Does faith heal?

We read on a few occasions Jesus telling someone who was healed that their faith had made them well (Lk.17:19). Some people who take every word in the Bible literally as a word of God say that it was faith that healed these people. But just think. Wasn't it Jesus who healed them? Wasn't He telling them here that it was in response to their faith that He had healed them? But these people take it literally and begin to imagine that faith is some supernatural stuff that has power to heal, and if we accumulate enough of it, we can do miracles with it. No. If we could have faith that could then heal sicknesses, why would we then need to go to Jesus? Of course, this is ridiculous. We don't have any power in ourselves. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing.

When it comes to some of the other things Jesus said, they are so obviously not meant to be taken literally that people see it without any trouble. When Jesus asks us to pluck out our eyes and cut off our hands rather than sin, everyone sees immediately that He is talking about an attitude we must have towards sin (Mt.5:29,30). When Jesus said that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, we must therefore understand that He was not saying it would be impossible (Mk.10:25). He clarified that with God on one side, it would be possible (v.27). Jesus was using here a figure of speech called a hyperbole or a colloquial exaggeration to bring home the point that those who were rich in themselves would find it difficult to recognise their need for God. But some people who take these words literally have even created a false story to explain that there were some narrow gates in Israel in those days through which camels could squeeze through with great difficulty.

This kind of problem comes from a wrong understanding of the inspiration of the Bible. Many churches teach about this without explaining some of the practical implications. Most people agree that this inspiration was not through God dictating words for the human authors to write down, in which case, every word in the original text, before translation, would be what God has chosen. In some parts of the Bible it is clearly stated that certain words were what God told them. But in general, God inspired the human authors, and they wrote things down using their own vocabulary, style and even grammar. So, to claim that the Bible is the precise word of God is not being realistic. What we observe is that God has made sure that His main truths have come through correctly, while for things that are insignificant, accuracy is not a primary objective, e.g., rounding off the numbers of people killed in battles.

The authors also used different literary styles in different places, using symbols, figures of speech, etc., which have to be understood accordingly. Jesus Himself spoke using the common way of speech. Look at the context. These must be kept in mind as we read the Bible.