Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. A prayer of a righteous person, when it is brought about, can accomplish much.

James 5:14-16

What is the function of faith?

If we believe in God, that is to say, acknowledge He exists, we are not complete in our relationship to him. James, in this same letter, says that is a trait we share with demons (2:19). The idea of belief in the existence of God was alien to the ancient world. People assumed the presence of the divine. What they had to be convinced of was that Jesus represented the will of the one true God.

The thing that we as Christians are concerned with is the belief in God, meaning we trust that He is who He says He is and will do the things He says He will do. So when we pray, do we pray from a place of mere belief or do we pray from a more informed place of trust in God?

James was instructing his readers to pray in faith for the healing of their sick; not in the faint and distant wish that God might grant it but with the firm and immediate trust that God would carry out that which was best. They were to pray boldly and trust the one who answers.

Ethan Kirl