“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17 – NIV) Today, I launch a new clergy collegial blog. I hope we will encourage and empower each other toward success and excellence in pastoral ministry. As I sit in the Pastor’s Study at Cambria Heights Community Church, I often ponder the possible feedback of clergy colleagues as it relates to preparing sermons, counseling in particularly difficult situation, designing fresh worship, balancing competing priorities of ministry, marriage and family, maintaining self-care, pursuing personal dreams and private interests outside of ministry and family, and finding resources to meet the ever evolving and changing needs of the people whom I serve. After a sustained period of prayer, reflection and meditation, I realize I can invite you to come “In The Pastor’s Study” for an exchange of ideas.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

James 5:13-20 Bible Study Notes


Bible Study Notes - James 5:13-20

We continue our study of the book of James, a New Testament study in wisdom.  James encourages the Jewish Christians of the first century with practical methods and means of persevering in the Christian faith despite the persecution they suffer.  In our study, we glean from his practical advice and appropriate these principles to our twenty-first century contexts.  This week’s passages concerns “The Prayer of Faith.”  James encourages his fellow believers to seek Almighty God fervently in prayer to receive healing, forgiveness and wholeness.  He says the “prayer of faith” yields divine grace.  The prayers of “the righteous” are effective.  We will discuss righteousness.  He alludes to Elijah as a powerful example of someone who prayed righteously.  He ends his epistle with a plea to fellow believers to seek those brothers and sisters who wandered away from the Church.

Consider the following thoughts and questions as you study the passage.

  • James posits that the “prayer of faith can resolve any human challenge whether it is physical illness, sadness, depression, trouble (legal, marital, relational, familial, vocational, financial, etc.).
  • Refer to Mark 11:22-24, Mark 9:23-24, Matthew 17:20, Hebrews 11:1, Hebrews 11:6, Revelation 5:8, Jeremiah 29:12-13, John 14:13, John 15:16 and John 16:23.
  • What is prayer?
  • What is faith?
  • What is the prayer of faith?
  • In the thirteenth verse, James offers prayer and praise as spiritual disciplines to resolve personal challenges and lack of happiness.
  • In the fourteenth verse, James instructs the sick to summon the elders of the Church so that they may pray over them and anoint them with oil in the Name of the Lord.
  • Let’s talk about praying in proxy.  Should we do so?
  • Let’s discuss the practice of anointing with oil.  What are its origins?  Should we continue this practice today?  What is the significance of oil?  Allude to the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37.
  • In the fifteenth verse, James declares that the prayer offered in faith will heal the sick person.  He offers the assurance that the person will be raised from his or her sick bed.  Furthermore, James insists the person’s sins will be forgiven if he or she has sinned. 
  • Is there a link between sin and sickness? 
  • Does God use sickness to punish people for their sins?  Allude to the story of Jason Barr about his overhearing a member condemning a person in ICU because of that person’s sin.
  • What is the “prayer of faith?”  The community of the Church gathers to offer its collective faith in Almighty God to heal the sick person.
  • Note the connection that James makes between forgiveness and healing.  Also, James does not distinguish between physical and emotional healing.
  • The prayer of faith will also yield forgiveness of sins.  Allude to 1 John 1:9.
  • The sixteenth verse encourages confession of sin.  “Confession is good for the soul.”  Let’s discuss the practice, process and procedure of confession. 
  • I encourage believers to form accountability partnerships.  How do you choose someone with whom you can be accountable?  Respect, integrity, moral and ethical behavior, humility, confidentiality and sobriety in all aspects of life, all, comprise criteria to determine whether someone possesses the requisite character to be a mentor or accountability partner.
  • The second part of the sixteenth verse declares “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
  • Righteous means to be in right relationship.  Righteous does not equate with religious; neither does it emerge from rituals, rites, and personal efforts to establish or quantify self-righteousness.
  • A disciple’s righteousness flows from the holiness and inherent righteousness of Almighty God as personified in the infinitely perfect, sinless and errorless life of Jesus Christ.  Allude to 1 John 1:5-10, Hebrews 1:9, 4:12-16, 7:26 Colossians 1:15-20, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Peter 1:19 and 1 Peter 2:22.
  • James alludes to Elijah as an example of righteous man who prays fervently, effectually and diligently.  His prayers prevent rain for three and a half years.  Afterwards, his prayers yield rain which ends a drought and famine.
  • In the nineteenth verse, James declares the necessity of the Church caring for each other.  Should a believer wander from the faith and drift aimlessly in secular society, his or her fellow believers have the responsibility to bring him or her back?  They are to go after him or her and bring him or her back into the fold of Christ.
  • In rescuing a sinner, believers save him or her from death.  Allude to Romans 6:23.
  • Moreover, repentance covers over a “multitude of sins.”  Allude to I Peter 4:8; God’s love as shown by believers covers a multitude of sins.

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