The Ministry of Healing

Introduction

Have you ever had an experience with God that you couldn’t quite explain, but you knew you had to praise God for it?

When I was young, my mom forced me and my brother to go to church...one day they told me to take my hat off...

I can’t explain that experience, but I know it wasn’t from me. I fought the call to preach the Word for many years. But, when the Holy Spirit is at work, He does things that we can’t necessarily understand or explain, but it is all of the glory of God and the call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

With that in mind, let’s see what happened in the church after the ugliness with Ananias and Sapphira.

Body: Acts 5:12-16

Verse 12

This is the third summary statement in the book of Acts. The emphasis here is the healing ministry of the apostles.

It was this healing ministry that drew people to them to hear the Gospel. But, it would also draw the attention of the religious authorities, which would lead to rising opposition, and then to outright persecution.

The apostles continue to heal and preach the Word in the temple, in a place called Solomon’s Portico.

Solomon’s Portico was the raised outermost part of Herod’s temple with columns that went all the way around the outer court.

It was there that the apostles would regularly meet in order to heal and preach.

In mentioning this, Luke points to the apostle’s boldness to continue fulfilling Jesus mission for them, despite the earlier threats from the Sanhedrin and the timidity of some of the believers.

Verses 13-14

Verses 13 and 14 are challenging because, at first glance, in many modern translations there is an apparent contradiction (no one dared join them versus more believers were added to their numbers). There are no contradictions in Scripture, only contradictions in our understanding. So, what gives?

When Luke speaks of “none of the rest” here he’s either talking about the crowds or he’s talking about disciples of Jesus who are not the apostles.

Thus, either people in the crowds were afraid of making it official that they were now followers of Christ, either out of fear of the religious leaders, fear that stemmed from the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, or a combination of both.

Or, other believers who weren’t apostles we afraid to join out of the same fears I just mentioned.

Either way, what’s important to see here is there is an uneasiness that is building as the healing and preaching ministry is gaining popularity. Additionally, despite the fear the people may be feeling, the apostles were highly respected by the people.

In spite of any fear and trepidation that people may be feeling, people are responding to the Gospel in faith.

I mentioned earlier that the apostles continue to heal and preach, and one might be tempted to point out that preaching isn’t mentioned here. That is true.

But, it was the habit of the apostles to preach the Gospel, to the point that it can be assumed that they always did this.

Additionally, no one can come to true faith in Christ Jesus simply through miracles. They need the Gospel preached to them.

Romans 10:14–17 “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Thus, miracles confirmed that God was at work in and through the apostles. They grabbed the people’s attention and opened their minds and hearts to hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Notice also that Luke mentioned, “both men and women.” This might not seem like a big deal for modern believers, but for the time and culture, Luke is saying something important.

Women were expected in that culture to follow the faith of their husband. They were not highly respected for their intellect, importance, or ability to make decisions without the guidance of their husband. But, in the case of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit clearly doesn’t care about social norms.

Here both men and women are seen as having the capacity to respond to the Gospel.

Verses 15-16

So, an obvious question that one might ask here is: did Peter’s shadow really heal people?

The text doesn’t actually say that. It might have, but it doesn’t specifically say his shadow healed people.

This is an example of a folk belief that has spread among the people. And Luke’s point is that the people had such a strong desire to see God do something miraculous that they would do just about anything to come into contact with these “miracle workers.”

Again, what’s really important here is that the Holy Spirit is at work through the apostles, healing people of their afflictions.

This not only shows the power of the Holy Spirit in the apostles ministry and opens the door for the preaching of the Gospel, but it’s also a foreshadowing for what comes next: opposition from the Jewish religious establishment.

In fact, in a few weeks we will see the wisdom of one of their leaders who said: “...if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. Your might even be found opposing God!”

As we will see, the religious leaders will only heed that advice for a very short time!

So What?

This morning I’m going to set out to answer two questions. One contributes to our overall knowledge, specifically to protect from false teachers. The second is a more challenging question, that frankly I’ve been thinking about a lot lately as the pastor of this church. We will get to that question in a moment.

Is faith healing still a thing?

