Wednesday 27 February 2013

Healing in history


I thought that I would write down some healing miracles from previous times in church history.
The fourth century church leader Augustine disparaged healings in his early days.  However later, in The City of God, he spoke of how his views had changed.  He wrote, 'It is only two years ago that the keeping of records was begun here in Hippo, and already, at this writing, we have nearly seventy attested miracles.'

On one occasion the eighteenth century English evangelist John Wesley was on his way to an engagement when his horse became lame and could not travel.  Wesley got down on his knees beside his horse and prayed for its healing.  Then he got up and rode, without the horse limping, to where he was going.

The German reformer Martin Luther believed that healing gifts had been withdrawn, after the time of the early church, in order to give preeminence to the preached Word.  However, when his friend Philipp Melanchthon, became seriously ill in 1540 and was close to death, Luther visited him and prayed for his healing.  He wrote on the wall the words of Psalm 118:17, "I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD."  Instantly, Melanchthon's condition visibly improved.  Luther noted this as a miracle.  

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