James 5:13-20

Facilitate Discussion

Who is the Author? Who is the Recipient? What is the author’s intent? Why did he write the book?

Widely believed to be the half brother of Jesus

Mark 3:21-35...

1 Corinthians 15:7 “Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” Became a leader of the church in Jerusalem.

Galatians 2:9 “and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.”

James 1:1 “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.”

Intent?

Sermon exhorting growth, especially in the face of trials.

He began the sermon discussing endurance in trials, and now concludes his letter discussing trials and the role of prayer.

I believe this text is answring the question...

How can we practically resopnd to trials?

vs. 13 Suffering?--- Pray

vs. 13— Happy? --- Praise

vs. 14- Sick?— Call the Elders and Pray

The prayer of faith

vs. 14 Sick?— Confess

IN short, I believe the primary way we are to repond to any and everything in life is prayer.

Philippians 4:6 “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

The sickness?

Greek word= astheneo which means to be weak.

This word is used throughout the NT to discuss mental ability (Rom 6:19), spiritual condition (Rom 5:6), general phusical appearance (2 Cor 10:10), the consciene 1 Cor 8:8) or one’s body. Many scholars believe James is discussing someone who is spiritually weak, not physically. So the exhortation is to pray for this person so that his or her fervor in the Lord might be restored. This fits the content of the last 2 verses. But with the anointing of oil (Mark 6:13), it could easily be a means of physical healing.

OIL?

Oil was widely used in the ancient world both as a skin conditioner and as a medicine. An NT example is Luke 10:34, which describes the good Samaritan as coming to the aid of the man who had been beaten and robbed: “He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.” Ancient sources testify to the usefulness of oil in curing everything from toothache to paralysis (the famous second-century physician Galen recommended oil as “the best of all remedies for paralysis” [De simplicitate medicamentum temperatum 2]).

Considering this background, we might suppose that James is urging the elders to come to the bedside of the sick armed with both spiritual and natural resources—with prayer and with medicine. Both are administered with the Lord’s authority, and both together can be used by him in healing the sick.

Anointing frequently symbolizes the consecration of persons or things for God’s use and service in the OT. Typical is Exod. 28:41: “After you put these clothes on your brother Aaron and his sons, anoint and ordain them. Consecrate them so they may serve me as priests.” The same usage is continued and expanded in the NT, where anointing is often a metaphor for consecration to God’s service (Luke 4:18 [= Isa. 61:1]; Acts 4:27; 10:38; 2 Cor. 1:21; Heb. 1:9 [= Ps. 45:7]). If James has this background in mind, then he would be recommending that the elders anoint the sick person in order vividly to show how that person is being set apart for God’s special attention in prayer.

Oil was also used traditionally in the church, esp. the Roman catholic church as a rite. To remove any remnant of sin and strengthen the soul of the dying. But James’s insistence in v. 15 that the sick person is healed through “the prayer of faith” suggests that the anointing itself does not convey the grace of healing power. We conclude, therefore, that “anoint” in v. 14 refers to a physical action with symbolic significance.

Anointing with oil, because its significance is so unclear, attracts a lot of attention in this passage. But anointing, whatever it signifies, is clearly subordinate to James’s main concern in these verses: prayer.

Esp intersting is the link of sin and sickness.

Sin and sickness were closely related in the ancient world. John 9:2-3It was natural to draw a clear direct relationship between sickness and sin. So there may be a spiritual root cause to a phsycial fruit illness.

But he says IF, so it shoudn’t be assumed as always the case, but could be.

What is the prayer of faith?

Some have abused this. calling for a believer to simply believe enough to receive healing from the Lord. And the devestating result of this theology is 2 fold:added to their remaining physical illness is the assumption that they lack sufficient faith. but this is unbiblical. The lack of healing in James is a result of the Elders faith, not the adherent. Moo argues the faith isn’t in the healing, but in the Sovereignty of God. Paul’s own prayer in 2 Cor 12 was thrwarted, not due to faith. 2 Timothy 4:20. The faith with which we pray is always faith in the God whose will is supreme and best;.

When Jesus taught us to pray, how does it begin?

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done?

What does it mean to pray in Jesus’ name?

John 14:13 “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

George Mueller

I SEEK AT THE BEGINNING to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the trouble with people is just here. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord's will, whatever it may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.

2. HAVING DONE THIS, I do not leave the result to feeling of simple impression. If I do so, I make myself liable to great delusions. 

3. I SEEK THE WILL of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.

4. NEXT I TAKE into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God's will in connection with His Word and Spirit.

5. I ASK GOD in prayer to reveal His will to me aright.

6. THUS, THROUGH PRAYER to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge, and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly. In trivial matters, and in transactions involving most important issues, I have found this method always effective.

Was Elijah Special?

James 5:16 is for all. The righteous man is the christian, not the elder. Prayer, James wants to make clear, is a powerful weapon in the hands even of the humblest believer; it does not require a “super saint” to wield it effectively.

James employs yet a third Greek word for prayer here (deēsis), one that appropriately focuses attention on the petitionary aspect of prayer.B

ut it is not Elijah’s special prophetic endowment or unique place in history that interests James, but the fact that he was a man just like us (Gk. homoiopathēs; cf. Acts 14:15). As in v. 16b, James emphasizes that every believer has access to the kind of effectiveness in prayer that he is illustrating here.

Is this apostasy? Can someone lose their salvation?

The greek for wandering = any deviation from the truth of faith.

Galatians 5:7 “You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?”

1 John 1:6 “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”

James has described a hypothetical situation in v. 19: a community member departs from the faith by becoming involved in sin of some kind and is brought back into the fold by a fellow believer.Believers are encouraged to take action to turn around a sinner who has taken a wrong and ultimately ruinous path by considering the wonderful results of such successful intervention: a soul is saved from death and many sins are covered. “Death” here, as commonly in James and almost always in the NT where sin is the issue, is ultimate “spiritual” death—the condemnation to eternal damnation that results from unforgiven sin (James uses the noun “death” [thanatos] in this sense the one other time it occurs in his letter [1:15]). James pictures death as the final destination on the path that the sinner has determined to take(“we all stumble,” 3:2). His statement here is quite general. Any believer could stumble and stray from God’s truth. Not only this, but the believer may stray outside the restorative fellowship where mutual confession of sin secures the confidence of forgiveness and right relationship to God (v. 16). The truth from which believers wander is that which comes from the word of God that birthed them (1:18) and which they deny when they “harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition” in their hearts (3:14) while claiming to be faithful to it. The wandering from the truth here may be the wandering away from the gathered church itself. Just as the sick person cannot join in the gathering of believers (v. 14), believers who return to the way of the world avoid the fellowship of God’s friends.