Does the Bible teach that God sometimes allows people to suffer from sickness and disease for specific purposes? Or is NAR “apostle” Bill Johnson right when he says that Christians who believe that God allows sickness in order to build character won’t have confidence praying in most situations where healing is needed. Holly Pivec of Spirit of Error responds to what Bill Johnson has to say about miracles and healing in his new book. She writes:
Christians would agree: God is good. But not every Christian would agree with what that means exactly. For instance, could God, as a good father, ever use a sickness, disease, or other type of suffering to teach his children a lesson?
Most Christians would say yes, that God does sometimes work in the hearts of individuals through human suffering, painful though that truth may be. But many leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) insist that a good human father would never do such a thing and, therefore, neither would God. This teaching is promoted by the influential NAR apostle Bill Johnson, the senior pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, who has written a new book titled God is Good: He’s Better Than You Think. In his popular book When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles, Johnson writes this: