The healers draw from scriptures such as: James 2:15-16 - "If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you don't give them what the body needs, what good is it?"; and Matthew 25:34-40 - "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me'."
So, if we are seeking to minister to the world, what approach do we take? preacher or healer? Well, our best option is to look at what Jesus did. Was he a preacher or a healer? We see throughout Christ's ministry recorded in the Gospels that Jesus was a preacher and a healer with no bias towards either camp. Matthew 9:35 states "Then Jesus went to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness." Fielding states "Can you think of any example where Jesus complained about too many sick people getting in the way of His preaching or too many learners getting in the way of His healing ministry?" Jesus was the perfect preacher and the perfect healer. And Jesus encouraged His disciples and has instructed us in this model of ministry as well. Matthew 10:7-8 says "And proclaim as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons." Luke 9:2 says "And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal." Mark 6:7, 12-13 states "And he called the 12 and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits...So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them."
The problem we encounter is that we don't have a divine nature and we are still battling the flesh. We come to the table biased. And we have a comfort level surrounding our identity as either a preacher or healer, so we look to others to pick up slack and handle responsibilities that we consider outside of our role. Academic achievement and specialization prior to being commissioned as an apostolic worker further contribute to the separations of preaching and healing roles. But this is not the Lord's design. The Lord has given us instruction and modeled for us a strategy to further His kingdom through both preaching and healing. Fielding states "Those who uphold the value of preaching or healing are focusing on mere activities rather than on the glorious kingdom. It doesn't matter which ministry is more important. What matters is obedience to the directives of Jesus. He is the master strategist. He knows what He is doing and has given us this tactic as a two-handled plow. Both handles must be held with equal pressure and commitment for the one plow blade to dig deep into the ground and transform the soil into a place best prepared for seed."So, as believers we are all called to make disciples. And as we have seen here, we can best do that by imitating Christ as both a preacher and healer. We can find encouragement in knowing that Christ chose ordinary men to be his disciples - the men he spent the majority of His time with and the men that carried His message into all the world. These men had no special training. They were led by and enabled by the Holy Spirit...the same Spirit that is living in us. As Fielding says, "Our personal bias or training is irrelevant and must not be allowed to become an idol. Jesus gave all of us the strategic tactic to 'preach and heal' so that we may grip the lost through the power of the Holy Spirit, that disciples may be made of all nations, and that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord may cover the earth as the waters cover the seas."
As a nurse, I have a tendency to get caught in the healer camp. It's easy for me to get overwhelmed by the volume of homeless people lined up at the nurse's clinic I work at. It's also easy for me to get distracted with all the tasks I need to do for my patients at the hospital. And so I often get carried away with the serving part of making disciples and forget to take time for the preaching part. This is an area I have struggled with since I became a nurse, but I'm grateful that God in His grace has enabled me to see that I need growth in this area and that He has been helping me take steps out of my comfort zone and have more boldness in teaching the Word as I serve in healing ministries. As I think about what this model of preach and heal means for me in Mexico, I pray that our team will be imitators of Christ. I pray that the Lord will give us many opportunities to preach and heal, and that we will not neglect or value one side over the other. And as we seek to model after Christ's ministry, I pray that many will come to know the Lord, trusting that He is the One true God who came to this earth, lived the sinless life we could not live, died the death we could not die, taking the punishment of our sin upon Himself, freeing us from slavery to sin, and giving us His very own righteousness so that we could be united with the Lord for eternity. I pray that it won't stop there...I pray that these disciples will take what they learn into their communities and become disciple makers who preach and heal as we model for them and Christ modeled for us. May we live in such a way that we can exhort people to follow us as we follow Christ!
