Today is about miracles. Oprah tells us to stick to what we believe is true, and to be our own judge.
John of God
A simple Brazilian farmer, there is a man known as John of God. He was given this name by others. Susan Casey of O Magazine traveled to see him; people from around the world visit him to be miraculously healed of everything from cancer to blindness. Many say he's a simple man who is working to fulfill his spiritual duty. Some say he gets his gift from the spirits of 30 dead doctors and saints who work through him.
Though he has no medical degree, John of God frequently performs simple surgeries such as eye scrapings, nasal probings, or incisions somewhere on the body. We see an image of him cutting into a woman's upper arm and moving his finger around inside of the hole. Despite using no anesthesia or pain medication, most of those who have had his procedures performed on him report feeling little to no pain and almost no infections are reported. One woman reports that when he operated on her, she could literally feel something black coming out of her.
Most of John of God's surgeries are "invisible" surgeries, where he walks around a room and the surgeries are performed on multiple people at a time, only he (nor anyone else) never touches anyone. John refuses to take any money and says that he isn't doing the work, that it's the power of God. He encourages people to continue their entire medical regime, though some people experience partial remission and others experience complete healing.
Susan's Thoughts on John of God
Oprah sits down with Susan Casey, and asks if she was a skeptic. Susan says that she tried to be neutral, not too skeptical nor already convinced the other way. People wear white because it apparently helps John see what is going on in their "energy". The first thing Susan saw was John scraping a woman's eyeball with a knife; Susan was shocked to see that the woman never flinched. Dr. Oz's explanation is that something like that can create an intense immune reaction, and maybe that's what's causing the healing.
After a break, Oprah asks Susan how she explains what she saw. Susan says she feels like it's all of the positive and good thoughts that people have but focused in a much more intense way. Oprah quotes the Bible saying, "When two or more are gathered in my name." She says she feels that having so many people gathered with such hopefulness is what is so effective.
How John Healed Susan
Susan was in a deep depression after her father's death. She hoped that maybe John could help fill the hole left. Susan met John. The first time he looked in her eyes and told her to go partake in a blessing. The second time he told her to go sit in the healing room and be with her father. She went to that room and felt like she was out of body, that it was so peaceful and serene, and she meditated and talked with her father there. She sat there for three hours and it went by in what felt like a few minutes. Eventually Susan began feeling lighter and after three days she says she realized that she was being healed.
A Skeptic
In a clip from a documentary about John of God, a woman explains how if you have doubt then you are putting darkness against God's will. She says ask God for something with an open heart and an open mind then, "in time you will receive. You will get your blessing." Dr. Jeff Rediger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard, went as a skeptic. He took a team that collected medical and lab reports to see if people's reports of healing were medical fact, expecting to find the farce.
We see a scene in which a man's arm is cut open and John of God appears to be removing something. The man feels no pain, yet can feel Dr. Rediger touching his hand. The man is there for spiritual healing, and John of God removes physical pieces of something (we don't know what) from the arm and the man feels better. Dr. Rediger says he can't explain things he saw, like John of God cutting into a woman's cornea and and she felt no pain. In the healing room, Dr. Rediger reports being able to see white light around people who were praying. Then, afterward there is a spot of blood tricking down his abdomen from slightly right of his ribcage, and he's told John of God performed an invisible surgery on him.
A woman asks if Dr. Rediger feels violated, and he says no, that he feels completely in control. That is why he feels afraid, because he feels in control. Back in the studio, Oprah asks what was going on with the bleeding and Dr. Rediger says that, though it was 7 years ago, he still doesn't understand it. It changed everything in his life (from his very logical, material worldview to one open to spiritual things) but he still doesn't understand it.
In trying to explain what happened to him, Dr. Rediger wrote: "My interpretation of what happened to me is this. In short, we all matter far more than we typically have a clue about, and love is what is real. We tend to believe in what we can see and touch and believe that the world as it appears to be is the real world. On the basis of my experience, I've come to believe that reality is both revealed and concealed by the world we see with our eyes and that none of us are who we appear to be." Oprah thinks that's why were all here, that on some level none of us are what we appear to be, that we're just wearing little human suits to disguise who we really are.
