Apologetics

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Skeptics use the failures of so-called ‘faith healers’ to ridicule belief in God. As if the limitations of the creature mean that the Creator is likewise limited. However, the failure of these faith healers has little to do with God, and much to do with false teaching.

The Bible warns repeatedly about false teachers who do what they do simply for profit (2 Timothy 3:6, Titus 1:11, etc.). These people prey on the gullible, the desperate, and the trusting. They appeal to the felt needs of people as they promise healing or debt relief or whatever else.

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money...lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:1-7 NASB)

It is true that these con artists exist and it is terrible and sad what they do. But this does not show that God has failed. This shows that mankind is still in the business of concocting a god in our own image and then expecting that god to perform as we have imagined. This will inevitably lead to heartache and disappointment. It builds false hope in promises that were never made.

The remedy for this is to know God and to know His Word. He has told us what He is like and what to expect from Him. We can have complete trust in Him that He will fulfill His promises…but they must be His promises; they cannot be things He never said He would do.

On the other hand, focusing on the failures of ‘faith healers’ and presenting them as the norm for Christianity, is patently dishonest. Most Christians recognize the charlatans who twist God’s word in order to make a living off trusting souls who know no better.

For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (I Timothy 6:10 NASB)

The behavior of these ‘faith healers’ is an easy target to ridicule and scoff at, but if we were to consider the atrocities that non-Christians have done, and continue to do, these ‘faith healers, and their actions, would seem almost irrelevant. The list of secular humanistic constructs that promise something and deliver nothing is endless. New ways to cheat people are constantly being devised by the ungodly human mind.

Christianity may have its share of hucksters, but without Jesus Christ we have nothing at all that has any lasting value.

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