Certain denominations and religious movements today put a lot of emphasis on so called, “faith healing.” Entire ministries have been built on the supposed ability of individuals of heal through a touch or a special prayer or giving money.

And, aside from the obvious charlatans, there are large groups of well-meaning people who believe that they can heal others and/or be healed themselves if they just have enough faith and pray the right prayers.

Many will point to passages like this to prove their belief in faith-healing. So, I feel like it is important to address this issue.

To begin, God can do what He wants when it comes to healing people. And, we are absolutely supposed to pray for one another in all things, especially during sickness and suffering. I’m unquestioning in my belief that prayer has incredible power because the God we pray to is all-powerful.

Additionally, the same Holy Spirit that was at work in the first century church is at work in the modern church. Everyday He is doing things that we cannot explain.

All that being said, it is important to remember a few key truths about healing:

The apostles were given a special calling to heal.

Matthew 10:1 “And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.”

Luke 9:1 “And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases,”

Jesus never promised that this would extend to all disciples forever. In fact, they were an extension of His own healing ministry.

And while we even see it to a degree during Paul’s ministry, we also clearly see that it often became a source of pride and in-fighting within the early church. Thus, Paul tells them about the “more excellent way” the way of love!

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

The healing ministry has always been a confirmation of the Holy Spirit’s work, not as an end in itself.

For many modern “faith-healers” the “healing” is a tool to build their ministry and fame. It’s not about pointing others to Jesus; it’s about pointing others to the healer himself.

My Benny Hinn story...

I agree with scholar, David Peterson when he wrote: “Throughout Acts, signs and wonders ‘authenticate the word of missionary preaching as the word of God’. It is the word that saves, as people come to believe and put their trust in God as its source and Christ as its content.”

See, healing wasn’t meant to be the source of their faith. They healed and people listened. But the preaching of the Gospel was they key.

This is why, historically, healing has been so rare. It’s because, as fallen humans, we tend to focus more on the miracle than the source of the miracle.

Additionally, healing someone of their physical ailments does nothing for their greater need: the spiritual ailment.

The Gospel of Christ Jesus alone can heal mankind’s spiritual ailment. And that is why our calling isn’t to heal, it is to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus!

The power to heal is with God, not with man.

I covered this in part in my last point, but the fact remains, the power to heal wasn’t with Peter, his shadow or anything else about Peter. It was the Holy Spirit that healed. Peter was a vessel, to be sure, but it was the Spirit that was healing people.

This is where modern “healing” should be focused, then. We can experience healing through the work of the Holy Spirit, when and if it is His will.

It’s not because of our prayers, but our prayers are effective in that we are crying out to the God who can heal, if that be His will.

What are we currently attempting to do that can only be done through the work of the Holy Spirit?

As a pastor, this question challenges me, because it’s so easy for us to choose the easy path, doing what we’ve always done.

There’s an old saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.” But, in the church this isn’t true. If we always do what we’ve always done we often will experience the law of diminishing returns.

Meaning, if we are constantly trying to put new wine in old wine skins we shouldn’t be shocked when it doesn’t work out as we hoped.

I think part of the reason we do this is because it’s familiar. We love the familiar, don’t we...

But, at times in the life of the church we have to ask some hard questions.

What do we need to do to more effectively reach people in our community with the Gospel?

What hinders people from becoming part of the church?

How can we better minister to the members of our church and the people in our community who aren’t part of our church?

As we wrestle with these types of questions, we ought to ask ourselves, “What is God calling us to do that can only be done through the work of the Holy Spirit?”

See, Peter couldn’t add a great multitude to the church through his great intellect or speaking ability. The apostles couldn’t heal people because of their innate powers. It was only through the work of the Holy Spirit that God would do something that only He could do and only He could get the credit for.

And that’s what our prayer should be as a church, as well. That we have a vision for the future that has at it’s core the call to reach people with the Gospel, that recognizes what God has been doing in and through us, and depends on the dedicated and unafraid work of the church members, but even more so on the Holy Spirit doing something far greater than we could do on our own power.

When all this happens, we will see the Holy Spirit move in ways we probably can’t explain, but we certainly will give Him praise for!