Since prayers can cure anything, why do christians go to doctors..or did jesus lie big time?

Question

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. - James 5:15-16

Answer 1

God provided us with doctors to assist us in our health care, just as plumbers assist us with plumbing issues. God knows we can't all do everything and prayers are often answered in the form of help from others.

Answer 2

Find me a "righteous man". There in lies the rub. Not a self proclaimed righteous man, but the real McCoy. There have been document miracles of healing, but both parties had faith that it would occur. This is not necessarily relegated to the Christian faith either; there are those of Hindu and Buddhist faith who believe in the power of prayer to heal. Faith is a difficult thing; you have to really believe that the prayer (s) will heal. I found a good site with more data if you are interested. Not religious just good well researched information.

Answer 3

key thing is that the prayer must be offered in faith, and the person must be righteous, do you know how hard it is to find a person with enough faith to truly be healed by prayer alone? even a man healed of blindness by jesus was not healed completely at first because he didn't have enough faith,
there have been cases all over the world of people becoming better after a prayer was given, i myself have had such an experience, again the trick is to have enough faith and faith is knowing without seeing or having definite proof so it's rather difficult

Answer 4

It is amazing how intolerant some people are these days. Whether or not the prayers work or whether Jesus exists doesn't matter. What the prayers give is HOPE to people who are in need of something that makes sense to them when their world gets turned upside down. I think people are confusing what is good with what is logical. I am a Christian but I realize that the Bible should be taken less literally and more in an idealogical way. I think it is wrong to fault people who pray for wanting hope and to make sense out of things. It certainly will not make the situation worse by praying.

Answer 5

First of all, in this day and age, find one righteous man.

There are a few but rare, I myself experienced a wonderful miracle of healing. Sickness disapearred within less than a minute of a prayer by this man whom I did not even know the name. All he asked me if I believed in God and I said "yes". I was healed within seconds what doctors were taking a long time to accomplish.

But, doctors are gifted and given the power of healing. Don't forget that our skills are gifts of God.

Also, Jesus said that you will be healed as you believe so it goes two ways, the sick person must have faith and be open to accept the gift of healing.

In this day and age where we are all blinded by the materialistic world healing within oneself does not come easy. Try going away from it all where you are surrounded the nature and see how it quickly affects ones behavior.

Anyway, for those ignorant people JESUS is REAL. If you don't believe, someday you will. God BLESS!

Answer 6

Actually, a recent study by the John Templeton Foundation suggests that prayer from strangers has no effect on health--and knowledge of that prayer can actually do more harm than good (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?ex=1150344000&en=c89d2defb9079f98&ei=5070)

However, religious scholars will point out that religion of any kind is expressly metaphysical, and therefore trying to study it with physical tools is an attempt to bring religion to science's terms. Then again, any good philosopher will argue that IF religion is only that which is metaphysical, and the body is necessarily physical, than religion should have no control over physical ailments. The basic problem of dualism.

Answer 7

"The effectual and fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" is the correct wording for a portion of that verse. Since you are using a Bible translated by men for the profit of men you will be quite confused by what you read there. Prayers can cure, but only if it's God's will that you be healed. Try understanding that Jesus Christ was the only person in the world who never sinned - (that means never lying too) - That is the only way He could be presented as the sinless, spotless Lamb of God to be sacrificed as the propitiation for our sins --- All it takes to be a righteous man is to ask for God's free salvation by taking Jesus Christ as your savior. Ask for forgiveness of your sins. Then keep yourself in God's will. Do what is right, obey His commands in all things --- JC

Answer 8

It's true that prayers offered in faith specially group prayer are powerfull and do make an effect. We can wish and we can want and we can ask. The respond to that prayer will depend on what's the will of God for the person that all are praying for. That's why sometimes it seams like it works and some times like it dont. If it's the person's time to go then they will go. When I was 20 I was bleeding to death. Doctors had tryed everything to stop it. I wanted to die. They decided they were going to do a second operation to take out my uterus.My mother in law that belongs to a church went to her church and ask the whole congration to make a special prayer for me to be heal. I personally wanted to die and was looking for the operation so I can leave my body then. But I guess it wasnt written in the book of life that that time was going to be my time to go.Angel appeared to me and told me that they came to heal me and next day I will walk out of the hospital. Sure enough when doctors came to transffer me to the operating room they saw that I had no one drop of blood coming out of me and they were surprised asking themselves how can this be possible. I was realeased that same morning. So as you can see we might want one thing but get another even if we pray cause there is a plan made for each of us. And dont lisen to people when they tell you you will go to hell for asking questions like this cause that is not true. We are already in Hell but we are also in Heaven.

Answer 9

most of us Christians believe that god has created all things including doctors. if you are asking a question like this it is obvious that you do not have faith and maybe this is why prayer does not help you. the Bible says also that sinning Christians are often punished with sickness. also if you have never committed your life to Jesus Christ, he might not be listening to you. in that case you might as well be praying to something else you do not believe in. as a child did you ask a stranger to take care of you or your father? make Jesus your true father and maybe then you will understand this scripture better

Answer 10

We go to doctors because we believe that God blessed each of us with certain gifts and certain skills.

The ability to heal and to help people recover from illness or injury is a skill that He blessed certain people with, and we call those people doctors.

By going to a doctor, we are (among other things) recognizing the fact that God blessed this person with the ability to help restore our health.

In a way, you can say that when a doctor helps you get over an illness or injury, it's really God doing it -- He's just using the doctor as His instrument by giving the doctor the skills needed to help you get better.

The "healing" that James 5 speaks of is referring to SPIRITUAL healing.

It's also referring to the Catholic act of confessing sins to a priest within the sacrament of reconciliation -- something that non-Catholics often say is un-Biblical, even though it's in James 5 clear as day.

Answer 11

Tell me why did God give us the ability to learn and study medicine so we could help ourselves and find a cure for what ails us. When all this fails, then we can turn to God in prayer and pray for a miracle of healing, which can be either physical or spiritual. Jesus is Truth.