James 5

1-6 Warning to Rich Oppressors

(Previous verse: To know to do right and not to do it is sin, which certainly applies to the rich people James now addresses.)

• Rich people, you may be comfortable now, but you should be mourning for the miseries to come.
• You fraudulently kept back wages from your laborers, and the Lord has heard their cries.
• You have lived in pleasure and luxury, murdering the righteous, who did not resist.

7-12 Patience in Suffering

• Beloved, be patient in your waiting for the Lord, as a farmer is patient who waits for harvest
• Avoid being judged: don’t grumble against each other; the Judge is standing at the doors.
• Look to the prophets as examples of suffering and patience, especially to Job, where you see the purpose, compassion and mercy of the Lord.
• Above all, do not use oaths.

13-20 The Prayer of Faith

• If you’re suffering, pray.
• If you’re happy, sing.
• If someone is sick, call the elders and ask them to pray for them, anointing them with oil.
• A prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up, forgiving him of any sins he has committed.
• Therefore, confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other, because prayers of righteous people are powerful and effective.
• Look to Elijah for an example of how powerful prayer is.
• Whoever brings a wandering Christian back to the truth will save his or her soul and prevent many sins.

Note: This passage presents problems for practical reasons, because we have all seen cases where the prayers of the righteous do not result in physical healing. But as I examine the word “save” here, or even in other translations, the word “restore,” I don’t necessarily see physical healing. People avoid seeing it as spiritual healing, because that has led – I think – to the “last rites” practice, to priests praying over the deadly ill, hearing confessions and absolving them of sins they have committed.

But this is a generic “prayer of faith,” which can apply to anyone who is praying, not just the elders (who are not the same thing as priests). And the word save here is the same Greek word, sozo, used in verse 20 of this chapter, which is clearly a spiritual salvation.

So here is my take on this passage: When a Christian is ill, it’s appropriate and even necessary that faithful Christians (even more needful if they are elders) come to visit the Christian, to pray for them, and – if they have stepped out of the light (1 John 1:7) – to encourage them to acknowledge their sins, to pray for forgiveness. We tend to see a restoration of physical health as powerful evidence of faith, but is not forgiveness of sin much more powerful? (Consider what Christ said about it in Mark 2:9.) Doctors can heal disease; only God can forgive sin.