Monthly Archives: August 2017
Do Faith Healers Help People?
“If God has withdrawn the gift of healing, how come some people seem to improve after going to see a healer?”
When I was in high school, I took an introductory course in psychology. In that class, the teacher claimed that 75 percent of all illnesses are psychosomatic. That is, they are real physical illnesses that are brought on by an entirely mental process. While there is no way to know if the percentage she cited is accurate, it is hard to argue with her assessment. We know that stress is an entirely mental reaction to the challenges of life, but it can cause a very real, physical, heart attack. So it shouldn’t be surprising that other illnesses are psychosomatic as well.
But if a real, valid, physical illness can be brought on by a purely mental process, then it stands to reason that it can likewise be remedied by a purely mental process, such as believing in a healer’s power to heal. We see evidence of this in what doctors call “the placebo effect.” When testing a drug, researchers give some of the people in the test group the drug being tested, but they give others a placebo, a sugar pill. They do this because they know that people sometimes feel better because they believe they are taking a drug that will help them.
It is easy to then transfer this thinking to what happens when someone with a real illness goes to see a healer. If a person really believes that a healer can help with real, physical illnesses, often he can!
We see the same kind of thing when Solomon declared that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine” (Prov. 17:22). Doctors have known for years that a positive mental attitude aids in healing. Similarly, the positive mental attitude brought on by believing in a healer’s powers often enable people suffering from physical afflictions to know some short-term relief. But frequently those who are “healed” in this way must return again and again to the healer for more healing, while this is never said to be so of the people who were miraculously healed by men with the gift of healing in the Bible
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.
Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.
Charge the Rich! – 1 Timothy 6:17-21
Summary:
Paul told Timothy to “charge the rich” in a dispensationally different way that the Lord charged them (Mark 10:17-21) when He was preparing them for the Tribulation when the beast will issue his mark and God’s people won’t be able to buy food without it. In that day, the rich will have to help the poor survive. But we’ll be raptured before the Tribulation, so God’s instructions to the rich today are different.
They must be warned not to be “highminded,” which is the opposite of “lowliness of mind” (Phil.2:3), esteeming others to be better than you. Riches make the rich think they got what they got because they are better than others (Dan. 4:30). Nebuchadnezzer knew better (Dan.2:37), but riches and power lift a man with pride. Even believers! (Deut.6:10-12; Hos.13:6).
Even under grace, God prospers us (ICor.16:2). And it is interdispensationally true that the good of a man’s labor is something “God giveth him,” along with the “power” to eat it (Eccl.5:18,19). You couldn’t eat the food you buy with the money you earn without the teeth and digestive system God gives you. God gave you life (Acts 17:25). You may draw your own breath, but only with lungs God gave you.
The rich should also be charged not to “trust in uncertain riches” (Pr.27:4) but in “the living God.” Timothy was in Ephesus, where they worshipped a dead god, Diana. She was making her worshippers wealthy (Acts 19:25), but those riches proved uncertain when Paul destroyed their industry. The living God may not make you rich, but He “giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” The rich can’t enjoy what they have, not as you can, because they are subject to the bondage of death (Heb.2:15), whereas you don’t fear death. But you can richly enjoy what little you have because you know where you’ll be spending eternity.
“Do good” is what we should all do (ITim.6:18), but the Lord could “do good” in a way only He could (Acts 10:38), and the rich can do good in a way only they can financially. Women are similarly uniquely able to do certain “good works” (6:18 cf. 5:10) and so should do them, as the rich should do the works they are uniquely able to do (Tit. 2:14)
“Ready” to distribute (6:18) means prepared and inclined to, meaning the rich shouldn’t lock up all their riches in long term investments, but have some available to help others. “Distribute” is always used for giving to the poor, while “communicate” is always used for helping the ministry. The rich should help with both, as we all should.
Giving to others might seem like loss to the rich, but Paul calls it a good work, and good works are “profit,” not loss (Tit.3:8). Because in giving, the rich are “laying up in store for themselves a good foundation” (ITim.6:19).They should store up riches in heaven. Investing in eternity lays up “a good foundation against the time to come” in eternity. If believers are to “edify” one another, that must mean in life you’re building a building. But the building of your life is just the foundation of your eternal building. Good works don’t help you obtain eternal life, they just help you “lay hold” on the eternal life you already have. Pastors do this by the good work of fighting the good fight (6:12), the rich do it by giving. If they don’t, it probably means they have laid hold on this life instead of their eternal life.
