Living Out Our Faith through Prayer and in Community [James Study Week 12, James 5:13-20]
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
James 5:13-20
Throughout his whole letter, James has been instructing his readers to live out their faith—and he’s been especially concerned with how they do that in suffering. Look back to the very first verse of this book. James writes to Jewish believers scattered around the world (“the twelve tribes in the Dispersion”). They’re dealing with persecution and long to one day experience the restoration God promised. But in the meantime, first century life has been hard, especially as followers of Christ.
They’re also navigating divisions within the Church, divisions between Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, honored and lowly. In the middle of all of this, James calls them to a life that reflects the kingdom and the character of God. We’ve seen the practical exhortations he’s given like avoiding partiality, watching their speech, submitting desires to God, and not putting their trust in plans or possessions. Then, we reach the end of his letter, which offers a fitting conclusion to all he’s instructed God’s people to do thus far: 1) pray and 2) help one another live out the truth.
Living A Life of Prayer and Praise
Is anyone suffering? Pray. It seems so simple, but unfortunately, we’ve often turned the simplicity into a cliche. “Just pray about it,” sometimes isn’t a call to get on our knees and come before the holy God. We can treat it like a magic trick, or come to God as if he’s Santa Claus. Or, we can flippantly say, “I’ll just pray about it,” as an excuse to avoid doing the hard things we need to do as we live out our faith. But we know that, as James has given us very practical commands for living as a Christian, true prayer is not a means to get us off the hook from doing.
“If we’re truly communing with the holy God, our prayer life will fuel us for doing the work he’s called us to in the rest of our lives.”
Prayer is an essential part of the doing. They can’t be separated. We can’t do what God wants us to do without continually coming to him in prayer, and if we’re truly communing with the holy God, our prayer life will fuel us for doing the work he’s called us to in the rest of our lives. Being doers of the word requires that we also be people of prayer.
Is anyone cheerful? Sing, James tells us. Prayer and praise are not usually at the tip of my tongue. Grumbling and gloating are. If I’m suffering, well let me complain about it a bit. If things are going well, let me take the credit. And while mourning sorrow and celebrating joys are a right and godly response, grumbling and gloating are different. They come from a spirit of unbelief and pride, both of which fail to demonstrate true kingdom living.
Prayer and praise should be at the forefront of our tongues. Prayer and praise should fuel us as we live out our faith, and then in turn, the circumstances of our daily lives and how we see God working in the world fuels us once again to move toward more prayer and praise. What would it look like for us to actually put this into practice? To have prayer and praise be our gut response to whatever happens in our lives?
It’s definitely a question worth praying about–and then putting into action.
The Prayer of Faith Will Save?
James then tells the sick to call the elders (or overseers) of the church to pray. The elders should anoint the sick person with oil, an act of consecrating them to the Lord. This should be done “in the name of the Lord,” a phrase that shows the “authority by which an action was carried out.”[1]
James seems to have in mind physical healing. He is not guaranteeing that if we follow this formula of elders, anointing with oil, the name of the Lord, etc. it will automatically bring healing. It’s not a magic spell. So what is James really saying here? He says that the prayer of faith will save the sick person (verse 15). How can we be so sure? What does he mean by will save?
Some commentators believe James is specifically pointing in these verses to the person with the spiritual gifts of faith and healing (1 Corinthians 12:9), while others view this prayerful confidence more like how Jesus talked about prayer. There could be a bit of both, but I want to explore the latter idea further.
We’ve seen how James draws deeply on Jesus’ faith throughout his book, and we can hear the influence of Jesus’ words in these verses, too. In Matthew 9:21-22, we see how a woman who touched Jesus’ garment was made well, and Jesus says to her that her faith has made her well. Jairus also demonstrates faith in Jesus, pleading with him to lay his hands on his daughter to make her well. Over and over again, people demonstrated faith in Jesus to heal their sicknesses, and Jesus commended them for it.
The book of Acts recounts similar stories. Acts 14:9-10 says, “(A crippled man) listened to Paul speaking. Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, ‘Stand upright on your feet.’ And he sprang up and began walking.”
So does our lack of healing mean we have a lack of faith? No, I don’t think so. We see examples of people suffering deeply in various ways, people of great faith. Job had faith yet suffered physically, and didn’t experience healing as soon as he would have liked. Paul had faith yet grieved the thorn in the flesh. I believe my own mother had deep faith in the ability of God to heal her, yet cancer took her body.
What do we do with this? To be sure, we can all grow in our faith. No one has perfect faith, which is why we look to Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1). James isn’t calling us to muster up enough faith, as though it was an act of willpower. Our faith is so frail, yet we can look to Jesus who has perfect faith for us and say like a distraught father asking Jesus to heal his son, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
Jesus tells his disciples that if they had faith like a mustard seed, they could move mountains, a common Jewish metaphor for doing the impossible (Matthew 17:20). Faith is powerful—but not because of us. Rather, it’s powerful because of the object of our faith, the one who invites us to participate in what he’s already doing in the world by putting our faith in him. Nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37), but that doesn’t mean God will answer every request on our wishlist.
