What Will You Do Now?
Bob Wickizer
1 Kings 17:8-24
Last week I had to sit on a stool for the sermon because of my back. Some of you suggested due to the length of the sermon, that the stool should be removed. Do not worry, there is no stool today and I'll keep the sermon to under 30 minutes.
Healing in ancient times was well understood. There was no modern medicine in those days. A few well-educated elites would accompany Roman troops on the battlefields and tend to their gruesome wounds. There were many remedies for cleaning wounds but alas, they never figured out the connection with clean bandages. Infection was the soldier's worst enemy.
But the peasants in the villages could not afford the elite physicians in the cities who accompanied armies and kings. For the peasants, healing was left to prophets, priests and shamans. The ability to heal proved that a prophet had special powers bestowed by God. Even in ancient days, there was always an exchange or reciprocity between the healer and the healed. Sometimes the healer received food and lodging, sometimes all the prophet received was an acknowledgement of his or her identity. The presence of a prophet healing someone in a rural village would often sway the entire village to follow the prophet's teachings.
This connection of healing and following is the reason we see to this day in American revivals (literally ''to live again'') the so-called ''faith healings.'' Pity, if those faith healers and their followers really knew the bible, they would understand that of Luke's 22 healings, not even one in four involved faith.
Of all the gospels, Luke is the only one with the story of the Good Samaritan and Luke is the only gospel that pairs Jesus with the prophet Elijah. Both are healers, both have feeding miracles and both ascend to heaven in front of a crowd.
I have pointed out to you many times that Jesus of the Christian Bible kind of ''one ups'' Elijah of the Hebrew Bible. Every miracle Elija ...
Bob Wickizer
1 Kings 17:8-24
Last week I had to sit on a stool for the sermon because of my back. Some of you suggested due to the length of the sermon, that the stool should be removed. Do not worry, there is no stool today and I'll keep the sermon to under 30 minutes.
Healing in ancient times was well understood. There was no modern medicine in those days. A few well-educated elites would accompany Roman troops on the battlefields and tend to their gruesome wounds. There were many remedies for cleaning wounds but alas, they never figured out the connection with clean bandages. Infection was the soldier's worst enemy.
But the peasants in the villages could not afford the elite physicians in the cities who accompanied armies and kings. For the peasants, healing was left to prophets, priests and shamans. The ability to heal proved that a prophet had special powers bestowed by God. Even in ancient days, there was always an exchange or reciprocity between the healer and the healed. Sometimes the healer received food and lodging, sometimes all the prophet received was an acknowledgement of his or her identity. The presence of a prophet healing someone in a rural village would often sway the entire village to follow the prophet's teachings.
This connection of healing and following is the reason we see to this day in American revivals (literally ''to live again'') the so-called ''faith healings.'' Pity, if those faith healers and their followers really knew the bible, they would understand that of Luke's 22 healings, not even one in four involved faith.
Of all the gospels, Luke is the only one with the story of the Good Samaritan and Luke is the only gospel that pairs Jesus with the prophet Elijah. Both are healers, both have feeding miracles and both ascend to heaven in front of a crowd.
I have pointed out to you many times that Jesus of the Christian Bible kind of ''one ups'' Elijah of the Hebrew Bible. Every miracle Elija ...
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