Mark
A man named Mark was struggling with his belief in God. John of God shoved basically a long pair of scissors in his nose; he felt excruciating pain and like John was in his brain. He saw a burst of yellow light and then felt peace and calm. Watching the video with Dr. Rediger, they find see that even at an angle the scissors were several inches longer than the space at the back of the sinus. After internet research, they discover that John of God really must have been hitting Mark's brain (again, he pulled some unidentifiable object out). Mark says his whole struggle was whether there is or isn't a God; he now says there is, because he survived that (as he says "that" we see the clip again of John of God aggressively shoving the long metal scissors up deep into Mark's head).
Dr. Rediger on the Skeptics
Some skeptics say John of God just pulled a slight of hand in a case like this, that somehow he finaggled the scissors safely into the sinus cavity. Dr. Rediger says perhaps it is a slight of hand, but that there is a profound ability of the human mind to believe things and there is a need for research into the belief aspect. Dr. Rediger says that if you can say something to the effect of, "I believe this in my head but I don't get it in my heart, it's too much," and then an incision from an invisible surgery appears over your heart then clearly there's something inexplicable, supernatural happening.
Dr. Rediger on the Meaning of Life
He doesn't know what it means, but while he's not religious he's now into cultivating the spirit. What he believes now is that we all matter far more than we think we do, there's something, "unrepeatable and good about who we are," there's something mysterious about being human, and that our suffering comes from not getting it about the dignity and goodness of what our individual life means. He says we may feel alone and we're not alone in any way like we think we are, we're connected to one another, and the point of our lives is to get it about that.
Lisa
At 37, Lisa was diagnosed with breast cancer and it was recommended that she have a double mastectomy. Instead, she refused and visited John of God. While there, she volunteered for a visible surgery and had a nasal probe. She says it was cold and she remembers a crunching sound; it wasn't painful, simply more like shock. Upon returning home, she abstained from things like alcohol and sex for 40 days at John's recommendation and then had a biopsy; the result was still malignant. That was seven years ago. Oprah asks if she thinks she was healed in any way, and Lisa says she thought she wasn't but then hearing Susan describe her healing from the loss of her father made Lisa realize she had carried the loss of her mother (whom she watched die from cancer while in her teens) for years and that was lifted. Though she's never been totally healed of cancer, she was in stage four and she was told in 2007 that she has 2-5 years. She feels that she's still healing because she's working with divine intelligence. She never appreciated herself as a human being but now is learning that.
Ernie
Ernie had a tumor near his spine; we see very, very graphic video of John of God cutting into Ernie's back and removing the tumor. The Oprah show spoke with Ernie's doctor and the tumor was there and now is gone. Oprah asks Ernie how he explains it, and he says he can only explain that we're more than flesh and blood, that we're also a source of energy.
Dr. Rediger on Explaining
Since he still can't explain anything, Dr. Rediger says he would want to gather data, do research, and get facts. He feels it's less about the phenomena than what we do with it. He can't explain why not everyone is healed--Lisa still has stage four cancer, and Ernie is totally healed. Dr. Rediger says that we're all different, it's the journey of a soul. Oprah says we all bring different energy to John of God; he responds to what is brought and not all energies react the same or need the same thing.
Closing Thoughts
In the final moments, Oprah reads what Dr. Rediger said to her in an e-mail he wrote to the show about his experience: "Perhaps the real heart within us it not just a pump. Perhaps the real heart within us is about love and faith. Perhaps the physical body is not who we really are. Perhaps we are these invisible souls walking around and the body is just an instrument or metaphor for something we are trying to learn."
Oprah thanks everyone, plugs the December article on John of God in O Magazine and plugs the O Magazine iPad app, which is how she now reads everything.
Gospel Filter Review (GFR)
This is heavy stuff. Here is what stood out to me: God is not the only spirit able to perform supernatural miracles. Satan is a supernatural being capable of supernatural acts. In Exodus 7:11&22 and 8:7 we see non-believers able to perform the same miracles that God allowed Moses to perform; it's supernatural and not from God, which leaves the other major supernatural power in the world: Satan.
So, then, is John of God doing these things by God's power or Satan's? The Bible says to test the spirits. The Bible says it better than I could:
With all of that said, the stance the Oprah show took, of focusing on our "energy" as human beings, how interconnected we all are and how we need to focus our good energy on ourselves and one another, must be redeemed. First, we need to reject the idea that we're energy. Nowhere in the Bible are we called "energy". We have souls and spirits, yes. But those were created by God for His glory that we might worship Him. Before sin broke the relationship, Adam and Eve were companions whom God delighted in.
