Mark 6:13 Commentary and Bible Study

This anointing with oil, which is also in James 5, is very unusual in the Gospels, in fact it is exclusive to this verse, and naturally we ask, what does it mean? It is not a religious thing. The Greek word used here shouldn’t really be translated by the word ‘anointing,’ because it simply means rubbing with oil, oiling with oil or ointment. If anointing was intended here in Mark 6 and in James 5, there is a perfectly good Greek word which would have been used, but a very practical word is used instead. Oiling, rubbing with oil, leading us to believe that this wasn’t a religious thing that was being done; this was a very practical, physical thing. In James 5 it is easy to interpret. Oiling with oil in the name of the Lord, praying for sick people, because they don’t know that the sick person is going to be healed. He may be healed, that is the will of God. The elders are told by James, ‘Don’t be so heavenly minded, that you are of no earthly use. Take with you ointment for the bedsores, a nurse, if possible,’ he might have added, if it had been a cold Western country and they were in poverty, he might have said, take coal for the grate. Take comforts but, of course, pray for the sick. Now, why the disciples did it is unclear just here, because, if they were going to heal the sick anyway, you might say, ‘Why apply soothing ointment?’ The answer of great writers in the past is something along these lines. Probably it helped to communicate the compassion they brought with them but also it helped to indicate that they were junior healers. So they would come with some earthly provision and then in the name of the Lord, as the Spirit moved, they would raise the sick. Christ was their superior. He could do it in his own name, just instantly, at a word and sometimes silently or at a touch but they were his representatives, his junior healers, doing this in his name to bring glory and notice to him and, perhaps, for that reason there was a greater simplicity in the way they went about it. We don’t know but it wasn’t a religious anointing. Of course, these days there are people who rush to a passage like that and wrest out of it some religious ceremony, some mysterious rite, but it is a very practical thing here – rubbing with oil and raising or healing the sick.