WWUTT 2615 Q&A Anointing With Oil in James 5, How Often to Have Communion, Women Pastors in the SBC

Psalm 92 and the Hope of God’s Judgment

Should churches be anointing with oil and praying for their sick? How often should we partake in the Lord's table? And is women pastors the biggest issue that's going on right now in the SBC? The answer is When We Understand the Text.

You're listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry so that we may know all the riches freely given to us by God. For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. Let's start with Psalm 92. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre.

For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hands I sing for joy. How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep. The stupid man cannot know, the fool cannot understand this, that though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever.

But you, O Lord, are on high forever. So yes, though it may look like evil is flourishing, it's doing well, and there will never be any justice done against those who do such wicked things, it does have an end date.

God will judge the wicked, and they will perish forever. And the way that we are saved from the judgment of God is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us and rose again from the dead, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

Jesus is coming back again to take up his saints to himself and bring judgment on the.

Wicked.

Until then, the wicked may continue in this world, but it's not as if they're going to get away from it. God will bring it to an end, and we continue to hold fast to Christ, knowing that he is bringing his kingdom to completion.

And in that eternal kingdom, there will be none of this anymore. No more evil, no more sin, no more death. All the former things will have passed away, and we will dwell with Christ forever. Remember, Matthew 6, 33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all the things that we need will be added to us as well.

Questions on James 5, Communion, and the SBC

This is the Friday edition of When We Understand the Text. When we take questions from the listeners. I'm flying solo this week. Becky is not along with me. We finished up that very last week of school with our oldest daughter graduating on Wednesday.

So we now have a graduate in the family. I'm that old now. Not so sure what she's doing next with her future, but we're working on that together. And so since that was our week and it was really busy, Becky is taking the rest of the time to crash, I do believe.

But God willing, she'll be back on with me next week. We're still going to take your questions, though, and you can send them to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com, or you can send a voicemail to speakpipe .com slash WWUTT.

You can still get to the website. It's www .wwutt .com. If you don't want to type in that many W's and you still want to send us a voicemail, that's the way to do it. Speakpipe .com slash WWUTT. So let's start with a voicemail from Ryan.

Hey, Pastor Gabe, this is Ryan. I had a question. My wife and I both had a question for you from James chapter 5, verses 14 and 15. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So the question is, why aren't we seeing more churches do exactly what is called for here?

And are you in sin to not be asking the church to do this? And why aren't more pastors offering perhaps to do this sort of thing? And the last question is, is there a certain type of oil you're supposed to use for this sort of thing?

And I just wanted to get your thoughts on that and see what you had to say. So thank you and enjoy listening to your show.

These are great questions. I thank you so much for asking, Ryan. And this is something that I have practiced all 16 years so far of my time as a pastor. So let me go to James 5. Let's kind of broaden it out a little bit and look at more of the context here.

So in James 5, starting in verse 13, I'm reading from the English standard, and I'm going to look at the legacy as well, which I think was what you were reading from. So is anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Now it's that verse, James 5, 16, that the Roman Catholics will take to say, see, this is why we have confession, because you need to confess your sins to a priest who has the power to absolve or forgive you, which is not true at all.

That's reading a lot more into the text than what we have here. But what is this instruction? Let's look at those three main questions that Ryan was asking. First of all, why don't more churches do this?

And kind of going along with this, why don't more pastors offer it? Secondly, are you in sin if you don't ask? And then thirdly, is there a certain kind of oil to use? So first of all, as I said in the beginning, this is something that I do practice.

If someone calls upon me and says, I'm ill, I would like the elders to come and lay hands on me and pray, then we will do it. I've been a pastor at three churches. I've done this at every church that I've been a part of.

Why don't more churches do this, was Ryan's question. Well, to give the blunt answer, because the majority of churches just simply aren't biblical. So you won't see a lot of attention to details of ecclesiastical practice, as we would call.

It.

Ecclesiology is the study of churches, how they're governed and things like that. So there's not a lot of attention to what should we be doing as a church. This was one of the first things that I really wanted to study and come to an understanding of when I became a pastor was, is our church operating according to what I would see to be a biblically accurate model?

And so I'm looking at scripture and then examining what we're doing in church and trying to see, are we following scripture closely in all of our operations? And this was one of those. I saw that there was a call upon elders to offer this kind of prayer and even anointing to those who would ask for it, anointing in the sense of anointing with oil, as it says in verse 14.

