Quote:
Originally Posted by Pressing-On
I wouldn't encourage someone that they need to touch something to have faith. If I believed that, I would have a statute of the Virgin Mary in my garden.
When the servant came to Jesus, his faith made his daughter whole. Jesus didn't even need to go to the man's house. I would preach on that point more.
I can see this powerful anointing exuding from Paul, making people want to touch him. And I can see them bringing that handkerchief home to touch the sick and infirm, because of their experience and faith.
However, taking the story out of context by applying oil, I have a problem with that. But, I think we agree on that point.
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You're right. They didn't apply oil to the cloths.
Here's a question...
Why would they even think to take the aprons or handkerchiefs home to touch the sick, infirm, and demon possessed?
Again, here's the verse...
Acts 19:11-12
11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:
12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
While we might be uncomfortable with the possibility... it's possible that the ancients had a far deeper understanding of the power behind a thing that is "blessed". To the ancient mind, our rationalist approach to reason would be sterile and void of life. Jesus and the Apostles spoke to creation and sickness as though it were living... "Peace be still!", for example. Was the storm alive? Nope. But the power to command the elements as though it were... in fact... to speak to all of nature itself through the sheer authority of will was commonly understood. The notion that some kind of anointing or residual power might rest on an object was common place in their mindset. And they aren't rebuked for it.
The depths of spiritual understandings that we've yet to experience, or that we deny through religious rationalism, were quite common place to them.
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