Finally, Timothy is told to keep that which was committed to him (6:20). Paul doesn’t say what it was, but we know from comparing Scripture that it was the gospel of grace first committed to Paul (ITim.1:11) and the form of sound words God gave Paul (IITim.1:13,14), the grace message.
Paul warned of “profane and vain babblings,” words his enemies used of him. They said he was babbling “vain” things when he taught the resurrection (Acts 17:18; ICor. 15:14,17. These were “oppositions of science falsely so-called” based on the science of physiology (ICor. 15:35). Paul answered with the science of agriculture (36-38).
Timothy silenced these babblings, but by the time Paul wrote IITimothy the “profane and vain babblings” (IITim. 2:16-18) had misplaced the resurrection instead of denying it. This “overthrew the faith of some” (cf. ITim.6:21).
Faith Amnesia
“Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread…And when Jesus knew it, He saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread?…When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto Him, Twelve. And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven. And He said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?” (Mark 8:14a,17a,19-21).
John W. Moore is credited with saying, “Age hasn’t affected my memory a bit. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I forgot something.” [John W. Moore, from the website of Kent Crockett, accessed December 4, 2016, www. kentcrockett.com/cgi-bin/illustrations/index.cgi?topic=Forgetting] When reading the four Gospels, sometimes one has to wonder if the disciples suffered from memory loss. They definitely experienced faith amnesia.
Mark 6:31-44 is the account of the Lord feeding the five thousand by multiplying five loaves and two fishes. In Mark 8:1-9, they were again in the wilderness with a great multitude of four thousand men present. In Mark 8:2, the Lord said, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with Me three days, and have nothing to eat.” In response to this, you’d think the disciples would’ve said, “Lord, simple, just do that miracle again and multiply and create some loaves and fishes like You did the last time!”
Instead they say, “From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?” (Mark 8:4). In other words, “Where could anyone find enough bread in this wilderness? Where could we possibly go in this desolate place to find food to satisfy all these people?” They’re immediately frustrated and dismayed at the impossible task of feeding such a crowd. They’re telling the Lord what He knew, that this was a barren area. Cities were far away. There weren’t even villages nearby. Finding food for this many people just wasn’t feasible nor realistic.
The disciples had already seen Christ feed an even greater crowd, but they were still at a loss when a similar problem arose. We can’t be too hard on them though, because we do the exact same thing. We forget what the Lord has done for us in the past, and we doubt, and our faith gives way when difficult circumstances come into our lives. The disciples had to be taught and learn the same lesson again, that of recognizing their own insufficiency in an impossible situation, and their need to depend on the Lord. We often get faith amnesia and are thick-skulled like this. We too have to learn the same lesson over and over again before it gets through to us in our Christian lives.
After the Lord multiplied the loaves and fishes and fed the four thousand, it gets even more amazing and somewhat humorous as you read on in Mark 8. While leaving to cross the Sea of Galilee again, the Lord began telling them to beware of the leaven (or corrupting doctrine) of the Pharisees and of Herod, causing the disciples to be reminded that they had forgotten to bring bread except for the one loaf they had with them. These same disciples, who had barely gotten done handing out the multiplied bread to the four thousand, started worrying and whispering among themselves, saying that the Lord spoke of leaven because they hadn’t brought enough bread (Mark 8:13-16). Perceiving their discussion and thoughts, in Matthew’s account, the Lord incredulously asks, “O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?” (16:8).
He then asked them, “Don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of pieces did you pick up?” They sheepishly replied, “Twelve.” “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many baskets full of leftovers did you pick up?” They awkwardly admitted, “Seven.” So He said to them, “How is it that ye do not understand?” (Mark 8:21). Or, “How is it that you don’t get it yet? You don’t have to worry about bread. Just trust Me.”