And so if somebody asked, then we would do this. Now, I did not have a plurality eldership until about five years into being a pastor. Was it five? Yeah, about five years. So for the first five years that I was a pastor, there wasn't plurality eldership.

There would still be people that would ask me to do this and I would do it. But I still saw it was that this is addressing a church as though it had a plurality eldership. Let him call for the elders of the church.

And so this was one of the passages that I used to argue for why we needed plurality.

Eldership.

And then once we had those elders, whenever we were asked, we would do so. Why don't more pastors offer it? So let me give you the broader answer that goes beyond most churches aren't biblical. OK, a broader answer would be that we have a bad understanding of spiritual gifts.

And so there's probably a lot of pastors out there who don't want to step on what they think is someone else's spiritual gift. Or maybe the pastor thinks, I don't have this spiritual gift of healing. I don't want it to be on me if someone doesn't get healed.

And they may not consciously think this right, but it could it could be all wrapped up in this bad understanding of how spiritual gifts work. So if if this pastor thinks that there's got to be somebody in my congregation who has that gift of healing, it's not me.

I've never laid hands on somebody and healed someone. So I don't want to step on their toes if that's the gift that they have. So we're going to have a healing ministry. Might have that sort of a thing.

Since the majority of churches in the United States, the majority of evangelical churches, I should say, are charismatic or have some charismatic tendencies, leanings to it. Even if they are like big evangelical, it's still on the charismatic side more so than it's going to be on the reformed or cessationist side.

And so you have you have those charismatic tendencies to think that there is somebody in your church that has this gift of healing or we're going to establish. That's like a committee or a group that becomes our healing team.

That's our healing ministry. They're either regularly praying for sick needs in the church and things like that, or you probably have even commissioned them to go out and lay hands on people and pray.

So that could be another reason why more churches don't do this. It still mostly comes back on most churches are not trying to follow a biblical model of operations, even in the existence of a plurality eldership or what those elders are supposed to do.

Now, going on to Ryan's second question, are you in sin if you don't ask? And in answer to that question, I would say no, because I don't think that this is necessarily being provided as an imperative.

As in, if you are definitely sick, then you definitely need to call upon the elders of the church. And if you don't follow this instruction, then somebody who is sick is therefore in.

Sin.

Now, I said I was reading from the English Standard. Ryan, I think you read from the Legacy. In the Legacy, it says in verse 14, is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him.

What did we read in the ESV? Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church. So there's really one Greek word there, and it's best rendered summon. So is anyone among you sick? Summon the elders of the church.

I don't know why most translations don't use that word. Maybe because, I mean, it sounds like you're summoning a wizard in our English. When we think of that word summon, that's not really a word that we typically use.

So maybe that's why we avoid using that. I don't think it's given as an imperative, like you are commanded to have to call upon the elders of the church to do this. So if you are sick, call for the elders and let them pray over him.

There is not a faith healer in your church. This is what is designated for healing in the church, that the elders would come and pray. And if it is God's will that one would be healed from this, then God will heal them.

It's not upon a person to have the power of healing to be able to do this. It is the elders fulfilling a responsibility that they have. And then if it be God's will to heal the person through this prayer, using the prayer to do so, then God will heal that person.

Sometimes he heals and sometimes he does not. I actually have the benefit of having seen God heal in these circumstances where we have gone to a hospital, to somebody's home, anointed with oil, laid hands on and prayed.

And we have seen that person healed. It wasn't immediately. It wasn't like we're anointing somebody who didn't have use of their legs and suddenly they're standing up and dancing around. It wasn't like that.

But we have prayed and even in circumstances where doctors have said it just doesn't look good and then they suddenly improved. And the doctors are going, well, we did not give you good odds here, but you came out of this much better than we thought.

And we rejoiced as a church. We rejoiced because we knew that that that prayer of faith worked and God did an amazing work in that person's life. And we as a church celebrated together. Now, again, I say this is not a faith healing sort of a situation.

So that doesn't mean every single prayer is automatically going to have a healing power. But the prayer is always going to have some spiritual effect. It will have some healing effect on us, even if we're not seeing the physical healing of the person that we are praying for.

