Issue 24 Towards HealingBlog | Rethinking healing – Essential reading for preachers
Rethinking healing – Essential reading for preachers
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 12.09.20
Writing this in the middle of the global pandemic, the subject of healing is most apt, but also most challenging. I have prayed for healing for my neighbour and others with Covid-19, but I have also prayed for healing for our nation and our world. We may be ‘past the peak’ but the grieving is just beginning, and the long-term effects are yet to be felt. Preaching on this issue has never been more relevant for our communities, but it can be a minefield for preachers. Although it is an undeniably important theme in Scripture, we can easily fall into the trap of over-communicating and over-promising, or indeed suffer the opposite pitfall of under communicating for fear of over promising. T
he following books have challenged me to rethink and recommunicate the importance of healing and how we present it to people around us who need physical, mental and spiritual restoration.
Miracles: God’s Presence and Power in Creation Luke Timothy Johnson (WJK, July 2018)
This is a major piece of work by a world-class scholar. I was impressed how readable this book is and found that Johnson did an excellent job of challenging some of the secular assumptions about miracles, as well as providing an inspiring analysis of how miracles function in the scriptures. The insights into how healings function in the different gospel accounts were really useful to me as a preacher. Johnson claims that since healing is included in Jesus’ manifesto speech in the synagogue in Luke 4 (‘sight to the blind’) it must be ‘fundamental to his prophetic ministry’. For those of us who struggle with preaching about the miraculous this book gives a balanced, challenging and academically rigorous set of tools.
