This course, in the Pentecostal tradition, affirms that God still heals today. Jesus healed out of compassion, his disciples went on seeing healings after him, and nothing indicates that God has stopped doing so. But the Bible nowhere says that all the sick will be healed, and a person who has been healed is no holier than anyone else.
What the Bible shows
Jesus was moved with compassion for blind men and for a man with leprosy (Matthew 20:34; Mark 1:41). The Gospels record nearly thirty accounts of individual healings, deliverances and raisings from the dead, as well as healings of crowds (Matthew 4:23-24). After him, the healings continued: the lame man at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:1-10), the crowds in Jerusalem (Acts 5:12-16), Aeneas and Tabitha with Peter (Acts 9:32-42), Malta with Paul (Acts 28:8-9). As David Petts stresses, nothing indicates that they stopped, neither in Acts nor in James 5:14-16. We do not build a doctrine on experience, but experience can confirm what the Bible teaches.
Some movements despise the body and do not pray for its healing. This course sees no biblical basis for this: God created man with a body and found it “very good” (Genesis 1:31).
How to ask for healing
James 5 is the most specific passage: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:14). It also mentions personal prayer, confessing to one another and perseverance, following the example of Elijah. The course invites us to pray with faith rather than to conclude too quickly that God does not want to heal. Prayer goes hand in hand with caring for the body, which belongs to God (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
When healing does not come
We must never blame a sick person. Faced with the man born blind, Jesus says: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned” (John 9:3). At Bethesda, only one man is healed among many sick people (John 5:1-9), and Paul leaves Trophimus sick in Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20). Healings are not always instantaneous, and the real difficulty is knowing God’s will. Complete healing also remains a hope: we are waiting for “the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). God may heal or may not heal; whatever happens, let us remain faithful and persevere in prayer.