Exhortations for Suffering Saints ~ Part 2

Steadfastness in Suffering ~ Part 2

When engaging in public discourse, it can be challenging to uphold truthfulness, especially online, where opinions can be exaggerated. Ya’akov 5:12 reminds you to let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no. As you navigate social media this week, please take a moment to verify its accuracy before posting or sharing anything. Choose to be an example of integrity by sharing only what you know to be true and challenge the spread of misinformation within your circles.

Rash Oaths

¹² Above all, brothers, stop swearing oaths—not “By heaven,” not “By the earth,” and not by any other formula; rather, let your “Yes” be simply “Yes” and your “No” simply “No,” so that you won’t fall under condemnation.

Yeshua taught similarly at Mattityahu 5:33-37. This verse follows the ideas of 4:13-17: if we do not know what tomorrow will bring, we dare not take an oath, because it is such a serious commitment.

Prayer and Suffering

Here, along with 1:5-8 and 4:3, is Ya‛akov’s teaching on prayer. Verses 14–20 deal with healing.

¹⁴ Is someone among you ill? He should call for the elders of the congregation. They will pray for him and rub olive oil on him in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ The prayer offered with trust will heal the one who is ill—the Lord will restore his health; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

According to this passage, the Lord heals the sick among His people in response to the prayer offered with trust. Healing was one of Yeshua’s three central ministries (Mattityahu 4:23-24). He promised that His followers would do yet greater works than He did (Yochannan 14:12). In addition, the Ruach, whom He has sent to His followers (Yochanan 15:26), grants to some gifts of healing (1 Corinthians 12:9, 30). Rub olive oil on him. Anointing with oil is not merely a ceremony. In biblical times, olive oil was medicine (Isaiah 1:6, Luke 10:34), and being anointed with oil was considered physically pleasant (Psalms 23:5, 133:2-3).

¹⁶ Therefore, openly acknowledge your sins to one another, and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Roman Catholics take this verse as scriptural ground for their sacrament of confession to a priest. Comparison of this verse with modern secular psychology reveals these three points:

(1)      Sins. Apart from such psychologists as Menninger and Mowrer, secular psychology obscures personal responsibility for sins by calling them “neuroses” or “problems.”

(2)      Openly acknowledge. Communication of one’s inner life is fundamental to psychoanalysis and other forms of verbal psychotherapy.

(3)      Pray for each other. Secular psychology offers group therapy and doctor-patient relationships, but nothing has healing power comparable to that of praying to God. Sinners must repent of sin to have their prayers heard (Isaiah 59:1–2).

(4)      So that you may be healed. “Healing” of sin involves confessing and being genuinely sorry, intending to stop sinning, and actually stopping.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. [1]

¹⁷ Eliyahu was only a human being like us; yet he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and no rain fell on the Land for three years and six months. ¹⁸ Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the Land produced its crops.

See 1 Kings 17:1, 18:42–45. These do not mention Eliyahu’s prayer, but an Aggadah in the Talmud does:

“Eliyahu prayed and received the keys to the rain and stopped the heavens.” (Sanhedrin 113a)

 Mutual Thoughtfulness

¹⁹ My brothers, if one of you wanders from the truth, and someone causes him to return, ²⁰ you should know that whoever turns a sinner from his wandering path will save him from death and cover many sins (Proverbs 10:12).  [2]

Causing a brother to turn from sin is the most excellent form of healing, since it saves him from spiritual death. Compare Ezekiel 33:14-16, 1 Yochanan 5:16-17 and 1 Kefa 4:8.

This post concludes our study of Ya’akov. Next, we will take a look at Y’hudah (Jude).

Click here for the PDF version.

^[1] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary: A Companion Volume to the Jewish New Testament, electronic ed. (Clarksville: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1996), James 5:16.

^[2] Ya’akov 5:12-20