When God Doesn’t Heal
As I think about all these stories of healing in Scripture, one that sticks out in my mind is that of Lazarus. Mary, Lazarus’ sister, had faith, so much so that she told Jesus off for not coming sooner when her brother was sick. She said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). She believed Jesus could have healed her brother. Yet he didn’t. Why?
Jesus goes to the tomb of Lazarus, and tells them to roll the stone away. He says to Mary, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:40).
He didn’t heal Lazarus, because he had something so much greater in mind—resurrection. Mary would see the glory of God as her brother, a man dead four days walked out from a tomb. He didn’t heal Lazarus, because he had plans so much greater than Mary could have fathomed. Even with a deep faith in Jesus’ power to heal, Mary still never thought he would raise her brother from the dead.
God can heal. God asks us to have faith. He tells us to pray in the name of Jesus. He can save the sick from their physical illnesses, just as he can save us from death itself. But all of this falls under the sovereign will of God. James, I believe, isn’t saying that it’s our faith that will save. Rather, he tells us that the prayer of faith is a means God uses to heal. It’s a tool he uses to put us on our knees to come before him. The prayer of faith saves—as opposed to magic spells or our own efforts or whatever else—because we serve a powerful God who gives us prayer as a means to come before him. He’s not a distant God, but he brings us into what he is already doing as we pray. We get to be a part of the work of God as we pray.
There’s still plenty of wrestling we need to do with this passage, and I doubt my answers are entirely satisfactory. But as John writes, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15). Again, it’s not that we have to say the magic word or follow a formula. It’s that we have a God who wants us to come to him and invites us into what he’s doing. And we can be sure that if he does not do what we ask, if he does not heal like Lazarus’ story shows, he has something much greater in mind.
Do we have enough faith to believe that God can heal—and then to trust him if he doesn’t heal that he’s doing something even greater?
Sickness, Sin, Confession, and Prayer
James then talks about the connection between sin and sickness. He says, if he has committed sins (verse 15). This is a conditional clause that shows that sickness is not always caused by sin—although it can be. In John 5, Jesus healed a man who couldn’t walk, and then when Jesus sees the man in the temple, he says, “Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you” (John 5:14). There seemed to be some connection between the sickness and the sin. Yet in John 9, Jesus heals a man born blind, and he clearly states, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the words of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3).
We can do great damage if we wrongly tell people their sickness is due to their sin. Churches have used this to hurt, exert power over, and even abuse people whose suffering may not have anything to do with sin on their part. Other times, as Christians we can be so desperate to find a solution and fix a problem that we jump to conclusions about someone in the name of “helping” them. Job suffered deeply, but not because of sin. And when we make assumptions, we end up being like Job’s friends who attempted to comfort him “with empty nothings” (Job 21:34).
“Praying for each other and confessing to one another are essential practices for Christian community.”
Conversely, when sickness and sin are related, and when we fail to address that sin, we’re causing damage as well. If sin has played a role in the sickness, we need to do what James calls us to do: confess to one another. We cannot let sin fester. We have to deal with it so that it doesn’t cause further damage to our bodies, our souls, and our communities. As one commentator writes, “James, dealing with communities in which there’s as a good bit of social strife, points to the vital Christian remedies of fractured relationships—open confession of sin and mutual prayer, which are actions that promote transparency, support, and unity.”[2]
Praying for each other and confessing to one another are essential practices for Christian community, practices that take great vulnerability but ones that the body of Christ cannot do without.
Elijah–Someone Just Like Us
Like he’s done so many times before, James then offers us an Old Testament example to illustrate his point. He reminds readers of Elijah, a revered prophet of God. But he tells his readers that Elijah had “a nature like ours” (James 5:17). He was human, just like everyone else. He was not divine, and yet the prayers he prayed were immensely powerful because the one he prayed to is powerful. He prayed for the rain to stop, and it did. Then he prayed for rain, and it rained (see 1 Kings 18).
The power available to Elijah in prayer is the same power available to us, because we serve the same all-powerful God.
“The power available to Elijah in prayer is the same power available to us, because we serve the same all-powerful God.”
Again, all of our prayers come under the sovereign will of God. But do we actually believe prayer is powerful? Do we actually believe we serve the same God as Elijah—and that we have access through prayer to our God?
Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Do we really believe that’s true, that we can draw near to the throne of God with confidence—confidence rooted not in our own abilities but in Christ and the power of God?
I so easily doubt those truths. I often want to fix things myself first before praying about it. I forget the joy and peace available to me through submitting myself to God’s will through prayer, asking him for what I need, and believing he has the power to do far above all I could even ask or think.
In his book, A Praying Life, Paul Miller writes, “Frankly, God makes us nervous when he gets too close. We don’t want a physical dependence on him. It feels hokey, like we are controlling God. Deep down we just don’t like grace. We don’t want to risk our prayer not being answered. We prefer the safety of isolation to engaging the living God.”[3]
“Do we prefer the safety of isolation to engaging the living God?”
