James 5:15

AMP – and the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sin, he will be forgiven.

NRSVUE – The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.

VOICE – Prayer offered in faith will restore them from sickness and bring them to health. The Lord will life them up from the floor of despair; and if the sickness is due to sin, then God will forgive their sins.

The Original Holistic Healing

Our prayers should be founded on our faith. James 5 describes a call to the elders of the church to pray over the sick, to anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. The early church trusted in communal support and the power of prayer. Our faith is a deep trust in God’s power and will. The Greek word used for “sick/restore” can also mean to “save” or “make whole”, showing that this type of healing is holistic. The early church believed that healing was a sign of God’s kingdom breaking into the world.

The Lord raising up the sick connects to the resurrection power of God. It suggests that even if physical healing doesn’t happen, there is a promise of ultimate resurrection and eternal life for believers. For believers, this is a core tenet of our belief structure – knowing that Christ had victory over sin and death. James also suggests that physical illness had a connection to spiritual condition. While not all sickness is a direct result of personal sin, the Bible shows that sin can have physical consequences. The promise of forgiveness shows God’s grace and the encompassing nature of forgiveness. There’s a holistic approach of the early church to address both spiritual and physical needs through prayer and community support.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: How do you feel about the usage of this holistic approach back then? Would it have felt effective to you if you didn’t know the plethora of medical knowledge that we have today?

Modernizing the Holistic Healing

This study connects to something that I saw earlier in the day, that we have physical explanations for what original Bible audiences knew as spiritual intervention. It made me question, “Why don’t we keep that childlike imagination?” What I mean by that is – even if we have a physical explanation for something, we also follow a God that created that explanation. We can give credit to the people that created the paths of medications, treatments, specialties, and more, and we can give God the credit for guiding humanity to these things in order to care for our neighbors. It made me think about how we can approach our healing endeavors today, as they did back then.

Physically, we see the Bible connect physical healing with mental and emotional restoration (see Matthew 9:35.) We often see that stress can play a physical role in our body, especially if left unchecked. While one is not caused by the other, there is a correlation. In my experience, when any tests, blood work, or related acts do not show a root cause behind what I’m feelings, I recognize that a lot of what I’m feeling may be mental and/or emotional disregulation appearing in physical forms. This happened to me during the beginning of the pandemic. I thought I had COVID because my stomach ached, I felt warn down, my sinuses were wildly active. The truth – I was in a major depressive episode. A friend of mine stated, “It’s all in your head.” – turns out, she was right.

It’s also important that we lean on our community when we are sick in any form. When our bodies are fighting any type of illness, we will need help to figure out how to battle/cope with it. It’s a lot easier when you see someone physically sick to figure out where to help (i.e. bringing someone some soup if they have a cold.) It’s less easy when they are dealing with a mental illness or disorder. Unfortunately, our world has not been a safe place to disclose these things without risking judgment, ridicule, and loss. We need to do better, especially as Christians to reduce the stigma behind this, and create the safe place to allow people to share their battles with anxiety, OCD, depression, autism, ADHD, and more. To learn what we can do to help obtain accessibility features to allow them to survive in life. The world has a way of knocking us down, but we can lift people up by being God’s hands and feet.

Another thing that the Bible speaks on is diet and lifestyle. God gives us every edible plant and fruit as our diet, while also looking at the importance of rest. There’s something I’ve heard about the “Daniel Fast Diet.” It’s based off of two passages in Daniel – Daniel 1:12, Daniel 10:2-3. Simply stated, it focuses on eating vegetables and drinking water, and not eating meat or drinking alcohol. On the grander level, it focuses on eating grains, beans/legumes, nuts/seeds, veggies, fruits, oils, and drinks. It focuses on avoiding animal products, added sugar, yeast, refined grains, processed foods, deep-fried foods, solid fats, chocolate, and caffeinated and alcoholic beverages. Obviously, please don’t just go out and do this. Talk with your doctors and local health advisors to see what would work best for you. Honestly, I had a doctor’s appointment that today that encouraged the typical “eat better, work out more.” This may be how I look into what I can do to help out with that.

Overall, there are ways that allows us to view our health and the Bible in a holistic way. HOWEVER – and please hear me closely – do not push holistic healing on to anyone. Do not push any medical advice/recommendations on to anyone with out their consent for it. People may not be able to follow a holistic path. They may need things like medications, surgeries, and medical interventions in order to maintain their health. People are also walking with medical trauma and hardships, and certain conversations can be very triggering. People are also facing barriers to obtain their necessary medical care from things like legislation, financial situations, insurance issues, and more. Let’s be respectful of people’s health journeys, respecting how people have gotten where they are, and become intentional in learning and listening to what people need.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: Think about your health journey. What are the highs that you’ve seen? What are the lows that you’ve seen? What advice would you share to your younger self to prepare yourself for your journey?

The Daniel Fast – https://ultimatedanielfast.com/ultimate-daniel-fast-food-guidelines/

Next slice of manna: Community Rules from God || Manna for the Mind #396