This afternoon I spoke with a woman who made a comment about televangelists being 'charlatans' for offering prayer cloths to people. Now don't get me wrong, I certainly would agree that there's something wrong with anyone who offers a 'free' prayer cloth or miracle spring water for a 'love gift' of $20, but aside from that I don't see any problem with prayer cloths per se. I personally sent my aunt one a couple of years ago when she was in the hospital along with a letter explaining the necessity of faith in Christ and his infinite atoning work for salvation. I explained that there is nothing inherent within the handkerchief that could heal her nor was there anything in and of myself that could produce a healing in her body. But it is God alone who can heal and faith is what is needed to appropriate such a thing.
But this woman referenced 2Kings 13:21 which says: "And as a man was being buried, behold, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha, and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet" and Acts 19:11-12 which says: "And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them" as the two main passages that these men stand on for their belief in prayer cloths. I would add to these the story of the woman with the issue of blood (Mk. 5:14-24) where she was healed by touching the hem of Jesus' garment.
So this got me thinking... are prayer cloths really that much different than the Bible? I asked the question and the chatters immediately chimed in and said 'of course!' But there wasn't much explanation as to why. One man told me that the Bible is alive to which I replied that it is the Word of God (Gk. ho logos tou theou) recorded in the Bible that is living and active (Heb. 4:12) but the Bible itself is a relic just like a prayer cloth.
What do I mean? Well, the Bible in and of itself has no power to heal or save... it's just a book. My particular favorite Bible is my UBS4 but it is just a little burgundy book with 918 pages of text and index and a 203 page lexicon with a gold ribbon marker. There is nothing about the book itself that can do anything for me. Rather the message contained in the book is what can save and what can heal. It is through faith in these reports that I am able to appropriate the benefits of what they say. The words contained in this beautiful little Greek New Testament are just as powerful when spoken as they are when read and the fact of the matter is that the Gospel was preached before it was ever written.
When we speak of the Bible as 'inspired' we need to be careful to define exactly what we mean by that statement. The Bible itself as a book is not inspired, but the very words contained within are theopneustos (God-Breathed). Were they any less God-Breathed in the minds of the writers before they were religated to paper? Of course not! Was no one born again before Scripture was recorded on pieces of papyri or vellum? Of course they were!
The Bible is a 'point of contact' as the prayer cloth perveyors say, in much the same way that a prayer cloth is. Jesus and Paul was working miracles by the power of God and the people witnessed these events. They mustered up the faith (and if you will recall from a previous post, faith is not some blind leap of logic) to appropriate their healing by simply touching the garments that these men wore (Jesus' hem, Paul's aprons). Likewise, we read the accounts of Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and all of the miracles that he performed and we are able to muster up the faith to be born again or healed.
It's not the physical materials (Bible or Cloth) that save... It's the message and power that these materials relate to mankind that does this. So again, I'm not defending those who would wish to sell miracles under the guise of free items that will only cost a 'love gift' but I will defend the right of any and everyone to place their faith in a material object that represents something far greater... The miraculous power of God!
