James 5:13-18 NLT

[13] Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. [14] Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. [15] Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. [16] Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. [17] Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! [18] Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

This passage from James 5 is one of the most often quoted set of verses that cover the topic of prayer.  You can see them on social media, in printed church bulletins, on crusade ads and even in daily calendars and journals.  Let’s take a look at these six verses and see what James is telling his Jewish readers.

First comes the statement that if you are afflicted and suffering hardships, you need to pray.  That is followed by the statement that if you are happy—in other words, not suffering hardships—then you should praise.  There’s a difference between prayer and praise, and each is designed to be used in the proper time.

One of the hardships we sometimes face is physical sickness.  Should we fall sick, James says that’s when we need to call for the elders, the leaders, of the local assembly of believers and ask them to pray so we can be healed of the sickness.  

Oil, which was usually olive oil, was to be applied to the sick person.  The application of the oil serves two purposes.  Olive oil does possess some curative abilities and was applied to wounds in Biblical times.  The oil also represented the presence and anointing of God in a life.  Today we use olive oil to anoint a sick person primarily for the second reason.  It is used to represent the healing presence of the Holy Spirit.

So, the elders are to anoint the sick one and intercede for the sick person in faith, believing God will heal the illness.  But there is an added dimension to this prayer.  If the person has committed a sin, the sin will be forgiven.  There is a very important aspect to this part of the passage—confession of sins to other believers puts the person seeking healing in the position of being healed spiritually, as well as physically.  You may have heard that confession is good for the soul.  In this case, confession is good for soul and body.

A side note for you—Keep in mind that during James’ day, people still believed that sickness or harmful events occurred in people’s lives because of unconfessed sins.  That line of thought was evident in the Old Testament days, such as in the case of Job and his three friends, all of whom thought Job had encountered disasters because he had sinned.  And that thinking exists even today when someone is judged as being a sinner when tragedy strikes a family.  Sin is the stated reason for many maladies.  Be careful about placing that type of judgment on the lives of others.  The presence of sin is not always the cause of every sickness.

Next comes the declaration, “The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much,” as the King James Version states it.  When godly people pray in sincere, heartfelt faith, much can be accomplished.  Those prayers and intercessions are powerful and produce great results.

At this point, James gives the example of Elijah, who prayed and the rains stopped falling for 3 1/2 years.  He prayed again, and the rain returned.  The emphasis here is that Elijah was just as human as anyone else, but his earnest prayer had significant results.  James uses him to encourage the readers to seek help when they are ill or have sinned, because the prayer of faith will produce wonderful results, not just in our body, but also in our spirits.

Allow me to invite you to subscribe to our site by leaving your email address after the comment section below. Addresses are not shared with anyone. You can watch the video of this lesson on my YouTube channel (Buddy Pennington) under the lesson title. The link to copy & paste is https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR0LWk6Tw7xn5kDFgT5ThmUgTQSZdO-ou0ADWHZxY3MmSQKYtuQoLwoiyTU&v=ZwxYFl0VCeQ&feature=youtu.be