God had intervened miraculously and worked in their lives, but when the next difficult issue arose, their current situation and problem overwhelmed them, and the past goodness and working of God in their lives were then forgotten. They struggled with the idea that Christ could supply their needs and provide for them. They struggled with remembering what God had done for them in the past and that He is willing and able. They simply struggled with just trusting Him. And truthfully, we too all struggle with these things at one time or another in our Christian lives. Admitting that our faith always has room for growth is important for God, by His Word and the circumstances of our lives, to “perfect that which is lacking in your faith” (1 Thes. 3:10). May we have the same honesty of the man who pleaded for the deliverance of his demon-possessed son: “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24).
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.
Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.
Paraskevidekatriaphobia
If you don’t know what that is, I can’t say as I blame you. If I were a smart aleck, I might “explain” that paraskevidekatriaphobia is a derivation of triskaidekaphobia, but that would probably leave most of our readers just as befuddled. But the latter is the fear of the number thirteen, and the former refers to the more specific phobia of fear of Friday the 13th.
Before you start thinking that people with these phobias should just grow up and get over it, you might want to consider how society itself contributes to this fear. You’ve never stepped off the elevator on to the thirteenth floor of a tall building, simply because the highly educated architects that design our skyscrapers superstitiously refuse to include one. If that old movie made it seem rational that Kris Kringle was Santa Claus by noting that the United States Post Office directed mail to him, its easy to understand how buildings without a 13th floor make a fear of the number 13 seem rational as well.
The effects of paraskevidekatriaphobia are claimed to be extensive. Since many Americans refuse to fly or conduct business on a Friday the 13th, it is said the economy suffers an estimated 800 million dollar loss every time this date rolls around. Back in the 1930s, the influence of this phobia even reached the highest office in our land, as FDR refused to travel on Friday the 13th.
It may surprise you to learn that the origin of this phobia finds its roots in the Bible, when thirteen men observed the last supper. One was a traitor, and tradition (wrongly) holds that the Lord was crucified a few hours later on a Friday.
What’s the cure for paraskevidekatriaphobia? An old joke says if you can pronounce the word, you’re cured! In 1913, a pastor tried to cure people by officiating at Friday the 13thweddings without charge. But since superstition is the veneration of something that deserves none, a better way to help people overcome this superstition is to do what Paul did when he encountered some superstitious people (Acts 17:22) and preach the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (v. 23-31). The world considers Paul’s gospel to be superstition (Acts 25:19), “but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). Paul’s use of the present tense here shows his gospel is more than just “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). Once we are saved, his gospel “is” still the power of God to help us overcome “the spirit of fear” with the spirit “of…a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7), a mind made sound by a full knowledge of Paul’s gospel.
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.
Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.
Israel Blinded
Lord Have Mercy – 2 Timothy 1:16-18
Summary:
When Paul prays for “mercy” for the house of Onesiphorus (v.16) in this life, but for “mercy” for Onesiphorus himself in the next life at the Judgment Seat of Christ (v.18), we have to assume that he is dead and his family is still alive. Especially since Paul greets his family (IITim.4:19) but not him. So Paul was doubtless praying for the kind of mercy his household would need now that the breadwinner of the family was gone, the food kind of mercy (Ps.136:25).
In time past, God provided this kind of mercy in miraculous ways for the families of His servants (IIKi.4:1-7), but in the dispensation of grace God shows mercy through His people (Rom.12:8).
Why would Onesiphorus himself need mercy at the Judgment Seat of Christ? He is mentioned in context of those who departed from the faith (v.15), so we have to conclude he was one of the Asians who started strong but left the faith. Praying for mercy for his family shows a dispensational difference. In time past, men cursed the families of men who went astray (cf.IISam.3:29; Ps.109:10-12).
We don’t know how Onesiphorus “refreshed” Paul (v.16). Perhaps physically (cf.Ex.23:13) by doing things for him so he could rest. Perhaps emotionally, the kind of refreshing David needed after being cursed and stoned (IISam.16: 13,14). Paul was often cursed, and was once stoned! Perhaps Onesiphorus faithfully delivered some of Paul’s epistles (cf.Pr.25:13). Paul used men like Onesiphorus to deliver his epistles (Col.4:7), and women too (Rom.16:1,2). Perhaps he refreshed Paul in all of these ways, for he “oft” refreshed him. His name means “help-bringer,” and he certainly lived up to it!