Now, let me add something else to this, too, is we're considering this passage in James chapter five. We're seeing this very specifically in the context of someone who has sinned. So this is not necessarily a broad instruction regarding everybody who is sick.

There is a particular context here. And that's not to say I won't pray for anybody who's sick. If somebody's just sick and they're calling me to come and anoint them with oil and whatever else, I'm not going to do that because they have to have sinned and they're confessing their sins.

That's not what I'm saying. But that is the context in which we read this. So this this very specifically does have to do with a person who has sinned. That seems to be what the context is indicating.

So verse 16 or well, let me finish 15 rather. The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick. See, we have we have a saving aspect there. And when you go on, it appears as if the saving application is to somebody who is sinned and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Verse 16, therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. So the healing doesn't just exist there in the context of a person that is sick.

It is a healing that comes upon a person who has sinned and confessed their sins and is therefore received healing because of it. And like I said, that healing may not be a physical healing. Maybe it is a deep spiritual, psychological healing or something like somebody was was burdened greatly with their sin and now having had hands laid on and prayed for and the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working, as verse 16 goes on to say.

So that person feels a great burden lifted from them by the spirit of God and they do receive healing when hands are laid on and they are prayed for. So, again, this this does seem to have the context of a person who is sick because they have sinned.

And so they are they are confessing sin and not not everybody who is sick is sick because they sinned. We are all sick because of sin. As we read in Romans chapter eight, this world has been subjected to futility because of man's sin against God.

So we our bodies decay, we get sick, we die, and all of that happens as a result of sin in the world. So that's definitely true. But not every not every person who gets sick has that illness or that affliction because they had done something sinful.

But there are many people who do get sick and they feel great, great, heavy. I want to say psychological burdens, but just like mental burdens, a guilt. They feel a great burden upon themselves. Something something spiritual, something deep that is within them, they feel burdened and heavy laden due to some sin that they have either done or are doing, and they feel burdened by it and they just can't get out from under it.

It's like what's said in the Psalms Psalm 32 for day and night. Your hand was heavy upon me. My strength dried up by the as by the heat of summer when I was silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

And then verse five says, I acknowledged my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgression to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my.

Sin.

So what what shows there in Psalm 32 is is God's heavy hand upon a person who has sinned and and they are feeling the weight of that sin. They are feeling guilt because they have sinned against God. It is it is God who I have offended and this weight that is upon me is because I have offended the almighty, the creator of the universe, he who is holy above all.

And I am not holy and I have sinned against him. And so the effects of that, I am feeling that now in my body, the way that Psalm begins Psalm 32 is blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no.

Deceit.

And when this man, it's a mascal of David. So when when David is in sin and he hasn't confessed that sin, he feels the weight of that sin and he feels so burdened by it. And it does affect us physically.

And I've shared this before. I've shared this out of my own life before a period of time in my life where I was sinning with my girlfriend. And like the whole time we were dating, I was ill and I felt awful.

I did not connect my illness with what we were doing, but I was feeling tremendously guilty because we had crossed a line that a man should not cross with anyone but his wife. And so I felt so burdened by the sin that I was doing, but not knowing that the reason why I felt sick and it was affecting my body the way that it was not even knowing that it had anything to do with the sin that I was that I was enjoying and trying not to let anybody else see.

Doctors would look at me. I got prescribed different things. I remember there was a certain pill that was like brand new at the time. I saw a bunch of commercials on it later, but had never heard of it at the time that it came out.

I'm not going to say what it is because I'm not going to give any plug for it. But since it was an experimental drug, then they're like, we can't figure out what's wrong with you. We don't know what else it is.

So why don't you try this? So I was like one of the early testers or something. I don't know.

Yeah.

One of the early people, they would use that pill on to test and see how I felt. I didn't feel any better. So I certainly didn't give them good numbers on that experimental drug, but I was never able to make that connection until much later.

Even after I broke up with my girlfriend, it wasn't like I was realizing, oh, I'm doing something sinful. I need to break up with her and then everything will be fine. It wasn't until years later that I realized what was going on.

And nobody could figure out what was wrong with me and why I was feeling so sick. And it was because of the guilt that I was feeling because of my sin. These instructions here in James five, I think have a lot more to do with that than just a general.

