Over the last twenty years there has been a great surge of interest in the healing ministry, yet this ferment of activity seems not to have been matched by an equally fresh or energetic study of healing in the New Testament, which ostensibly forms the basis, and is still claimed as supplying the inspiration for the 'revival' of this ministry. This work is the first, serious, critical study of healing in the New Testament as a discrete subject. Its purpose is to arrive at a clearer understanding of what Scripture actually tells us about healing; not what we imagine it says or hope that it might say, not what we may have been led to believe it says, nor indeed what we have sometimes been taught that it says, but what the sacred authors actually wrote, and more to the point, what they meant by what they wrote.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these..." (Matthew 6:28-29). This unique and beautiful book offers information about the healing plants mentioned in hundreds of Bible verses, their scriptural context, their use in biblical times, present-day uses and their role in healing body, mind and soul. Healing Plants of the Bible: History, Lore and Meditations invites readers to consider not only the lilies of the field, but dozens of other flowers, herbs, trees and plants mentioned in the Bible. With lavish illustrations and exhaustive research, this volume details 38 of the plants most often appearing in Scripture, the lore behind their medicinal properties and meditations that focus on their ability to heal the spirit. An appendix offers scriptural and medicinal information on 40 additional plants.

Healing is one of the most constant themes in the long and sprawling history of Christianity. Jesus himself performed many miracles of healing. In the second century, St. Ignatius was the first to describe the eucharist as the medicine of immortality. Prudentius, a 4th-century poet and Christian apologist, celebrated the healing power of St. Cyprian's tongue. Bokenham, in his 15th-century Legendary, reported the healing power of milk from St. Agatha's breasts. Zulu prophets in 19th-century Natal petitioned Jesus to cure diseases caused by restless spirits. And Mary Baker Eddy invoked the Science of Divine Mind as a weapon against malicious animal magnetism. In this book Amanda Porterfield demonstrates that healing has played a major role in the historical development of Christianity as a world religion. Porterfield traces the origin of Christian healing and maps its transformations in the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. She shows that Christian healing had its genesis in Judean beliefs that sickness and suffering were linked to sin and evil, and that health and healing stemmed from repentance and divine forgiveness. Examining Jesus' activities as a healer and exorcist, she shows how his followers carried his combat against sin and evil and his compassion for suffering into new and very different cultural environments, from the ancient Mediterranean to modern America and beyond. She explores the interplay between Christian healing and medical practice from ancient times up to the present, looks at recent discoveries about religion's biological effects, and considers what these findings mean in light of ages-old traditions about belief and healing. Changing Christian ideas of healing, Porterfield shows, are a window into broader changes in religious authority, church structure, and ideas about sanctity, history, resurrection, and the kingdom of God. Her study allows us to see more clearly than ever before that healing has always been and remains central to the Christian vision of sin and redemption, suffering and bodily resurrection.

How the earliest churches understood healing.

This monograph presents the most comprehensive investigation yet made into the healing activity of the Early Church. In contrast to early skeptics like B. B. Warfield, the author is convinced there was a vigorous healing ministry in the centuries that followed the apostles, though it fluctuated somewhat and changed its mode. Exorcism is prominently attested throughout the period. The pre-Nicene Fathers recognized its great apologetic value as a dramatic demonstration of the superiority of Jesus Christ over pagan gods. Interest in healing miracles per se appears to have been particularly characteristic of the less educated members of the Church and those who were chaste in their devotion to the cause of Christ. Amongst these groups gifts of healing were found, becoming rare it seems by the mid-third century, but well attested again later in monastic circles. In the pre-Nicene period anointing with oil (in the name of Christ) was clearly an avenue of healing and, though mentioned comparatively rarely, may have been widespread as part of the regular ministry of local clergy to the sick. Baptismal healing, physical as well as spiritual, also took place. In the post-Nicene Church the shrines of the martyrs became a prominent locus of healing. Devotion to this cult may have been encouraged by Church Fathers as an acceptable alternative to magical practices. But evidence suggests syncretism did occur and martyr's relics could be invested with quasi-magical awe. Most Fathers were positive about the medical profession, seeing it as an avenue of God's work, and in the late fourth century one pioneered the hospital which then spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean. In an appendix to his work, the author sets down nine pointers from the healing activity of the Early Church, and his own experience, to assist those engaged in the healing ministry today.

Does the Christian community have the resources to develop a coherent response to today?s health care challenges? In a comprehensive survey covering the full scope of the Bible and three millennia of Christian belief and practice, Willard Swartley fleshes out the central place of health care in the church?s mission.