Onesiphorus was not ashamed of Paul’s chain (v.16), i.e., his imprisonment. With these words, Paul is providing Timothy a good example, with these words coming right after telling Timothy not to be ashamed of him (1:8). When he says Onesiphorus sought him out “diligently” (v.17) and then later told Timothy to “diligently” seek him out (IITim.4:9,21), we know he was pressing this example. Paul wasn’t a baby that needed company, he just wanted to be sure Timothy grew a backbone. He knew if he didn’t stand for Paul before he died he wouldn’t stand for him afterward.
Finding Paul wouldn’t have been easy. In his second imprisonment he was in Caesar’s palace (Phil.1:13; 4:21,22), but his first imprisonment was in a hired house (Acts 28:30). There were about a million homes in Rome!
In Paul’s mind, Onesiphorus’ faithfulness in the past entitled him to mercy at the Judgment Seat, so he prayed for this. Mercy is when God doesn’t give us what we deserve (cf.Ezra 9:9,13). Onesiphorus deserved to lose rewards for his unfaithfulness, but Paul prayed he wouldn’t.
Prayers like that are not new. God honored a prayer like that in Deuteronomy 9:12-27 because Moses reminded God that He promised He’d make Abraham a great nation, not him, and He had to honor that. God remembered, of course, He was testing Moses to see if he remembered. And since he prayed according to God’s will, God let him “influence” His judgment. The same thing happened when Moses prayed that God wouldn’t allow His name to be reproached among the Gentiles (Numbers 14:12-20).
All that explains why God would let Paul “influence” His decision not to allow Onesiphorus to lose rewards. It is God’s will for faithful service to be rewarded. It is not God’s will to take away rewards if we stop being faithful. The only people who will “suffer loss” of rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ are those who never earned any. They will suffer the loss of what they could have had. For men like that Paul prayed that they would get what they deserved (II Tim. 4:14,15). For men like Onesiphorus, Paul prayed like he prayed in II Timothy 4:16.
How’s that make you feel about your rewards? They are as eternally secure as you are! Nehemiah wasn’t sure about his rewards (Nehemiah 13:14), but you can be sure of yours. You’ve got God’s Word on it!
Saviour of All Men?
“How is Christ the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe?”
“…the living God…is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe” (1 Tim. 4:10).
“…the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world” (1 John 4:14), but “it pleased God…to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). So God is the potential Saviour of all, and the particular Saviour of all that believe. Righteousness is offered “unto all,” but it only comes “upon all them that believe” (Rom. 3:22).
But in the context of 1 Timothy 4:10, it is possible Paul had even more than this in mind. In Verse 16, he told Timothy:
“Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.”
Since Timothy was already saved from his sins, Paul must be saying he could save himself and his hearers from all the misery and heartache that not taking heed to Pauline doctrine always brings. Unsaved men can benefit from this kind of salvation as well.
Remember, a few verses earlier, Paul told believers that “godliness is profitable… having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come” (v. 8). Every believer knows that living a godly life will yield the profit of rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ in the life to come. But godliness also profits richly in this life as well. Berean Bible Society founder Pastor C. R. Stam used to say that if he died and found out that Christianity was all a lie, that there was no life after death or rewards in the life to come, he wouldn’t regret a moment of the life he had lived, for it is the richest, most rewarding and satisfying life that can be lived.
But even unbelievers know by experience that “the way of transgressors is hard” (Prov. 13:15), and that “virtue is its own reward.” So Christ can save them from misery and heartache as well, as they inadvertantly take heed to “the doctrine that is according to godliness” (1 Tim. 6:3).
And so, just as the sun and the rain that God gives all men can save unsaved men from the deprivation they would know without these things in life (Matt. 5:45; Acts 17:17), adhering to Christian principles can save unsaved men from misery and heartache in life. That makes God “the Saviour of all men,” but specially of them that believe, for them that believe will also be saved from an eternity in the lake of fire in the life which is to come.
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.
Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.
Berean Searchlight – August 2017
Free Mail Subscription
For a free subscription to the Berean Searchlight by mail, visit the Berean Searchlight Subscription page.
