Objection: There Is No Evidence That the Churches to Which the Apostles Wrote Ever Had Healing Meetings

First, there were plenty of spectacular things going on outside of church, such as ALL being healed when they brought the sick to the streets in Jerusalem, and ALL the sick people on the island of Melita being healed.  You can say correctly that such occurrences were outside of church (they didn’t have church buildings anyway), but many healing meetings today are outside of church buildings, too.

Second, if we take this argument to its intended conclusion, we should not have evangelistic meetings either, because there is no evidence that the churches to which the apostles wrote ever conducted modern-style evangelistic crusades.  In fact, we should not have altar calls either, because no modern-style altar calls ever appear in the Bible.  There is no record of worship teams in church meetings, so maybe we should do away with them too.  There weren’t any church buildings, either, so maybe they should be next on the chopping block.  There is no evidence that there was “Sunday school” for the kids, so that should stop next.  The churches in Acts NEVER celebrated Christmas or Easter—they were pagan holidays that were “Christianized” much later, so I suppose any special Christmas cantatas and Easter sunrise services must also stop.  Next, we can get rid of bulletins, pulpits, altars, greeters, info centers, sound booths, visitor packets and many other modern fixtures that don’t appear in Scripture.  We might not have recognizable modern churches left if we got rid of everything we don’t explicitly see in Scripture!  Maybe that would be a good thing to shake the tradition out of everyone, but I’ve used a pulpit, bulletins, greeters, and so on while pastoring.  There is certainly no PROHIBITION against such things in Scripture and I’m not against anything I listed in this paragraph.  METHODS can change, and that’s OK as long as the same PRINCIPLES in Scripture still apply.

Third, the churches to whom the apostles wrote certainly did practice divine healing even if it was not done in a modern crusade format.  It doesn’t have to be done in that format today, either.  Surely the Lord is not against anything that obeys the Great Commission by preaching to the lost and healing the sick.  Paul told the Galatians that God did miracles among them (Galatians 3:5).  We know that the Corinthians “came behind in no gift,” (1 Corinthians 1:7) which would include gifts of healings and working of miracles, so they had healings and miracles, too.  This book has numerous Scripture citations of other places where signs were being done.

Fourth, there will always be some people who have ministries flowing in “gifts of healings” and “working of miracles” as Paul made clear in 1 Corinthians 12:28.  These gifts will not be done away with until the “perfect” has come when we will know everything instead of seeing everything “through a glass darkly.”  Because that is their ministry, special meetings held by these ministers where the sick are healed should be held until the Lord returns.  Even some “faith people” seem to think that the “day of the healing evangelists” was in the 1940’s and 1950’s when large tent crusades were done, and that their “day” is over now.  In fact, I’ve heard people say that God is done with healing evangelists because the whole BODY is being raised up to minister healing.  I agree that the whole BODY should minister healing, but given the fact that there will ALWAYS be some people with a special gifting for that (as we just saw), the “day of the healing evangelist” is EVERY day!  The gift of evangelist, which biblically would always be healing evangelist because God doesn’t call non-healing evangelists, is to endure as long as pastors, teachers, prophets and apostles.  We shortchange ourselves by looking at the past and thinking how wonderful those days must have been, while thinking that today we’re just out of luck because we’ll never see anything like that – or better – again.  God hasn’t taken these giftings out of the Church just because there is more widespread revelation of ALL Christians being able to do the works of Jesus.  The fact that these giftings exist is enough proof to me that there WERE “healing meetings” of some variety in New Testament churches.

Finally, the internet and modern books will never replace live meetings and local churches.  I’d like to think that you can learn a lot from this book, but I’m not going to stop doing meetings just because I can spread information on the internet.  There will never be a substitute for live, Holy Spirit-led, anointed ministers who minister to the sick in person.  I’ve seen gifts of the Spirit work over the internet and telephone, but you can’t lay hands on someone who isn’t present.  You CAN get healed reading and acting upon the information in this book without going to any meeting, mine included.  However, it’s EASIER for a lot of people to get healed when there are anointed meetings set aside for that purpose.