If you're sick, call for the elders of the church, they'll lay hands on you and pray and anoint you with oil. So that's just to provide you with what I what I see to be the main context there. And again, that doesn't mean you can't call upon the elders and pray, but that just appears to be the main context regarding someone who is sick.

It's not just a general illness, but it is something that may be connected with sin. You don't want to look at every sickness as as being caused by someone's sin. Oh, you're sick because you've been sitting.

Then you must be sitting in some way and you need to confess it. And that's not the way that we approach it. Although as a pastor, there have been times where I have confronted somebody who is sick and can't figure out what's going on and have said, have you considered that the reason why you feel this way is because you may have some sin in your life that you need to confess?

And if they tell me that there's not, then I'm going to believe them. But as a pastor, I just need to put it out there so that they are looking there, they are examining in their lives to see is is there something that I'm hiding that I need to confess and lay before God?

Because we certainly need to do that. If we try to conceal our sins, as said in Psalm 66, if I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly, God has listened. He has attended to the voice of my prayer.

If we have sins and we're holding on to those sins, then it puts enmity between us and God. So confess your sins before God. And as said here in James 5, that prayer has healing power. The Lord will raise him up if he has committed any sins, they will be forgiven him.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. OK, the other part of Ryan's question was, is there a certain kind of oil that you should.

Use?

Well, when I've used oil for this, it's just simply a kind of an olive oil. You don't have any chemicals in it. It's a pure virgin olive oil, so it's natural. I know that pouring this over somebody's head, it's not doing something weird to them.

It's just the natural oils like we see being used even in scripture. I don't know that there's necessarily a scriptural prescription, though, with regards to what kind of oil that you have to use. I have used like a pomegranate oil in the past, something that was a little bit more scented and aromatic because that was the use of these kinds of oils in the Old Testament.

It wasn't just the purpose of the oil for anointing, but even that it had been mixed with other scents and spices so that when the oil was poured upon the head, you also get the effect of just that wonderful, pleasing aroma.

Just as scripture says to us that when we offer a sacrifice up to the Lord, it is a pleasing aroma to him, or when Noah had offered a sacrifice, it was a pleasing aroma unto.

The Lord.

The sacrificial system is given to Israel. It's the same sort of description there. So I think with the anointing oil, we have that same thing, and that's for us, that we get to enjoy that wonderful, pleasant scent of knowing that the Lord is in our prayers.

That's what even these kinds of pleasant senses can mean to us, that the Lord is in our prayers and he is working, and that's what that reminder can be. So that's just, I think I'm more just kind of giving advice on what kind of oil to use, not necessarily what scripture says we should use as far as the kind of oil is concerned.

And remember that the power is not in the oil. The power is in the prayer and God working through that prayer. So it's not like if you've used the wrong oil, then somehow this person is not going to be saved.

Now, I grew up in, well, I didn't grow up in, it was much later, it was when I got to college, but I was in charismatic churches for over a decade. I've talked about this before as well. And anointing oil was like very common.

It was almost like somebody would walk around with it. Ladies would have anointing oil in their purses. They would just have it on the ready for whenever something needed to be anointed. Here we go. I had a friend who carried it with him everywhere.

And anytime anything bad happened, he was pulling out his anointing oil and anointing it with oil. I remember driving along with him one time and his car went out because it was an old.

Car.

It was a beat up car. We're driving in the hot summer in Western Kansas and it overheated and went out. And he grabs his anointing oil and he gets out and he's throwing it on the hood of the car and thinks he's rebuking demons and all this stuff.

It didn't fix the car. But anyway, that was pretty common in the charismatic circles that I was in. Always have anointing oil. There was a video I just watched the other day. I shared it with Fred, in fact, where Bryce Crawford goes to the satanic temple in Massachusetts and he takes with him this big thing, this big bottle of anointing oil.

He calls it anointing oil. I think it was just olive oil. He sticks it in his pants and he goes in there. And I'm really ready in this video. I'm ready for him to pull that thing out. And when he gets to the Baphomet idol and all that stuff, he's just going to pull it out and just toss all this oil on it.

That's what I'm hoping is about to happen. There's a whole reason I was watching the video. And no, that's not what he did. He dabbed his finger in it and he just makes a tiny little cross on the floor and goes I rebuke this place and whispers even he whispers it.