Do we prefer the safety of isolation to engaging the living God? I often do. But because of Christ, we can approach our powerful God humbly and boldly. N.T. Wright puts it this way, “Prayer isn’t just me calling out in the dark to a distant or unknown God. It means what it means and does what it does because God is, as James promised, very near to those who draw near to him. Heaven and earth meet when, in the spirit, someone calls on the name of the Lord.”[4]
Prone to Wander
James finishes his letter once again addressing, “my brothers,” meaning those within the family of Christ. He’s been talking about Christian community throughout his whole book, and here he urges believers to help those who wander from the truth. He reminds them that we have a responsibility not just to ourselves, but to one another. We are meant to live in community, community that reflects the kingdom and the character of God. When one of us wanders off from the truth, it’s the role of others to humbly and lovingly bring him or her back.
When James is talking about wandering from the truth here, he’s talking about actions that show one isn’t living according to the “word of truth” (James 1:18). We’re all prone to wander away from God and into sin (both sins of omission and commission), and we need others to help bring us back.
“If our community of faith is more focused on following the views of a political party, a country, a leader, an ideology, or even a pastor, than we are focused on Christ, that needs to change. We have ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all’ (Ephesians 4:5-6).”
It’s essential, then, that we don’t neglect being in a community of believers, a community that is focused on being more like Christ. If our community of faith is more focused on following the views of a political party, a country, a leader, an ideology, or even a pastor, than we are focused on Christ, that needs to change. We have “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:5-6).
Our political parties get it wrong. Our pastors get it wrong. Our denominations get it wrong. Christ never gets it wrong. He is the one we follow. When we mix up these priorities, we cause great damage to ourselves and to others.
Wandering from the truth means wandering from the true God, wandering from living out the faith he’s called us to live, wandering from doing what he’s told his people to do. When we see that happen in the community of faith, we need to be people who have the humility, gentleness, love, and courage to correct others—and we need to make sure we’re not showing them the speck in their eye while failing to notice the log in our own. And when we ourselves wander, we need to have the humility to listen as others speak into our lives and call us back to the truth.
It would be much more comfortable to keep ourselves at a distance instead of getting into the lives of others and allowing them into ours. It would be much easier to make faith just about me and my own relationship with God. But living out our faith is not just about God and me. It is that, to be sure, but it’s to be lived out in community. That is hard to do. It’s messy and uncomfortable. But as James says, when we bring back a sinner from wandering, God is using us to help rescue them or them to help rescue us. God is using us to make each other more like Christ.
This task shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s to be done humbly and prayerfully. And then when we are the one who has wandered off, may we rejoice when others grab our hand and lead us back to the truth.
Putting It All Together
Living out the truth of the gospel is what our lives should be all about. We’re to be doers of the word, not hearers only, and James has spilled much ink on telling us specifically what that looks like. We’re to not show partiality, use our speech to love others, demonstrate the meekness of wisdom, be patient in suffering, pray for one another, help spur each other on in the truth, and more. We’re to be the most humble, loving, just, merciful, compassionate, and patient people on the planet.
Oh how I wish that could be said of me. I wish that could be said of the Church. But God is so gracious to us that he has given us the Spirit to help us as we live out the gospel. He knows we’re dust, and he doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve (Psalm 103), and so he has promised us a Helper. John 14:26 says, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
God doesn’t leave us to our own devices. He knows we’d never last. Praise be to God that we have a compassionate and merciful Father, the righteousness of Christ, and the help of the Spirit as we learn to be doers of the word.
“Through the Spirit we can become people who demonstrate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
What James calls us to put into action in his letter is not easy. But the Spirit helps us in our weakness (Romans 8:26), and through the Spirit we can become people who demonstrate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
May we be people who bear that fruit. May we be doers of the word of truth. May we live out the gospel in our everyday lives, and may we be a Church that humbly and boldly demonstrates the kingdom and the character of God on earth as it is in heaven.
He began a good work in us–and he will finish it (Philippians 1:6). Thanks be to God.
Reflect
Are prayer and praise your first responses to circumstances in your life? Why or why not?
How have you seen God answer prayer recently? What have you prayed about that he hasn’t answered yet–or has answered with a “no”? How have those answered and unanswered prayers affected your faith and trust in God?
Have you ever had someone correct you as you’ve wandered from the truth? What did that look like? Was it done well or poorly?
How can believers rightly and lovingly help one another live out the truth? What does growing in faith together as the Church look like for you and your local Christian community?
Think back through all of James 1-5. Reflect on what you learned and how you can demonstrate the kingdom and the character of God in your life this week.
[1] Longman, Tremper, David E. Garland, et al. Hebrews—Revelation. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006, p 270.
[2] Ibid, 271.
[3] Miller, Paul E. A Praying Life: Connecting With God In A Distracting World. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2009, p 125.
[4] Wright, N. T. The Early Christian Letters for Everyone. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p 42.
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