Narrative healing at the pool on the Sabbath is important to Christians. However, the passages in the New Testament are filled with other accounts of miracles performed by Jesus and his apostles. In this case, healing is regarded as a spiritual service, where deliverance from sicknesses and forgiveness of sins occur simultaneously (Parham, 2019). The main teaching that people learn from Jesus’ time ministering the word and curing the sick is that Christians have the primary role of reaching out to those who are hopeless or afflicted by diseases, regardless of their convictions. Nevertheless, believing in Jesus and his message answers all problems. For example, in response to the courage that the woman with the flow of blood demonstrated, Jesus said that the faith she had made her whole (Wachter, 2021). But, an infirm man that Jesus healed at the pool of Bethesda had no faith. For these reasons, the association between healing and faith has been much misunderstood. The sick man demonstrated he was unprepared to receive and did not deserve God’s miracle healing. Murphy (2020) utilizes an example of a sheep heavy with wool that needs shearing. Thus, like sheep, people may be unable to eliminate problems weighing them down. Therefore, they need a Shearer or a Shepherd, but the only obstacle to their healing is whether they are willing to receive God’s divine intervention. In this case, many Christians may wonder why Jesus picked this particular man to heal out of many sick people gathered around the pool that day. Nevertheless, it is evident that God’s will is for everyone. The belief that healing depends on an individual’s faith is often misconstrued because divine intervention can happen to anyone.
References
Murphy, C.L.T. (2020). “Do you want to be well?” In The Inquisitive Christ: 12 Engaging Questions (pp. 179-196). Nashville: FaithWords Publishing.
Parham, S.H. (2019). Healing from a grace perspective: Live and not die, don’t live with chronic pain or disease. Christian Faith Publishing.
Wachter, R. (2021). The art of marketing Jesus: Unleashing the power of the gospel through the lives of everyday believers. Wipf and Stock Publishers.