GOD’S GRACE, HEALING AND SUFFERING

1. GOD’S GRACE, HEALING AND SUFFERING Opoku Onyinah

2. OUTLINE • Introduction • The ancient world and Old Testament concept of healing • Signs that the Messianic age has begun • African Spirituality in the Background The Pentecostal concept of healing and suffering is set against the background of African spirituality or religious experience, using the Ghanaian Pentecostal approach as an example. • The challenges and opportunities available • Pastoral reflections

3. INTRODUCTION • Attempts to combat disease - both spiritually and naturally • Affliction perceived as an attack by a higher power on human beings • Faith was put in deities who could heal and provide protection from other powerful ones • The Mission of God the Old Testament • The ministry of Jesus in the New Testament. • Scepticism toward divine healing • The Emergence of Pentecostalism

4. ANCIENT WORLD AND OLD TESTAMENT CONCEPT • Deities in the ancient Near East and OT time were expected to meet the needs of their devotees (e.g. Ex. 23:25-26). • YAHWEH makes a covenant with his people as Rapha (Ex. 15:16) • The primary requirement for healing and health was covenantal obedience, with emphasis on loyalty to Yahweh alone. • The disobedience of the covenanted people sent them to captivity. • Longing for a miraculous Messiah (e.g Isaiah 35:4-6; 42:6-9; 61:1).

5. SIGNS THAT THE MESSIANIC AGE HAS BEGUN • The NT fulfils OT hopes. The Messianic age had begun: preaching, teaching, healing casting out of demons • The mission of Jesus was directly linked with the power demonstrated in his healing and other miraculous activities. • Healing and miracles continue in the ministry of the disciples of Jesus in Acts. • Healing and miracles inferred from other NT books (1 Cor 12-14; Rom. 15:19) • It is against this background that Pentecostal approach of healing begins.

6. AFRICAN SPIRITUALITY IN THE BACKGROUND • Why appropriation? Intersection of Biblical beliefs & practices with those Africans • Causes of Diseases:Non Human Spirits and Human Spirits. • Non-Human Spirits:God Deities, Breaking of taboo. • Human Spirits: Punishment from Ancestors, Ancestral Curses, Witchcraft and Sorcery • Resort to Divinatory Consultation – when scientific origins of particular illnesses fails

7. African Spirituality in the Background • Healing considered possible by the supernatural power of the deity working through the priests, who have the power to remove the evil influences causing diseases. • Modernisation makes consultation with traditional priests unpleasant • It is here that the Pentecostal approach to healing becomes important.

8. THE EXAMPLE OF PENTECOSTAL HEALING MINISTRY IN GHANA • Pentecostalism influenced by African culture • Prayer groups and Prayer centres • The approach is to pray for sick people until they are so-delivered • Mass deliverance and Personal deliverance • Chronic disease and problems

9. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES • All sorts of people go to healing centres to pray • Revived people’s belief in God • People testify about their healing • The uneasiness - the approach • Preaching is centred on the devil, healing and deliverance • In the Bible, the Lord is the one true God, with overall supremacy over all spiritual powers.

10. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES • This ministry reinforces the “primitive animistic” belief system that keeps communities in servile fearfulness and hampers progress. • Many of the symptoms, which are considered as witchcraft or spirit possession, can be explained away by medical sciences. • The process of healing, “breaking links with the past”, divides the traditional extended family system and promotes individualism.

11. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES • Failure to be cured interpreted as lack of faith creates bad impression about God and the Church and in some cases, a low self esteem. • Balance theme on the role faith plays in NT. Faith as a result of healing rather than precondition. • In the Bible, not all prayer for healing was answered the way people expected. • Paul situation, “My grace is sufficient…” (2 Cor. 12:8). Suggests human weakness also provides an opportunity for God to display his power.

12. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES • There are indications in the NT that in the presence of the apostles not all people were cured. • Grace becomes the ability or strength to cope with affliction • Stigmatisation attached to the “self confessed witches” insociety • Substantial part of the healing ministry of Jesus was directed to the people of lower stratum of society

13. PASTORAL REFLECTIONS • Prayer for healing must not be neglected or stopped as a result of some of the weaknesses of the practitioners; it must be seen as part of the means of dealing with a variety of manifestations of evil in human life. • The ministries of Jesus and those of the disciples in the NT seem to be those that encourage Christians to pray to God for healing, and then to continue to trust him to bring good out of every situation, whether he cures or not.

14. PASTORAL REFLECTIONS • The methods used in prayer should be simple to show trust in the power of Jesus, whose death has given the believer the authority to exercise this kind of ministry. • The place of suffering in the Bible needs to be brought to bear on the healing ministry. The fall means the whole creation has “been subjected to frustration (Rom. 8:20),” that is, suffering and death exist as an inevitable part of the world. Through the work of Christ, believers “live between the times” of “the already” but “not yet.

15. PASTORAL REFLECTIONS • Pentecostal Christians must not make it appear through their utterances that they marginalize the less privilege people. Rather they should have a place for the infirm and disabled people in their worship as people also have vital roles to play in the service of God.