Question
For our sick child we prayed for healing for her. I also took her to a doctor for medicine and my husband thought I was showing lack of faith. What does the Bible say about medicine and doctors.
Answer
In Luke Chapter 10 Jesus sent out the Seventy with power to “heal the sick” and to preach to them “the kingdom of God is come night unto you. (v. 9)” They returned overjoyed at the power they had that “even the devils were subject” unto them. But Jesus rebuked them(v. 20) saying their joy should be over the fact their names were “written in heaven.” They should have been overjoyed at being able to see and hear things which many prophets and kings had desired to see and hear.
Then a certain lawyer come to Jesus asking what he must do in order to”inherit eternal life” or, to have “his name written in heaven”. Jesuscould have answered the man directly, but would rather the man figure it out for himself so He asked him a question, “What is written in the law?” In other words, what does the Bible say? He said he was to love God supremely and he showed that love by loving his neighbor as himself. Jesus said then do it, but the lawyer “willing to justify himself said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus tells about a certain man that was robbed and beaten and left half dead. A priest and Levi passed by on the other side, but a Samaritan had compassion on the man and doctored him as best he could and then took him to the inn. Jesus asked which of the three was his neighbor? He aid it was the one that showed mercy. Jesus again said do it. (The priest and Levi had both been to “worship,” but their worship was empty. The reason the Samaritan helped the man was because he had compassion on him which was why he could extend mercy. He could extend mercy was because she first saw his own need of God’s mercy. When we understand our need of God’s mercy we won’t be seeking to justify ourselves, as the lawyer, but will acknowledge our complete dependence upon God. And because we completely depend upon Him we will love Him with all our hearts. And we express that love to God by loving His children, our neighbors.
Next, we see the picture of two women. Martha is “careful and troubled” about the things of this world, but Mary had chosen “that good part” in sitting at the feet of Jesus. Notice Jesus said “one thing is needful”. What if Martha had the cleanest house and had cooked the best meal, but she did not love Jesus with all her heart and soul? She was seeking another means to “justify herself”, as the lawyer had. The most important in this life is to love God with all our heart and soul, the physical things are all secondary and we are not to be “careful and troubled” about them.. In Chapter 11 one of Jesus disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray. What it must have been like to hear and see the Son of God pray to His Father. This man must have sensed how far different his prayers were from that of Jesus. But Jesus prayed as He did because of the love he had for His Father. In the prayer he said to pray (Luke 11:3) “Give us day by day our daily bread.” And He closes by saying God will indeed to this by asking (Luke 11:13), if the parents of the world will feed their children physical food, why wouldn’t the heavenly Father feed His children spiritual food? (In this instance He is talking about sending the Holy Spirit to guide the apostles into all truth in Acts 2.) He is saying the most important thing is not physical food, or physical health, but spiritual food and spiritual health. That is, do we love God with all our heart and soul? Does Jesus mean we are to pray for our daily food and God will miraculously provide it? Does God not have the power to provide it today as He did the manna in the wilderness? Jesus could have done it then. When Jesus fed the five thousand they wanted to make him king because they thought he would feed them miraculously. They did not see the purpose, or the spiritual intent, of the miracle. The purpose of miracles in the Bible was to confirm the Word. Miracles have ceased (1
Corinthians 13:8-13 and other passages) because the Word has been confirmed and completed. If it does not show a lack faith to go to work or buy food to keep our family healthy why should it to go to work to buy a medicine (doctor’s food) to help our family get healthy.
Prayer is the expression of our trust in God that He will take care of us and provide our necessities (Matthew 6:31-33). Again these verses are not saying if we go to the grocery store, or department store to buy food and clothes, we am showing a lack of faith in God. These verses are saying, if we will put God and His kingdom first in my life, God will see that I have the necessities of life. But God has not promised there will not be any hardships and difficulties in this life or that Christians will never become sick. He has promised if I will remain faithful through these difficulties and not lose my faith, when my life ends He will continue to taking care of me throughout eternity.
I know we all hate to see those we love become sick, especially our children. But prayer is not some magical wand that we wave one time and magically everything changes. Some who question God and some who
question the existence of God ask, “If there is a God why is there sickness?” Sure we all want our children to be healthy all their lives, but the real thing that should concern us is “Are they spiritually healthy? Are we teaching them the Word of God? And do they see in our lives that we love and trust God with all our heart and soul?”
I think God allows sickness in order to teach us: (1) Dependence upon God (even the rich get sick) (2) Patience (we want everything now) (3) Appreciation (to help us learn to appreciate the good health and physical blessings we have) (4) Hope (If everything ran smoothly our affections would be tied to this world and we would not be looking forward to being with God in heaven.) (5)Trust (That the all-knowing, all-powerful God knows and does what is best .)
By Danny Stanford