He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach, and to have authority to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons:
The ability to cure diseases and perform exorcisms can be granted to someone through a verbal appointment.
Medicine
97
passages in this field
Show this passage in
The cited passage
What current science says
Medical competence requires years of education: about 11-15 years of training after high school to become a doctor. You can't download surgical skills or pharmacological knowledge through a verbal appointment any more than you can become a pilot by someone saying 'you can fly now.' Healing requires understanding anatomy, biochemistry, pathology, and pharmacology — real knowledge that exists in textbooks and brains, not as a transferable spiritual power-up.
What the text says
This comes from Mark 3:14-15. Twelve people are 'ordained' and given 'power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils' — as if medical expertise is a transferable permission rather than years of training and knowledge.
Three honest ways to read this passage
-
As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
-
As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
-
As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.