James 5:13-18 – “Pray-ers”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³Is anyone among you troubled? Let him pray. Is anyone happy? Let him make music. ¹⁴Is someone sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him anointing [him] with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵And the prayer of faith will save the sick one, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he might have committed sin, it will be forgiven him. ¹⁶Therefore, confess the sin to one another, and pray over one another in order that you (pl.) may be healed. [The] energetic prayer of a righteous one is much mighty. ¹⁷Elijah was a man of like-passion to us, and he prayed to prayer that not to rain, and it did not rain upon the earth [for] three years and six months, ¹⁸and he prayed again and the heavens gave rain, and the earth yielded its fruit.

I started out to study on through vv. 14-16, but as I studied and thought about it all, I concluded that the total thought really stretches from v13 all the way through v18, so I am looking at it all as one passage.

This is certainly interesting. Anointing with oil. The prayer of faith. Shall save the sick. Confessing sin. Being healed. There is certainly a lot going on in this passage. Robertson noted, “Much is assumed here that is not expressed.” Having studied and studied, that would be precisely my conclusion. Much is said in short succinct statements leaving the thoughtful reader with seemingly more questions than answers. “Anointing with oil” – is this simply medicinal or is it ceremonial? Some claim the Greek word used for anointing limits it to medicinal but I found their arguments less than compelling. And whatever it means, is it still applicable today? Was the statement made early enough that the miraculous gift of healing was still in effect? Is there a place for this anointing today? And it says, “the prayer of faith shall save the sick.” That seems to be a 100% promise, and yet, if it were true, there would still be 1^st century Christians running around who, every time they got sick, had prayed the “prayer of faith” and been healed.

And then there is all the confessing of sins and forgiveness. One is left wondering exactly what this means and how far it goes. Would it lead us to get together and have “sin confession” gatherings where we all spill our hearts like Catholics at their confessional? Someone may say, “Well, of course there are limits here.” But the fact is there are not. That is what I mean – so much is said in these short succinct statements that leave us with more questions than answers. In order to establish the “meaning” we end up having to go to other Bible passages to try to bring understanding and balance to the passage before us.

… which usually leads me to the suspicion we’re all missing the point. The Bible itself acknowledges it contains “many things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable do wrestle to their own destruction.” Sometimes we need to just back up and ask whether there isn’t a bigger picture going on but we’re missing it, being distracted by a lot of minor (and perhaps unimportant) issues.

When I look back at the passage in that light, it is patently obvious the big issue before us is prayer. The word “pray” or “prayer” appears at least once in every single verse. It starts out with the question, “Is anyone among you troubled?” and answers, “He should pray.” In the middle we have the familiar, “The fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” And we end with the example of Elijah, a man of “like-passions,” and the power of prayer in his life. In between we have admonitions to pray for each other. Prayer, prayer, prayer.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote the famous words (ca. 1845): “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” I believe this passage would call us all to pause and consider just how much could be “wrought” if only we prayed. I’ve long loved the passage Gen 25:21: “Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.” Isn’t that awesome? It’s so simple. Here is Rebekah. She gets married and looks forward to having children and being a mother. But one year follows another and still she doesn’t get pregnant. She simply is not conceiving. All around her young girls are getting pregnant and having babies but not her. And what happens to change this situation? Her husband Isaac prays for her. That’s it. That’s all it took. He prayed for her and suddenly she has not one but two babies jostling inside of her! “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”

Our passage starts by asking the question, “Is any one troubled among you?” And what is the answer? “He should pray.” Is someone sick? What’s the answer? The elders should “pray over him.” What should we all do? Pray for each other. Pray, pray, pray. The very incense of Heaven is prayer.

I have to say, having studied out this passage, there are a lot of questions I simply can’t answer, but one thing I know for sure – the Lord wants us to pray.

One other thought – in v16, we’re told, “The fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” In Greek, the very first word of the sentence is “much.” Unlike us, they could re-arrange their sentences, and they liked to show emphasis by placing words at the beginning. Again, that is the point of the whole passage – prayer accomplishes “much.” The verse does qualify the prayer as something like “energetic” and as coming from a “righteous” person. We can all handle the “energetic” part. I am glad to know the “righteous” part is grace-righteousness, not legal. The Pharisees strived after legal righteousness and got nothing but condemnation from Jesus. Grace righteousness is first of all having the righteousness of Christ put to my account, then it becomes the righteousness that grace produces in us – the humbling, softening, ennobling effects of living all day every day with a gracious Savior and Father.

Lord help us all to be better pray-ers. May we know something of the “much” You want to accomplish!