What does the Bible say? We prosper physically as our soul prospers! Amen! Well... ...actually it doesn’t say that. For starters it's a prayer not a promise. Just a simple observation of grammar and genre. It's good to pray for people's health for many things but the Father, in his wisdom, does not always give us what we pray for. Paul's thorn remained in the flesh. Trophimus remained sick in Miletus. Christians die. Even the Son of Man prayed with the qualification, "If it is possible... Yet not my will." A prayer is not promise. Another interesting observation is that prayers for health were extremely common in letters in the Roman world. The standard way to start a letter was with the opening address followed by something like, "Before all else I pray for your health and success", a wish which is sometimes expanded to a rather lengthy discussion of health matters (see the extremely helpful recent article by Peter Head in the ...
Living and preaching at the foot of the Cross