James 5:13-18
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
I didn’t find too much regarding what Lee had to say about the issue, but as everyone knows, he didn’t care for James. Here is what he has to say regarding the above passage in James:
Quote:
Although James says a good word concerning prayer in 5:14-16, his way of praying is that of the Old Testament prophets. This is proved by the fact that he uses the prayer of Elijah as an example: “Elijah was a man of like feeling with us, and in prayer he prayed that it should not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit” (vv. 17-18). James says that Elijah prayed in a prayer. We may admire this prayer and think that it is excellent. Paul, however, does not speak like this. Rather, Paul tells us to pray always in spirit (Eph. 6:18). To pray in spirit is much better, sweeter, and richer than to pray in a prayer. The latter is to pray in the Old Testament way; the former is to pray in the New Testament way. In the case of Elijah, the Lord gave him a particular prayer as a burden, and Elijah prayed that it would not rain. Hence, Elijah prayed in the prayer given to him by the Lord. But today we have the indwelling Spirit abiding in our spirit and interceding for us (Rom. 8:26), and we do not need a special prayer or burden, for we can pray in our spirit unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17).
If we do not have light from the Lord, we may highly appreciate what James says concerning prayer. But if we are enlightened by the Lord, we shall see that the way of prayer described by James is the Old Testament way. By this we see that James’ writing brings us away from the New Testament practice and back to the Old Testament practice.
Life-Study of James, Witness Lee, Message 14
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It is clear that Lee didn’t view the example of prayer put forth in James 5 as being noteworthy. To me, James’ admonition is quite simple: pray for one another and confess to one another. What is so bad about that? Regarding confessing to one another, there isn’t any reason to get weird about group confession or public confession (aka humiliation), but if there are any groups that are guilty of that, the LC is certainly one of them.
In light of what Lee said in this excerpt, I think James provides a contrast to the “spiritual” view of prayer that Lee speaks of. Lee talks about “to pray in spirit” and to “pray in our spirit unceasingly”. What does this all mean? At least in my LC experience, this is just mumbo jumbo that they throw around, and often times, it leads to the notion that praying for normal things is a waste of time or “unspiritual”. In my mind, this is what the whole issue is really about. For whatever reason, Lee didn’t really think it was worth the bother for everyone to pray to each other, or to confess to one another (for the purpose of clearing up offenses). His overly spiritualized stance lead to a lack in these things.