Re: Faith in God

But let me say this too before someone says something about this or thinks it. I do believe in trying to eradicated suffering as much as possible too, unless we specially feel called by God to go through a particular suffering without trying to end it, like being persecuted because we won't deny Jesus, or something like that. But say we have an illness, or something else that might can be helped, by all means do what you can to get rid of it. Of course then sometimes people can get so obsessed with that, to where it takes up every thought and moment, and that wouldn't be good either. All I'm saying, is that I don't think it's wrong or going against God to try to heal and get rid of some suffering in our lives. Timothy had stomach problems and Paul told him to drink some wine, obviously hoping that it would help eliminate Timothy's suffering, at least with his stomach. But why didn't Paul just heal Timothy? The fact that he didn't is very much an indication that the gift of healing had ceased. Not that God didn't continue to miraculously heal through prayer, etc. but that the "gift of healing" that the apostles and disciples could do at will, had gone away.