A new study from the Mayo Clinic found intercessory prayer produced no effect on 1,800 patients who underwent heart surgery. The prayers were offered by Benedictine women at St. Paul's Monastery, Carmelite nuns in Massachusetts, and an interfaith prayer ministry based in Kansas City. The study was led by a heart surgeon who has espoused the benefits of meditative prayer for recovering patients.
I think the study is interesting, but, like many other Christians, my personal experience has convinced me that "the prayer of a righteous man [or woman] is powerful and effective." If anyone is interested, I'd be willing to share my own testimony of how my offered prayers miraculously healed someone.
4 comments:
i'm always up for a good testimony!! :-)
hmm.. i bet they didn't lay on hands, annoint with oil, and speak in tongues... ;-)
i think if i heard benedictine chants, i wouldn't wanna come back either. :-)
Yeah, I kinda questioned who or what was doing the praying. Now we know why it probably wasn't effective... (I'm gonna have so many Catholics angry at me). My reason for saying this is that IF they were/are Christians, my bet is that they weren't praying to God, but to Mary or a saint. And, as you and I believe, you might as well pray to your pet Rottweiler instead.
thanks for the comments, guys. i'm glad it's not just me that thinks contrary to the science.
my own experience was with one elderly chinese lady who was brought to our church by one of our new believers. she had an open wound on her leg that was festering and hadn't closed up in several weeks. they were going to stop using the chinese remedies and bring her to a doctor, but we got to pray for her first.
i knew what had to be done: i had to give God a chance to prove Himself to our new believers and to these guests. i asked one man to translate to chinese as i prayed for the old woman, laying my hands on her leg. God filled me with courage to pray boldly; no sissy "if it's your will" prayers.
thank God! the old woman (she was about 70 years old) was healed in the next few days, with the wound closed up! they didn't even have to bring her to the doctor!
since then, i've had doubts, but always remind myself that God already showed Himself true once and i'm not going to forget it.
way to bring up a great point! there is a whole part of theology that i haven't seen addressed for a while. the idea of whether god has given healing as an absolute promise (by your stripes we are healed, etc), or whether healing is just a part of most other blessings (the "lord please heal me 'if it's in your will'".
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