Posts

Showing posts from June, 2015

When Experience Doesn't Match Scripture

Recently I said from the pulpit that a large number of professing Christians do not believe scripture.  The example I cited was James 5:14-16.  I told our people that I kept a bottle of olive oil in my car, and in the almost four years I had been pastor of the church I had never been asked by a sick person, and we have a lot of them, to anoint them with oil and pray for them.  Shortly thereafter I had occasion to pray for two people, one with a heart irregularity and another with Crohns' Disease and Chronic Asthma.  That has been weeks ago, and so far as I know both are still dealing with the symptoms of the diseases.  I have read and re-read the scripture passage.  I have examined my life and my motives and I have asked God why we did not experience what it seems that James said would happen.  The only deviation I can find from our experience and James' words was that in neither case did the sick person initiate the anointing and prayer.  Each was asked if they wanted this to