Additionally, we do not have good in ourselves. I've said it before and I'll say it again (read the GFR on that post), because the Bible makes it emphatically clear: our hearts are wicked, bent continuously on evil. Any good comes not from us but through us as a gift of God's grace.
Lastly, we can redeem the idea that we're all of inherent divine value and worth. This was twisted to be about humanity for humanity's sake, but the Bible tells us that we are of inherent value and worth--to God. "For God so loved the world that...while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (that's a mash-up of John 3:16 and Romans 5:8). God loves us, and already loved us when He nailed His son to the cross to die for our sins despite us being His enemy. He doesn't love us because of anything good in us, but because He created us. He loves creation, and we as humans are His favorite part! He knows us individually and loves us. This is so much better than it just being about humanity for humanity's sake--a loving and all powerful God knows and loves us perfectly and we get to know Him.
I pray that people would know that. I pray that when Oprah quotes the Bible people would be led to scripture to see what it's about and not just take her word for it. People being gathered in Jesus' name is spoken of by Jesus in the context of His people praying together, but it's flanked on both sides by the theme of forgiving people when they sin against us. The point is that there is power in asking God for things, and it doesn't exclude asking Him for healing, but if you read Matthew 18, again, the money verse about gathering in Jesus' name (verse 20) is flanked in verses 15-17 and 21-35 by Jesus teaching about forgiveness. I pray people would read God's Word and see that it's not only about asking Jesus to give us something or celebrate the energy of humanity, but about gathering with others who love Jesus and worshiping Him together.
Up Tomorrow
John of God
A simple Brazilian farmer, there is a man known as John of God. He was given this name by others. Susan Casey of O Magazine traveled to see him; people from around the world visit him to be miraculously healed of everything from cancer to blindness. Many say he's a simple man who is working to fulfill his spiritual duty. Some say he gets his gift from the spirits of 30 dead doctors and saints who work through him.
Though he has no medical degree, John of God frequently performs simple surgeries such as eye scrapings, nasal probings, or incisions somewhere on the body. We see an image of him cutting into a woman's upper arm and moving his finger around inside of the hole. Despite using no anesthesia or pain medication, most of those who have had his procedures performed on him report feeling little to no pain and almost no infections are reported. One woman reports that when he operated on her, she could literally feel something black coming out of her.
Most of John of God's surgeries are "invisible" surgeries, where he walks around a room and the surgeries are performed on multiple people at a time, only he (nor anyone else) never touches anyone. John refuses to take any money and says that he isn't doing the work, that it's the power of God. He encourages people to continue their entire medical regime, though some people experience partial remission and others experience complete healing.
Why John of God Doesn't Charge
John of God doesn't charge for what he does because he says you cannot charge for what is not yours. He feels like charging for the work done through him that's not of him would cause him to be stripped of his power to heal.
Susan's Thoughts on John of God
Oprah sits down with Susan Casey, and asks if she was a skeptic. Susan says that she tried to be neutral, not too skeptical nor already convinced the other way. People wear white because it apparently helps John see what is going on in their "energy". The first thing Susan saw was John scraping a woman's eyeball with a knife; Susan was shocked to see that the woman never flinched. Dr. Oz's explanation is that something like that can create an intense immune reaction, and maybe that's what's causing the healing.
After a break, Oprah asks Susan how she explains what she saw. Susan says she feels like it's all of the positive and good thoughts that people have but focused in a much more intense way. Oprah quotes the Bible saying, "When two or more are gathered in my name." She says she feels that having so many people gathered with such hopefulness is what is so effective.
How John Healed Susan
Susan was in a deep depression after her father's death. She hoped that maybe John could help fill the hole left. Susan met John. The first time he looked in her eyes and told her to go partake in a blessing. The second time he told her to go sit in the healing room and be with her father. She went to that room and felt like she was out of body, that it was so peaceful and serene, and she meditated and talked with her father there. She sat there for three hours and it went by in what felt like a few minutes. Eventually Susan began feeling lighter and after three days she says she realized that she was being healed.
