Who uses prayer oil and why?

[IowaChristiangal]

I'm curious about prayer oil.. I haven't found that term "prayer oil" in the Bible but I've heard people taking about using prayer oil...  Who uses prayer oil and why? Is it a Christian thing or not. I've had so much anxiety lately and I keep praying for God to help me and keep my enemies from me. I think I'm going to fast for a few days and I was wondering if prayer oil is appropriate for Christian believers.

[GandalfTheWise]

1 hour ago, IowaChristiangal said:

I'm curious about prayer oil.. I haven't found that term "prayer oil" in the Bible but I've heard people taking about using prayer oil...  Who uses prayer oil and why? Is it a Christian thing or not. I've had so much anxiety lately and I keep praying for God to help me and keep my enemies from me. I think I'm going to fast for a few days and I was wondering if prayer oil is appropriate for Christian believers.

You can go onto a site like biblegateway.com and type "oil" as a search term to see where it occurs in the bible.

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7 Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.8 These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9 Wear sandals but not an extra shirt.10 Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11 And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”12 They went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.  Mark 6:6-13 NIV

13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.  James 5:13-16 NIV

There seem to be two general takes on verses like these in the NT.  The first is that it seems to be rooted in OT practice of anointing things with oil when being set apart for special works for God in some way.  The second is that in NT times that anointing with oil was a common medical practice so sort of like giving someone aspirin and praying for them.   My sense is that one's approach to these verses is usually rooted in one's view about divine healing and as to how common it is today and whether is it something we should be actively praying for or not.

I've known some Christians and churches that do this.  Most who do this treat it symbolically with a dab of olive oil (or something similar) on the forehead when praying for someone.  There are a few who look at Psalm 23 (He anoints my head with oil) and will actually pour a liberal amount of olive oil on someone's head.  I recall one story (not sure if it was true or not) of a Christian who was a mechanic once using a dab of motor oil because it was the only thing handy when he was praying for someone in a garage where he worked.   I've known others who extend this beyond just praying for the sick to when people are prayed for for various reasons or various things (e.g. buildings, property, musical instruments, or other things) when praying over them and dedicating them or blessing them for God's work.   I know some Christians who when buying a new house or moving in someplace will pray over the building and property and symbolically put a dab of oil on the door jam of each room as they pray throughout the house.