GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 5:41
Faith Speech
Words certainly have consequences. Any doubt of this statement would be cleared away by telling one’s boss, “I quit!” A few years ago, and perhaps still today, there was a movement in some branches of Christianity called the “Positive Confession” movement—particularly the Word of Faith and prosperity gospel movements—that emphasized the power of spoken words to shape reality. Teachers based this idea on such scriptural statements as “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21); “If anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt… it will be done” (Mark 11:23); and “God who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17).
Based on such teaching, one might refuse medical treatment because he or she confessed, “I am healed in Jesus’ name, and I do not receive this diagnosis,” or “I don’t need insulin because my body is already healed.” Others in this movement might call poverty “a state of mind,” and declare their wealth, claiming that if someone is broke, it’s because they’re speaking poverty over themselves. Therefore, one might declare they’re a millionaire in Jesus’ name while making no financial plan or without working at a job.
Foundational to Christianity is faith in God’s promises, what one writer called “justified faith”—that is, faith grounded in Scripture—all of Scripture, truth, humility, and wisdom.
Coming into the home of a synagogue ruler in Capernaum to pray for his sick daughter, Jesus faced a phalanx of professional mourners—flute players, wailers of various sorts, and those who tore their clothes, representing the separation death brings. When he told those who knew about the mourning ritual well that the girl was not dead but asleep, they scorned him. After the mourners were evicted (Mark’s word was ἐκβάλλω, ekballo, to cast out, throw out, or expel) and the atmosphere cleared, Jesus, the child’s parents, and his three disciples went into the room where the little girl lay. “And after taking the hand of the child, he said to her, ‘Talitha koum!’ (which is translated, ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up’).” (Mark 5:41)
These actual Aramaic words spoken by Jesus, “Talitha koum,” weren’t foolish, extreme, or a dangerous denial of reality. These words did not place presumption in place of reality or ask those present to pretend rather than trust. These words redefined death, replaced darkness with light, and transformed despair into hope. The speaker of those words, “Talitha koum,” still offers hope in place of despair and light in place of darkness.
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