Verse by Verse Devotional on Philippians by Pastor Jack #126

Why Didn’t Paul Heal Epaphroditus?

2:26-27, 30 you had heard that he was sick...indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow... he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service to me.

There is no indication at all in this passage that Paul healed Epaphroditus. Paul mentions this brother’s sickness three times, saying he almost died, but never anything about healing him. We can’t know for sure that Paul didn’t heal him, of course, but if he did you would think that fact would have been included somewhere. The passage seems to imply he wasn’t healed by Paul.

Assuming Paul didn’t heal Epaphroditus, we ask: Why not? Paul had mighty powers of healing. He healed many people of many diseases (e.g. Acts 14:10; 19:11-12; 28:8-9). But here he doesn’t seem to have healed Epaphroditus (and even if he did, he didn’t heal Trophimus in Miletus - 2Tim.4:20).

Healing is of the Lord. Ultimately only God can heal. Disease is also of the Lord in one sense. He is the One who cursed this earth in response to man’s sin, resulting in many physical effects including disease (Rom.8:20; Exod.4:11; 2Kg.15:5). Ultimately He is behind everything, including sickness.

God could heal everyone in the world right now with the snap of His fingers. In fact, He could have prevented them from becoming sick in the first place. But the fact is it is not His will that everyone be healed. He has a purpose for sickness and a purpose for healing. Healing occurs when and only when God wills it.

Some men in the NT had the gift of healing. But part of that gift of healing was the direction given from God as to when and whom to heal. When Peter and John healed the lame man at the gate of the temple in Acts 3, they had been walking by that same man day after day without healing him. But that day God must have told them to heal him. No man has the ability to heal whenever he wants.

Surprisingly even Jesus did not have constant ability to heal. He didn’t heal anyone in the first 30 years of his life, though he must have seen much sickness and probably even death (see John 2:11). In Luke 5:17 we are told that "One day He was teaching...and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing." This implies that the power of the Lord to heal had not always been present with Him. In fact, we are told in Mark 6:5 that Jesus couldn’t perform miracles at one point : "He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them."

For some reason, apparently, it was not the will of God that Epaphroditus be healed by Paul. By the mercy of God (v.27) he recovered on his own or was cured in some other fashion. We are not told what happened or why. We have to leave these matters with the Lord.

Father of all mercies, I thank You that You are the healer of diseases. I praise You for all the sicknesses my family and I have been healed from in all our days. And I thank You for all the sicknesses we’ve been spared from in our days as well. Lord, I leave these matters to You. May Your will be done in my body and in the bodies of my loved ones. However, if it is Your will that we not be healed from a sickness, O Lord, please give us grace to accept it as Your will and therefore for our welfare. Give us strength to endure it faithfully as Your trusting children.