A Skeptic
In a clip from a documentary about John of God, a woman explains how if you have doubt then you are putting darkness against God's will. She says ask God for something with an open heart and an open mind then, "in time you will receive. You will get your blessing." Dr. Jeff Rediger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard, went as a skeptic. He took a team that collected medical and lab reports to see if people's reports of healing were medical fact, expecting to find the farce.
We see a scene in which a man's arm is cut open and John of God appears to be removing something. The man feels no pain, yet can feel Dr. Rediger touching his hand. The man is there for spiritual healing, and John of God removes physical pieces of something (we don't know what) from the arm and the man feels better. Dr. Rediger says he can't explain things he saw, like John of God cutting into a woman's cornea and and she felt no pain. In the healing room, Dr. Rediger reports being able to see white light around people who were praying. Then, afterward there is a spot of blood tricking down his abdomen from slightly right of his ribcage, and he's told John of God performed an invisible surgery on him.
A woman asks if Dr. Rediger feels violated, and he says no, that he feels completely in control. That is why he feels afraid, because he feels in control. Back in the studio, Oprah asks what was going on with the bleeding and Dr. Rediger says that, though it was 7 years ago, he still doesn't understand it. It changed everything in his life (from his very logical, material worldview to one open to spiritual things) but he still doesn't understand it.
In trying to explain what happened to him, Dr. Rediger wrote: "My interpretation of what happened to me is this. In short, we all matter far more than we typically have a clue about, and love is what is real. We tend to believe in what we can see and touch and believe that the world as it appears to be is the real world. On the basis of my experience, I've come to believe that reality is both revealed and concealed by the world we see with our eyes and that none of us are who we appear to be." Oprah thinks that's why were all here, that on some level none of us are what we appear to be, that we're just wearing little human suits to disguise who we really are.
Mark
A man named Mark was struggling with his belief in God. John of God shoved basically a long pair of scissors in his nose; he felt excruciating pain and like John was in his brain. He saw a burst of yellow light and then felt peace and calm. Watching the video with Dr. Rediger, they find see that even at an angle the scissors were several inches longer than the space at the back of the sinus. After internet research, they discover that John of God really must have been hitting Mark's brain (again, he pulled some unidentifiable object out). Mark says his whole struggle was whether there is or isn't a God; he now says there is, because he survived that (as he says "that" we see the clip again of John of God aggressively shoving the long metal scissors up deep into Mark's head).
Dr. Rediger on the Skeptics
Some skeptics say John of God just pulled a slight of hand in a case like this, that somehow he finaggled the scissors safely into the sinus cavity. Dr. Rediger says perhaps it is a slight of hand, but that there is a profound ability of the human mind to believe things and there is a need for research into the belief aspect. Dr. Rediger says that if you can say something to the effect of, "I believe this in my head but I don't get it in my heart, it's too much," and then an incision from an invisible surgery appears over your heart then clearly there's something inexplicable, supernatural happening.
Dr. Rediger on the Meaning of Life
He doesn't know what it means, but while he's not religious he's now into cultivating the spirit. What he believes now is that we all matter far more than we think we do, there's something, "unrepeatable and good about who we are," there's something mysterious about being human, and that our suffering comes from not getting it about the dignity and goodness of what our individual life means. He says we may feel alone and we're not alone in any way like we think we are, we're connected to one another, and the point of our lives is to get it about that.
Lisa
At 37, Lisa was diagnosed with breast cancer and it was recommended that she have a double mastectomy. Instead, she refused and visited John of God. While there, she volunteered for a visible surgery and had a nasal probe. She says it was cold and she remembers a crunching sound; it wasn't painful, simply more like shock. Upon returning home, she abstained from things like alcohol and sex for 40 days at John's recommendation and then had a biopsy; the result was still malignant. That was seven years ago. Oprah asks if she thinks she was healed in any way, and Lisa says she thought she wasn't but then hearing Susan describe her healing from the loss of her father made Lisa realize she had carried the loss of her mother (whom she watched die from cancer while in her teens) for years and that was lifted. Though she's never been totally healed of cancer, she was in stage four and she was told in 2007 that she has 2-5 years. She feels that she's still healing because she's working with divine intelligence. She never appreciated herself as a human being but now is learning that.
