Healing

First Corinthians 12:9 lists "gifts of healing" — notably plural in the Greek (charismata iamaton), which several commentators take to suggest varied or occasional instances of healing power rather than a single, permanent ability a person possesses and can activate at will. Jesus and the apostles performed documented healings throughout the Gospels and Acts — the healing of the man born blind (John 9), Peter healing a man lame from birth (Acts 3) — as signs that validated their message and revealed God's compassion and power.

This is one of the five sign gifts where genuine, careful disagreement exists among faithful Christians, and both sides affirm the same core conviction: God heals, and He is fully able to heal miraculously today. The disagreement is specifically about whether the spiritual gift of healing — the ability some New Testament believers had to reliably and visibly heal others through a word or touch — continues to operate in the church in that same form.

The two views, stated fairly

Cessationists generally hold that the sign gifts, healing included, were tied closely to the apostolic office and served to authenticate the apostles' message as Scripture was being revealed and the church established. With that foundational period complete, this view holds, the specific gift functions differently or has ceased, even though God continues to heal in answer to prayer — just not through a person reliably exercising a "gift of healing" the way Peter or Paul did.

Continuationists hold that this gift continues in the church today in essentially the same form Scripture describes, exercised by some believers as the Spirit grants it, though not necessarily with the same frequency or consistency seen in the apostolic era. In this view, there's no clear biblical statement that healing specifically ceased, so the burden of proof falls on showing why it should have stopped rather than assuming it did.

Both views affirm, without reservation, that God is sovereign over sickness and healing, that prayer for healing is always appropriate (James 5:14-15 instructs elders to pray over the sick), and that not every prayer for healing is answered the way the person asking hoped — a reality both sides have to reckon with honestly.

What practicing this gift well looks like

In continuationist settings, this often looks like a believer praying boldly and specifically for someone's physical healing, sometimes alongside others gifted similarly, and giving God the credit when healing follows — while never promising healing will come or treating its absence as a sign of someone's lacking faith. In cessationist settings, the equivalent faithful practice is praying earnestly and specifically for the sick exactly as James instructs, trusting God's sovereign power fully, while not expecting or claiming a repeatable personal gift of healing.

Both positions also have to grapple honestly with unanswered prayer. Paul himself prayed three times for relief from an unnamed "thorn in my flesh" and was told no — "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Any faithful teaching on this gift, in either tradition, has to hold that example alongside the dramatic healings elsewhere in Scripture, rather than presenting healing as something guaranteed to the sufficiently faithful.

Common misconceptions

A common misconception on one side is that continuationists guarantee healing if you just believe hard enough — a distortion continuationist pastors themselves generally reject as a corruption of the biblical teaching. A common misconception on the other side is that cessationists don't believe in miraculous healing at all, or discourage praying for it — most cessationists pray fervently for healing; they simply don't attribute the outcome to a standing personal gift.

A further point of near-universal agreement: ordinary medicine and this gift are not in competition. Luke, the author of Acts, was himself a physician (Colossians 4:14), and nothing in Scripture suggests prayer for healing should replace sound medical care rather than accompany it. A family praying fervently for a sick child while also following their doctor's treatment plan is not showing a lack of faith; they're reflecting the same wisdom Scripture models throughout.

Growing in and stewarding this gift

Those who sense this gift should pray for the sick regularly and humbly, resisting any temptation to perform or to promise outcomes God alone controls. Partner with others — elders, prayer teams — rather than acting as a lone healer, and always point any healing that occurs back to God's power, not personal ability. Pastoral sensitivity matters enormously here: walking faithfully with someone who isn't healed is as important as praying boldly for someone who is.

The shadow side

This gift's shadow is the temptation to manufacture results, to blame the sick person's "lack of faith" when healing doesn't come, or to build a personal following around a reputation for healing. It can also tempt cessationist believers toward a quiet fatalism about prayer for healing, treating it as a formality rather than a genuine plea to a God who can act. Either error misrepresents God's character.

A church that prays for the sick with both boldness and patience, trusting God's wisdom in both the healing and the waiting, honors this gift however it understands its present-day form.

The body needs this gift

Whatever a church's position, the body needs people who take sickness and suffering seriously enough to pray specifically and persistently for healing, and who walk faithfully with those who suffer regardless of the outcome. James's instruction to call for the elders and pray assumes a body that cares for its physically broken members — a need every tradition shares, whatever name it gives the gift involved.