Big Healing Book - Acts 19:11-12

Acts 19:11-12:

And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:
So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

Notes on Acts 19:11-12:

It is ridiculous to think that Paul could have stayed sick with a chronic illness (as some claim) when objects taken from his body were so soaked in the anointing that they brought healing to others.

This is somewhat similar to the way multitudes were healed when they touched Jesus’ clothes instead of Jesus Himself. The anointing is a tangible power that is able to saturate clothing and other items.

The fact that the special miracles were wrought by the hands of Paul seems to indicate that his hands were the parts of his body that came in contact with the cloth items. (A quick Greek check proves that the underlying word for hands is the same word used for that purpose elsewhere. It’s always good to be sure.) Therefore, laying hands on cloths to be taken to the sick and demonized is biblical.

I have seen some amazing things happen through the use of anointed cloths, but I am not going to preach my experience as doctrine. The Bible calls anointed cloth miracles “special miracles,” so they are not the norm and I won’t claim that they are. It just happens to be a way that the Lord has used me and my wife.

Someone asked us to lay hands on a cloth to be sent to someone in a distant state who had advanced leukemia. The person was healed. Someone at our church was telling a local tire salesman about it, and it turned out that he had a grandson with leukemia. He asked for an anointed cloth. We laid hands on a cloth and when it was laid on that boy, he was healed of leukemia as well. A cloth we laid hands on was laid on a person who had been given up to die with no further treatment in a country with socialized medicine, and God healed him. Another woman in that country was healed of tinnitus when we sent a cloth to her. We anointed an item that was taken to a woman in an insane asylum; she was discharged soon after the anointing set her free. I doubt that we can even remember all the cases over the years of anointed cloths being God’s instrument of healing. But as I said, I will not make a doctrine out of my experience because I understand that this kind of thing is unusual, not something that all Christians will make into a regular practice. It IS a useful option when someone wants to “stand in proxy” for someone else, a practice that has no biblical backing. Instead, a cloth item can be anointed and sent to that person.

Let me also point out that you can’t just send out a cloth as a religious ritual. There needs to be an anointing when you’re laying hands on the cloth, or you need to be wearing it when there is an anointing on you. We are ALL anointed in the general sense, but you would generally wait for a special anointing if you want a special manifestation of the Spirit like that. If you just slap your hands on a cloth to see what happens, it will be like someone with a dead battery trying to jump-start another car with a dead battery – it won’t work. God didn’t make this into a formula that you can work without His involvement.

Also, I’ve never sent money to a preacher who offered an anointed cloth in exchange for a donation, and neither should you. We have NEVER asked for (or received, at this writing) a donation from someone who received one of the cloths that we prayed over. I am determined not to merchandise the anointing. We’ve freely received and we freely give. There is no indication that Paul used anointed cloths for fundraising either.

Taking anointed cloths to people uses the same principle we see in the gospels where people tried to touch Jesus’ clothes. They didn’t need to touch Him; they knew that if they could just touch His clothes, the anointing that saturated His clothes would go into them.