Guthrie, 2009. Chapter 3, “Hear Jesus Saying, ‘I Am Willing to Heal You Deadliest Disease’”

Chapter 3, “Hear Jesus Saying, ‘I Am Willing to Heal You Deadliest Disease’” (pp. 23-40)

Mark 1:41

It is often frightening to turn to the Lord and ask for healing. What if we do not receive the answer we want? Guthrie and many others have been hurt by well-meaning people who suggest that if they had prayed better, longer, more fervently, their child would have recovered.

When the leper approached Jesus in Mark 1, he knew his healing was impossible. Yet Jesus touched the untouchable man and healed him.

Guthrie did a survey of Jesus’ healing work. Was it based on faith? Was he primarily healing physical sickness? Why heal some and not all? Finally, John’s testimony pulled the idea together. What John wrote of Jesus’ works is to give us belief and life (John 20:30-31).

Guthrie’s explanation which follows treats sin as a disease which must be eradicated. Untreated, it permeates us and destroys us. The problem with this view is that it minimizes the effects of sin. We are left to turn to Jesus for healing. Guthrie speaks as though people are not dead in sin, but are able to turn to Jesus by their own will. The good news Guthrie gives is a message of self-help. On p. 37 she says we do the turning, the depending, and appropriate Jesus’ promises for ourselves. How is this done? Again it is through a deeply emotive brokenness which Jesus requires so that we will truly be his.

This is a disappointing view of Scripture. At the same time that Guthrie says she has been accused of not believing well enough she says that the solution to our troubles is to believe well enough.