Healed by prayer: Should Christian doctors believe in faith healing?

The Bible seems clear we should ask for healing, and yet so many have unanswered prayers

A doctor listener has written in with a fascinating question about miraculous healing. It was clearly a major part of Jesus’s ministry in the gospels, and yet she has doubts despite prayer for healing becoming a larger and larger part of her church’s life. Why is it that Jesus healed profound lifelong disabilities immediately and unambiguously, whereas so many healings today seem to be partial, gradual, and mostly concerned with invisible internal maladies which often get better by themselves? The New Testament seems clear we should ask God to heal, and yet many people’s experiences are of unanswered prayers, sometimes stretching over a lifetime. But can it be healthy for Christians to turn their medical brains off at church on a Sunday, only to then switch their faith off when back at work on Monday morning?

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