Ernie
Ernie had a tumor near his spine; we see very, very graphic video of John of God cutting into Ernie's back and removing the tumor. The Oprah show spoke with Ernie's doctor and the tumor was there and now is gone. Oprah asks Ernie how he explains it, and he says he can only explain that we're more than flesh and blood, that we're also a source of energy.
Dr. Rediger on Explaining
Since he still can't explain anything, Dr. Rediger says he would want to gather data, do research, and get facts. He feels it's less about the phenomena than what we do with it. He can't explain why not everyone is healed--Lisa still has stage four cancer, and Ernie is totally healed. Dr. Rediger says that we're all different, it's the journey of a soul. Oprah says we all bring different energy to John of God; he responds to what is brought and not all energies react the same or need the same thing.
Closing Thoughts
In the final moments, Oprah reads what Dr. Rediger said to her in an e-mail he wrote to the show about his experience: "Perhaps the real heart within us it not just a pump. Perhaps the real heart within us is about love and faith. Perhaps the physical body is not who we really are. Perhaps we are these invisible souls walking around and the body is just an instrument or metaphor for something we are trying to learn."
Oprah thanks everyone, plugs the December article on John of God in O Magazine and plugs the O Magazine iPad app, which is how she now reads everything.
Gospel Filter Review (GFR)
This is heavy stuff. Here is what stood out to me: God is not the only spirit able to perform supernatural miracles. Satan is a supernatural being capable of supernatural acts. In Exodus 7:11&22 and 8:7 we see non-believers able to perform the same miracles that God allowed Moses to perform; it's supernatural and not from God, which leaves the other major supernatural power in the world: Satan.
So, then, is John of God doing these things by God's power or Satan's? The Bible says to test the spirits. The Bible says it better than I could:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
1 John 4:1-6, ESVNotice that the implication of this passage is that there will be things that sure look like they are from God, but we can't assume that they are. This is the check in my spirit from this episode. I can make no claim about John of God himself, since I only know what the Oprah show represented. I will say that there wasn't a single word uttered in this hour about Jesus Christ, that He is God, the shedding of His innocent blood, nor our need of being washed in that blood for forgiveness of sins. Again, we don't get to hear what John of God himself testifies to, and we don't have evidence that every single person that Jesus healed went on to worship Him and believe in Him.
With all of that said, the stance the Oprah show took, of focusing on our "energy" as human beings, how interconnected we all are and how we need to focus our good energy on ourselves and one another, must be redeemed. First, we need to reject the idea that we're energy. Nowhere in the Bible are we called "energy". We have souls and spirits, yes. But those were created by God for His glory that we might worship Him. Before sin broke the relationship, Adam and Eve were companions whom God delighted in.
Additionally, we do not have good in ourselves. I've said it before and I'll say it again (read the GFR on that post), because the Bible makes it emphatically clear: our hearts are wicked, bent continuously on evil. Any good comes not from us but through us as a gift of God's grace.
Lastly, we can redeem the idea that we're all of inherent divine value and worth. This was twisted to be about humanity for humanity's sake, but the Bible tells us that we are of inherent value and worth--to God. "For God so loved the world that...while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (that's a mash-up of John 3:16 and Romans 5:8). God loves us, and already loved us when He nailed His son to the cross to die for our sins despite us being His enemy. He doesn't love us because of anything good in us, but because He created us. He loves creation, and we as humans are His favorite part! He knows us individually and loves us. This is so much better than it just being about humanity for humanity's sake--a loving and all powerful God knows and loves us perfectly and we get to know Him.
I pray that people would know that. I pray that when Oprah quotes the Bible people would be led to scripture to see what it's about and not just take her word for it. People being gathered in Jesus' name is spoken of by Jesus in the context of His people praying together, but it's flanked on both sides by the theme of forgiving people when they sin against us. The point is that there is power in asking God for things, and it doesn't exclude asking Him for healing, but if you read Matthew 18, again, the money verse about gathering in Jesus' name (verse 20) is flanked in verses 15-17 and 21-35 by Jesus teaching about forgiveness. I pray people would read God's Word and see that it's not only about asking Jesus to give us something or celebrate the energy of humanity, but about gathering with others who love Jesus and worshiping Him together.
Up Tomorrow
Oprah! Makeover This Couple with Carson Kressley
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