I rebuke this place in the name of Jesus. I'm going that does not do anything. There is nothing, no power in that at all. As Romans 10, 17 says, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

Everybody hears you whispering and you're dabbing oil on the floor. That's not accomplishing anything at all. We must proclaim the gospel. You want to cast demons out of that place. You share the gospel with the people who run that place so that they will turn from their sin to Christ and be saved and renounce all of these satanic practices and turn away.

From them.

That's that's how you're going to overturn that work. But that's that's not what they do. They really think that they're going to have some sort of power in the anointing oil. And all of that becomes a very, very silly practice.

But here in James five, I believe this is something very serious. And I think it is good for us to practice it, whether or not a church is in sin. If they don't do it, I'm not going to issue a blanket statement and say one way or the other, because I don't know what's going on there.

But I do know that for me as a pastor, I see this instruction. Is anyone among you sick? Summon the elders of the church and they are to pray for him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And I read that as a pastor and I'm like, OK, if somebody calls upon me to do that, I need to be ready to go and do it.

And one thing and I've said this to people in my congregation, like I'll offer this as something for you if you want it. But there's no obligation on anybody to have to ask for it. And I'm not judging you if you don't ask for it.

And furthermore, I'm not really going to offer it like like in special circumstances. So I've I've made it known. And I've said, if you want this, then call and ask and we'll come and lay hands on you and pray.

And and all of us elders, by the way, we're all cessationist. We know that God is not working through some sort of faith healer in our church and we need to let him do that work. This is the instruction that's given for elders.

But it says call upon the elders. So I'm not calling everybody and saying, hey, we need to come and anoint you with oil and pray for you. Rather, I just make them aware that this is a service that we will do for you if you call us to come and do it.

But it's not something that we're forcing upon anybody or I'm even, you know, this week counting on my ledger how many times I've gone out and done this. It's for those who call and ask for it, especially if they have committed sins and there's something that they need to confess to the elders and that we, as their shepherds, can help work them through in guiding their spirits and pointing them to Christ and and helping them in understanding their sin and need for a savior.

As said in 1 John 1 9, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So who really needs to hear your confession most, who you need to confess to is God.

I appreciate your question, Zach, and I hope that that was helpful to you. Next question also comes from, no, I'm sorry, that was Ryan. I was going to say, this is also a Zach. No, different question.

So Ryan asked that question about anointing with oil. This one is from Zach. Hi, Pastor Gabe. How often should a church do communion? I've been in churches that do it monthly, twice a month, and more recently, weekly.

A few friends of mine started attending a church that does communion quarterly on fifth Sundays and then also on Christmas and Easter. Should we understand as often as you do this in 1 Corinthians 11 25 to 26 to be a command to do it often or just as often as you choose to do it?

Would love your insight on this topic. So that's another great question with a good scripture to go along with it. Let's jump to 1 Corinthians 11 and read what Paul says there about how often we are to have communion.

Is there something that we can glean from this in what Paul instructs in 1 Corinthians 11? Now, this is a long section, so I'm going to work through it a little bit here. Let's start in verse 17. But in the following instructions, I do not commend you, he says, kind of offering this admonishment, because when you come together, it is not for the better, but for the worse.

For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

When you come together, we're seeing this again and again. This has come up now three times. When you come together, verse 17, when you come together as a church, verse 18, and then when you come together, verse 20, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat, for in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal.

One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this?

No, I will not. So what Paul is addressing here are what we would refer to as the agape feasts, the love meals that they would have in church. And this church is using that meal as like the Lord's table.

So somebody eats a whole lot, and another person doesn't have as much, and there's segregation now. There are favorites. It's like class categories that are going on at the Lord's table. So when you come together, and we can see that these three, when you come togethers in verses 17 to 22, are all definitely whenever the church comes together.

So we would understand that as weekly, right? When you come together, it's not for the better, but for the worse, verse 18, for in the first place, when you come together as a church. So it's every time that they gather as the assembled body.

That's the context. That's what Paul is addressing. So just wanting you to see that as we go on. Verse 23, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me in the same way. Also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes as often, as often as you eat and drink. It is proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.

And again, this is still in the context of when you come together. So verse 27, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.

Let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. And we can tie this into the previous question that I answered about a person who is in sin that they have not confessed.

Confess your sins before God that you will not eat or drink of the body and blood of the Lord in an unworthy manner. Verse 29, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body themselves, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.