.
• Paul left his friend Trophimus behind, sick, in the town of Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20). He gives no reason.
• He told Timothy to take a little wine because he was often ill (1 Timothy 5:23).
• His helper Epaphroditus almost died and then got well. Paul did not say, “My prayer saved him.” He said: “God had mercy on him” (Philippians 2:27).

Long before, King David’s little son was dying. David ate nothing and prayed for a week. He explained why:

Who knows whether Yahweh will not be gracious to me, that the child may live?

2 Samuel 12:22 · World English Bible

In simple words: Who knows? Perhaps the Lord will be kind to me, and the child will live. (“Yahweh” is God’s name in the Old Testament.)

The child died. David got up and worshipped God (2 Samuel 12:16-23). He prayed with his whole heart, and he said openly that he did not know.

“God showed me that it was their time”

This sentence makes a claim. It says that God told the speaker, in private, something that nobody else knows.

The Bible says that we must test such claims. We may not simply accept them.

• “Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)
• “don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits” (1 John 4:1)

The Bible also says that God keeps some things for himself: “The secret things belong to Yahweh our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Now think about a message from God that appears only after a person has died, and always agrees with what happened. Nobody can test it.

The true prophets in the Bible were different. Isaiah spoke to King Hezekiah about his sickness. He spoke before the result, in public, in words that people could check (Isaiah 38).

And notice a change in the middle. When the sick person gets well, the explanation is: a man’s prayer changed things. When the sick person dies, the explanation is: God had fixed it from the beginning.

The church of the past held both truths together, in every case. God really uses our prayers. And God is free to act without them. That shuts out “my visit saved him”. It also shuts out “God showed me why he died”. Paul said it like this:

If therefore we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

Romans 14:8 · World English Bible

In simple words: So if we live or if we die, we belong to the Lord.

A test that nobody can fail

The Bible tests a message spoken in God’s name. Could it turn out to be wrong?

When a prophet speaks in Yahweh’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken.

Deuteronomy 18:22 · World English Bible

In simple words: A prophet may speak in the Lord’s name. If the thing does not happen, the Lord did not say it.

Paul adds: “Let the prophets speak, two or three, and let the others discern.” (1 Corinthians 14:29) In simple words: the others must judge what was said.

If every result proves the preacher right, then no result can ever show that he was wrong. So nobody can ever correct him. That is not a sign of great spiritual power. It is a sign of a claim that cannot be checked.

In the year 601, Pope Gregory the Great heard some news. God was doing miracles through Augustine, the missionary bishop in England. Gregory did not write to praise him. He wrote to warn him. Augustine should

rejoice with fear, and fear with joy

Gregory the Great, 601

In simple words: be glad and afraid at the same time

so that his mind would not become “puffed up with self-esteem”. In simple words: full of pride in himself.

Comfort, claim or blame?

Here are six things that people say next to a sick bed or at a funeral. Is each one a comfort? Is it a claim about the speaker’s power or secret knowledge? Or does it put blame on someone?

Jesus refused to read a sickness backwards to find someone to blame. He said of a blind man: “This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents” (John 9:3). The New Testament asks us for something different: “Bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), and “Weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15)

What has the church always said?

The church of the past wrote down its prayers for sick people. In this way the words did not depend on any one minister. An English prayer book of 1662 prays for a sick person like this:

That, if it shall be thy good pleasure to restore him to his former health, he may lead the residue of his life in thy fear, and to thy glory: or else, give him grace so to take thy visitation, that, after this painful life ended, he may dwell with thee in life everlasting.

The Visitation of the Sick, Book of Common Prayer (1662)

In simple words: If it pleases you to make him well again, let him live the rest of his life in respect for you and for your glory. If not, give him grace to accept this sickness, so that when this painful life is over, he may live with you for ever.

The prayer asks for both endings in one sentence, and it leaves both with God.

The Catholic book of teaching says the same about its sacrament for the sick. It brings healing of the body “if such is God’s will.”

Neither text says that the minister is the cause of anything.

If the person gets well:

• thank God;
• thank the doctors, the nurses and everyone who cared for the person;
• say, “We prayed, and God was kind.” Do not say, “My prayer saved him.”

If the person dies:

• be sad with the family;
• speak of the Christian hope;
• say, “We prayed, and we gave her into God’s hands”;
• say openly that you do not know why;
• tell the family plainly that they did not cause this.

What is really proved?

Check it yourself

1. Read Acts 3:1-16 and Acts 14:8-18. Ten minutes. See what the apostles do when a crowd gives them the credit.
2. Read James 5:13-18. Five minutes. Who prays? Who heals?
3. Read 2 Samuel 12:15-23. Five minutes. David prays, and says, “Who knows”.
4. Read 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 and Philippians 2:25-30. Five minutes. A sickness that stayed, and a friend who got well.
5. Listen to one sentence. The next time someone explains why a sick person got well or died, ask: who is this sentence about? God, the sick person, or the speaker?