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 w...