Contrary to my notions about sin always needing to be rebuked, here Jesus calls on his followers to search their own hearts and minds—to assess their lives and identify sin. They might have done something that led to a brother or sister holding something “against them” (Matthew 5:23). They may very well have sinned against someone else but no rebuke was issued. Just as in Matthew 18 Jesus calls for us to rebuke sin with the aim of repentance, in Matthew 5 he commands us to confess our sins to one another—to seek reconciliation (Matthew 5:24).

There are many reasons Christians don’t rebuke one another. But perhaps the one that runs deepest is that we just want people to like us. We fear coming across as self righteous, imagining that by calling out sin we will be alienated from other Christians. This is not an unreasonable fear. For even among Christians it is not difficult to be labelled judgmental and scorned for interfering in other people’s personal affairs. However, when sin is apparent, that is precisely what Jesus calls us to do: if someone sins against you, go and tell them. Naturally this must be tempered, as Christians navigate between rebuking sin and becoming judgmental or hypocritical. That being said, Jesus’ directive for us to rebuke sin stands.
For many years I treated Matthew 18:15-20 as if it was the only thing Jesus said about dealing with sin—both our own and others’. My operating assumption was that the sin-rebuke dynamic ran in one direction: if someone is sinned against then they must rebuke the offender. This led me to making remarks such as: ‘If Tim has an issue then he should bring it to me,’ and, ‘If Jeffrey thinks I’ve sinned then he must say so.’
Admittedly, it is wonderfully convenient to live like this, for at least two reasons. We’ve already touched on the first: most Christians are afraid to rebuke sin. Thus as long as I’m waiting on other Christians to identify and call out my sin, rebukes and any related repentance will be rare. Secondly, it doesn’t require me to evaluate my own actions or words, for this is the responsibility of others rather than my own. Furthermore, I can easily dismiss my conscience and make light of sin, since most Christians battle to rebuke one another.
“Confess Your Sins to One Another”
But this operating assumption was recently dashed as I read through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, especially Jesus’ teaching on reconciliation. Jesus says, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go” (Matthew 5:23-24).
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First, we remember that God is healing people all the time. Second, we realize that the question isn’t actually whether God will heal our children but when. And third, we see that praying is about asking God to do now what he will certainly do then: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). It’s about staring into the furnace, like the three men in Daniel 3, and saying, “Our God is able to rescue us, O king, and he will. But even if he doesn’t, we’re still going to trust him” (Daniel 3:17–18).

Theological Reflection
At some point or other, every Christian with a disability is going to have to figure out how to think about physical healing. In our case, theological reflection on healing has been essential: we help lead a large charismatic church that sees dozens of people physically healed each year; I have talked about God’s healing power in at least three of my books; we both speak at conferences and churches where people get physically healed in response to prayer; and yet we also have two children with special needs who have not been healed, as well as many friends for whom that is also true. All this, in a very good way, has forced us to think carefully about the subject.
When it comes to physical healing, the extremes are relatively easy to see. We have the loony prosperity gospel preachers and their shallow messages of permanent health and wealth for everyone who follows Jesus. Then we have the starchy cynics who think that everyone who claims to have experienced divine healing is either lying or delusional. The first group acts as if God always heals today because the kingdom of God is entirely now; the second group acts as if God never heals today because the kingdom of God is entirely not yet. The biblical picture (to summarize a huge amount of theology in one sentence!) is that it is both now and not yet. We should expect both miracles and disappointments, physical healing and physical death, to form part of our experience until Jesus returns.
So far, so good. But even when people agree on those things, there can still be confusion. We have Tigger types, who bounce around insisting that God will always heal us if we just have enough certainty that he will, and we have Eeyore types, who mope around mumbling that disabilities are just part of the way things are and that asking God to heal us is a waste of time. Being a Winnie-the-Pooh type in the middle, believing that God wants to heal but trusting him when he doesn’t, can be exhausting. The Tigger types make you feel guilty; the Eeyore types make you feel grumpy. And you’re still the one with the disabled child.
So it has helped us to realize that, although we often talk as if there is only one type of divine healing, there are actually four, as far as we can tell. Most people instinctively prefer some to others, but they’re all there.
Type 1
A virus enters my body, and my white blood cells are launched into action like a rabid dog, hunting down the perpetrator to kill it. I cut my hand, and immediately a combination of clotting blood cells and replacement skin cells begin the patch-up job. Every second, as my heart beats, tiny bits of mineral and organic material are sent to parts of the body that need it, performing ongoing repairs that will never finish, like painting the Golden Gate bridge hour after hour, year after year.
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In the weeks to come, the crowded dormitory was a blessing. The women on camp met there regularly. Scriptures were read. Hymns were sung. Betsy and Corrie couldn’t understand why guards never closed it down. One day, Betsy asked a guard to come into the hut on another matter. She refused. Why? Because the hut was riddled with fleas. What are the fleas for you? What is the thing you are desperate to get rid of?

“Betsie, how can we live in such a place?”
That was the question Corrie ten Boom asked her sister as they arrived in their dormitory at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. The moment they walked through the door their noses were overwhelmed by the stench of soiled bedding.
They climbed into a bunk bed for the two of them. It was then Corrie felt the first nip on her leg. The straw on the bed was swarming with fleas. No wonder Corrie asked how can she was meant to live in this way.
Perhaps you have asked that same question in a different form. “How can I live like this?”
Maybe the money is running out. Maybe a relationship has fallen apart. Maybe you have to care for someone in the depths of suffering. You wonder “How can I go on?”
Well let’s return to Corrie and Betsy. If they could survive Ravensbrück, maybe there’s hope for you and I too.
Betsy encouraged Corrie to open the Bible they had managed to smuggle in. You see Betsy and Corrie were Dutch Christians who had risked everything to keep Jews safe. One of the small blessings was this small Bible which they read every day.
The Bible reading for the day was from 1 Thessalonians 5:12-18:
And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.
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