Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.” (Isaiah 38:21 ESV)
Many of the healings recorded in the Bible combine the natural and the supernatural. Healings often take place through prayer accompanied by a natural action. God and medicine often work together.
I worked with a missionary organization, Youth With A Mission, for seventeen years. In my training days, I was a part of a work team. One day, I noticed a boil arising on my forearm. In our morning meeting, the team prayed for my healing. Our team leader mentioned the scripture verse above and suggested I go home and put some medicine on it. Within two days, the fluid in the boil had drained, and the boil was gone. God and medicine had healed me.
The presence of the natural and supernatural is not an isolated occurrence in the Bible. In 2 Kings 5, there is the story of Naaman, the Syrian military commander with leprosy, who Elisha told to go and bathe seven times in the Jordan for healing. Or when Jesus made mud and put it on the blind man’s eyes and told him to wash in the Siloam pool. I am not sure if there were healing properties in the water or the minerals in the mud or if it was a matter of obedience, but it does appear that God often, but not always, works with the natural in bringing about the supernatural.
The commentator Matthew Henry once said, “We must not put doctors or medicine in the place of God, but we must use them in submission to his providence; help yourself and God will help you.” As Christians, we often align ourselves with one camp or another, divine healing or medical science, and are a bit suspect of the other. The famous faith healer Oral Roberts talked about two healing streams, spiritual and medical, working together. He even built a medical center to bring the two together.
God is a healing God. He can speak it into existence or use the people he has created to develop medicines or procedures to enhance healing. We should be open to both. Maybe we should let God be God.
Image used by permission from Microsoft.
Ken Barnes, the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places” YWAM Publishing and Broken Vessels through Kindle Direct Publishing.
Ken’s Website— https://kenbarnes.us/
Ken blogs at https://kenbarnes.us/blog/
Email- [email protected]
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