DESCRIPTION
What does the Bible say about healing? In this volume, respected biblical scholar Frederick Gaiser offers a close theological reading of biblical texts on health and healing, engaging questions of contemporary theological and pastoral concern. Gaiser considers fifteen key Old and New Testament passages, examining their significance for the church's understanding of healing and its ministry today. He explores issues such as God's role in healing; the relationship between healing and prayer; the place of healing in biblical theology; God's healing and medical science; the healing work of Jesus; healing, salvation, and cure; the relationship between sickness and sin; and healing under the sign of the cross. The final chapter draws together insights from the various chapters and summarizes Gaiser's findings.
Healing in the Bible offers fresh insights for anyone interested in Christian views on healing, from professors and students in Bible, theology, and pastoral ministry courses to thoughtful lay readers and pastors.
Contents
1. Introduction and Method
2. "O LORD, Heal Me": The Primal Witness of Psalm 6
3. "I Am the LORD, Your Healer": The God of Healing (Exodus 15:22-27)
4. "Moses Made a Serpent of Bronze": Healing and Culture (Numbers 21:4-9)
5. "Hezekiah Wept Bitterly": Healing and Prayer (2 Kings 20:1-11; Isaiah 38:1-22)
6. "Please Accept a Present": The Cost of Healing (2 Kings 5:1-27)
7. "No Health in My Bones": Reflecting on Illness (Psalm 38)
8. "What God Is So Great as Our God?" The Healing Community (Psalm 77)
9. "Hannah Conceived and Bore a Son": The Place of Healing in Biblical Theology (1 Samuel 1:1-2:10)
10. "The Sensible Will Not Despise Them": Healing, Medicine, Human Wisdom, and God (Sirach 38:1-15)
11. "I Command You, Come Out of Him": Jesus and the Demons (Mark 9:14-29)
12. "He Spat on the Ground and Made Mud": Jesus the Shaman? (John 9:1-41)
13. "If I but Touch His Clothes": Healing and Touch (Mark 5:21-43)
14. "Your Faith Has Made You Well": Healing, Salvation, and Cure (Luke 17:11-19)
15. "Your Sins Are Forgiven . . . Stand Up and Walk": On Sickness and Sin (Mark 2:1-12)
16. "What I Have I Give You": Healing in the Name of Jesus (Acts 3:1-26)
17. "By His Bruises We Are Healed": Healing under the Sign of the Cross (Isaiah 53:4-5)
18. Healing in the Bible: A Summary
Indexes
Endorsements
Gaiser generates lively exegetical conversations by offering fresh insights on tough questions. . . . A careful, balanced, and imaginative work for anyone interested in Christian views of healing."
-- Martin W. Mittelstadt, Religious Studies Review
"Frederick Gaiser has written a book that everyone interested in the intersection of theology and health needs to read. This is the work of a skilled exegete who is intimately familiar with the biblical stories of God's healing acts. Gaiser reminds us that all of our theological reflection concerning health ought to begin with and account for the biblical narrative. I look forward to the opportunity to use this book in my own teaching and scholarship."
-- Joel James Shuman, coauthor, Reclaiming the Body; associate professor of theology, King's College
"Frederick Gaiser has a great instinct and gift for moving to and fro in the space between the contemporary world and the biblical text. He began this book in Africa, and although he does not keep referring to that, one can see the way it shaped and resourced the 'conversation' between our contemporary world(s) and the Bible's world. He keeps chewing at the text, seeking to be fully open to it, precisely because it comes from a different world and thus has the power to illumine our world. Every chapter is illuminating."
-- John Goldingay, David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary
"What an enormous grasp of issues of health Frederick Gaiser demonstrates in this book as he moves easily between stories of Zimbabwe, biblical exegesis, and applications for twenty-first-century Christians. Gaiser's volume on the wide variety of literature in the Bible about healing is obviously the result of many years of committed research and contemplation; readers will be amazed at the range of his erudition and the depth of his faith. I am very grateful for his insightfully inspiring work."
-- Marva J. Dawn, author, Being Well When We're Ill; teaching fellow in spiritual theology, Regent College
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